On Buying Pets

WoW. It's been a while since I've posted anything. (See. That was a joke. Anyway) So recently, Blizzard opened up an online pet store for World of Warcraft. This store allows users to spend real world money to purchase in game pets. Now, RMTs as a concept are not at all new, but this is the first time that WoW has introduced such a feature and to be honest, it really hasn't gone over that well with the players. While these pets are only vanity items and therefore give the player no advantage over another, it does demonstrate a change in the World of Warcraft ideology.

Every player of World of Warcraft is essentially worth the same, namely $14.99 a month. Yet as the game's popularity has reached a plateau, Blizzard has increasingly relied upon microtrasactions to increase revenue. In this way, they can earn more money by catering to the most dedicated of players. However, to others it seems like a cheap way for players to progress in the game, sometimes giving an unfair advantage. This is especially irksome when the advantage is given because of a real money transaction. Not everyone has the spare funds to pay for things beyond the initial subscription fee. I can see the allure of being able to move through the game more quickly, especially because most of the fun stuff occurs at the end of the game. However, World of Warcraft is a long yet rewarding game that can be likened to work. People don't like it when others reap benefits that don't appear "earned".

Though in a funny turn of events, one of the two pets currently on sale has "sold out". This is amusing to me on several levels. The first being the question of how a virtual item can really be sold out, unless the company planned on making it a limited edition item, but seeing as this was never mentioned, I doubt it's the case. Secondly, if there indeed was a limit, the limit was hit only several days after the pet store went online. Therefore, despite all the whining and complaining in the forums, many players still once again opened their wallets to shell out another 10 bucks for this pet.