Blizzard launches "buy an in-game pet"

[onijitsu]

Rock on!

Already bought my pets. And yes, they are much, much cheaper than the offerings provided by loot cards.

[Fyurae]

How long will these Pet Store pets be available?
The Pet Store pets are available only to players on realms located in North America, Europe, and Korea. A Battle.net account is required in order to redeem the pet.

I love how Blizzard can't even directly answer even questions they make up themselves.

[Zevrut]

Originally Posted by Delthan

And really, this won't effect my gameplay, except that I really wanted that Pandaren pet and don't want to pay $10 for it.

Christmas is coming up soon, get someone in your family to buy it for you as an early christmas gift.

[dorgol]

I'm waiting for the Core Hound Pup to be added to the store - then they can have some more of my money.

[Gratefulbastard]

Originally Posted by Zevrut

Christmas is coming up soon, get someone in your family to buy it for you as an early christmas gift.

yeah i was thinking these would be fun christmas gifts for guildies, especially if part of the proceeds went to a good cause.

[Lucifraulein]

This takes a bite out of the TCG scalper market. I'm sure it didn't take Blizzard very long prowling ebay to see, "hey, if a few people are willing to pay $800 for this [pet/mount] I bet we could sell a SHITLOAD of them for $10!"

I'm all for it. That $200 Big Battle Bear and $60 pwnage flag I bought kinda stung last year, but I couldn't help myself.

[Vexia]

Hahah, I think what most people don't realize when they're complaining about this, and using arguments like "Doesn't Blizzard have enough money already!?" or something like that, is that Blizzard just lost China...

That's millions of dollars of revenue a month lost. Probably well over $15,000,000. That's just if there were a million subscribing WoW players in China. Of which there were probably a lot more.

I know they had some wonky paying system set up, but I'm just using American numbers to do the math because I don't know the China ones. Regardless, Blizzard just lost a MASSIVE source of revenue.

This pet store is definitely a wise move to make from a business standpoint.

[onijitsu]

Originally Posted by Lucifraulein

This takes a bite out of the TCG scalper market. I'm sure it didn't take Blizzard very long prowling ebay to see, "hey, if a few people are willing to pay $800 for this [pet/mount] I bet we could sell a SHITLOAD of them for $10!"

I'm all for it. That $200 Big Battle Bear and $60 pwnage flag I bought kinda stung last year, but I couldn't help myself.

Aye. Managed to get the battle bear for $120, after carefully watching http://wowtcgloot.com. And a few other items. Good resource.

[dorgol]

Originally Posted by Vexia

Hahah, I think what most people don't realize when they're complaining about this, and using arguments like "Doesn't Blizzard have enough money already!?" or something like that, is that Blizzard just lost China...

That's millions of dollars of revenue a month lost. Probably well over $15,000,000. That's just if there were a million subscribing WoW players in China. Of which there were probably a lot more.

I know they had some wonky paying system set up, but I'm just using American numbers to do the math because I don't know the China ones. Regardless, Blizzard just lost a MASSIVE source of revenue.

This pet store is definitely a wise move to make from a business standpoint.

It bears repeating that Chinese players did not pay a monthly fee, but instead paid hourly at the rate of something like $0.06.

So while they did lose a massive amount of monthly revenue, it is impossible to know just how much.

[onijitsu]

Originally Posted by dorgol

It bears repeating that Chinese players did not pay a monthly fee, but instead paid hourly at the rate of something like $0.06.

So while they did lose a massive amount of monthly revenue, it is impossible to know just how much.

Man... Starcraft and various MMOs are almost a religion in Asia. It was probably a MASSIVE amount of revenue.