Blizzard: KA~SHING!

[Balfree]

Blizzard Cashes in on Virtual Game Spending ~ Chris Pirillo

A quote:

The people behind World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, struck gold this week – literally. In the past, they have occasionally offered limited-edition virtual pets for sale in their online store. Pay Blizz some real money, and you can have yourself a seriously cool pet on the toon of your choosing. This week, the geniuses introduced a new Celestial Steed, which allows you to “travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust.” I’ll admit that the steed is pretty cool looking. But I can’t see paying twenty-five real dollars for it if I was already paying fifteen every month just for the privilege of playing the game.

Apparently, one heck of a lot of people disagree with me, though. Blizz is reporting that in the first four hours that the mount was available they made an astonishing two MILLION dollars just off of that pet alone. That is over eight-thousand smackers per minute.

Is the recession over then ? A MMO making company would be stupid not to use this business model.

[Takelli]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

Lol. Its a bit more like 25$ for virtual crap...

The mount doesn't even look that great IMO. Its too "busy" with all the translucent wings and such.

[Balfree]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

Ergh... even if it looked good...

use the money to take your significant other to lunch or something

o wait

[Elwynn]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I can think of no better way to say to the whole world "I AM A LOSER" than to pay real money for flashy junk like that.

I feel quite comforted that you will never see My Little Pony crap like that in FFXI.

If SE ever did put something like that in the game, you would have to KILL IT for its drops.

[Feba]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

This is pretty much exactly the cause of the impending robocommunist empire. We're getting to the point where you basically have the patent for something, but then it just infinitely reproduces with no real manufacturing costs.

[Takelli]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I can think of no better way to say to the whole world "I AM A LOSER" than to pay real money for flashy junk like that.

I feel quite comforted that you will never see My Little Pony crap like that in FFXI.

If SE ever did put something like that in the game, you would have to KILL IT for its drops.

Nah. I'm just seeing SE put a horse like that in game that you have to pay 25$ for a 5% chance to kill it, and to get a 3% chance to get a drop worth 15 gil...

[Balfree]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

This is pretty much exactly the cause of the impending robocommunist empire. We're getting to the point where you basically have the patent for something, but then it just infinitely reproduces with no real manufacturing costs.

Thats exactly what crossed my mind... just how much work was put into this thing? They spent an afternoon tops with that model if that, and now its selling itself.

The world is all wrong

[Solymir]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I am having a hard time for faulting Blizzard. No one had to buy it. It's not like the horsey is making the player Gold in the game as a return on investment, or owning one provides +80 storage. 0.0

[Ziero]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I remember the bitch fests SE got when they tried to sell real items with in-game bonuses. Hell, even the mini-expansions were complained about for being too close to pure RMT stuff. Meanwhile Blizzard can do a barely there reskin on one of the apparently rarest things currently in their game and everyone gushes over it and throws globs of money at them. And it's not even the first time they did it either.

No virtual horsey is worth 25 bucks.

[Kailea]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I remember the bitch fests SE got when they tried to sell real items with in-game bonuses. Hell, even the mini-expansions were complained about for being too close to pure RMT stuff. Meanwhile Blizzard can do a barely there reskin on one of the apparently rarest things currently in their game and everyone gushes over it and throws globs of money at them. And it's not even the first time they did it either.

No virtual horsey is worth 25 bucks.

not sure about others, but my complaint was that they did not sell it for long enough, because at the time, I could not spend the extra money to get either item.

[Balfree]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

not really faulting anyone... they're simply taking advantage of a profitable thing, i would too

[Pwnagraphic]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

It's their money.. Let them spend it how they want. When you go to their job, and do their work, then you can tell them what to spend it on

I personally wouldn't ever buy it. I don't like to invest real money into videogames(aside from monthly fees). Bit I guess some people feel that they've spent $15 a month for +4 years. What is $25 bucks? I could think of worse things they could spend $25 bucks on >_>

[Malacite]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

Between this and 2.5 million idiots on XBL buying the Modern Warfare 2 map pack within the 1st 24 hours, Kotick is one happy little assfuck.

They made $37 million off that, in just 24 hours. But I take solace in the fact that they are going to likely jack the next one up to $20, and that most of IW's top people have now left the company. Add to this that they now reportedly have three different studios working on the CoD "franchise", and well it's downfall should be inevitable.

In the mean time, EA & Dice and Microsoft & 343 Industries are laughing their asses off. As much as I hate to say it, I'm beginning to think "fuck star craft 2" just because I hate Activision Blizzard that much, despite my desire to play SC2 and Diablo 3.

[Solymir]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

I hear what you're sayin. I'm disappointed in the "3" SC2 games. Are 3D Real Time Strategy games so hard to produce that each faction's campaign needs it's own "game"? Or is it just about the Benjamins?

I would have preferred to see them do 3 SC games that have a campaign for each faction in each game. I have seen this model work very well with the HOMM games in the past so it's not like there wasn't precedence they could see in the industry. Actually they did it themselves with the SC Brood Wars expansion if I remember correctly.

1 Game, 2 expansions, 9 total story lines (campaigns). Sure I'll pay top dollar for that. 3 Campaigns, top dollar for each? No thanks.

I am going to wait until the final game is released and get the 3-pack. Unfortunately Online players won't have the patience to wait and Bli$$ard will be happy to take their monies.

[Absentia]

Re: Blizzard: KA~SHING!

Between this and 2.5 million idiots on XBL buying the Modern Warfare 2 map pack within the 1st 24 hours, Kotick is one happy little assfuck.

They made $37 million off that, in just 24 hours. But I take solace in the fact that they are going to likely jack the next one up to $20, and that most of IW's top people have now left the company. Add to this that they now reportedly have three different studios working on the CoD "franchise", and well it's downfall should be inevitable.

In the mean time, EA & Dice and Microsoft & 343 Industries are laughing their asses off. As much as I hate to say it, I'm beginning to think "fuck star craft 2" just because I hate Activision Blizzard that much, despite my desire to play SC2 and Diablo 3.

Wow, people buying something for their personal enjoyment? WHO KNEW?! A company going for profit? WHAT NONSENSE! Apparently they gave their majority consumer what they wanted, what's wrong with that?