World of Warcraft adds $90 mount to in game store

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Buttflapper@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9e4e975b-e00a-49ca-9450-90ee9b0ed327.webp

I thought this was a joke but it seems like it’s actually legit. WoW, which has a subscription and paid expansions, just added a $90 item to their store. This is Korean MMO levels of absurdity. What do you think of this?

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Comments

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sirico@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Imagine a parallel world where no one brought the horse armour

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- itsJoelle@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  God dammit Todd…
  
  The Wizard Tower was so cool too…
  
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- Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Imagine a parallel world where no one brought the horse armour
  
  Redditors said the same thing
  
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  - sirico@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I still haven’t escaped the hive mind it seems
    
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- roon@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think it’s an eventuality. If not the horse armor it would have been something else. Humans are easily exploitable
  
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Euphorazine@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s actually more insidious. Blizzard facilitates gold buying by being a middle man. 30 days of wow subscription is $15. Blizzard sells a $20 wow token. Buyers of the token automatically sell it in game to players for gold. Players who sell their In game gold can redeem the token for game time or $15 Blizzard bucks, which can buy any virtual item in the Blizzard store. Games, expansions, and mounts such as this.

If you don’t want to spend $90 in real life, you can sell your gold for 6 tokens for $90 Blizzard bucks and get the mount.

The token has been hovering around $190k all year and now it spiked to almost $400k (token price tracker). So now cash buyers can get way more gold for their bucks, and the 6 tokens exchanged for gold (to buy the mount) will net Blizzard $120.

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- Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’ve known about the gold tokens system, it has made sense as a way to invalidate black market gold sellers, equalizing WoW gold against the US Dollar. Still don’t quite understand why the token would now sell for 170k though…? Unless you didn’t mean to use the dollar symbol.
  
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  - TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They probably meant 170k gold in-game
    
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  - Promethiel@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Those amounts aren’t USD yeah, probably habit when writing down money. The 170k and 360k figures are the WoW virtual currency aka “gold”.
    
    There is a floor to WoW token’s gold value from what I recall (it’s been years since I interacted with Blizzard and WoW) but no ceiling.
    
    Dunno how hard it curbed bots/unsanctioned gold sellers/fascist scum grassroots campaigns (no, really, look into Stephen Bannon and WoW gold it’s so fucking stupid) but!
    
    Blizzard absolutely realized and then moved to take all the money that was being left on the table from 3rd party virtual currency sales, and they apply every measure and analytical tool to maximize that profit because of course.
    
    This mount’s release is literally them inflating the price of the virtual currency ahead of real life earnings calls, because it absolutely will sell and give them the revenue infusion that the WoW token’s rise in value is meant to provide for as long as they want until it’s time to pump the numbers again with another mount/high sought store item.
    
    A very similar variant in form and function to this mount was once available in-game and trade able with a rarity tuned that it ended up being sold for the WoW Token equivalent of ~$500 at the prices at the time, as there was no store version or similar option elsewhere.
    
    It’s no accident that when the price of the WoW Token is at its lowest, here comes a slightly updated and dolled up version of that same highly sought mount version.
    
    WoW is where real economics, car ownership culture, hoarding, and dopamine treadmills collide and Blizzard doesn’t just know this but have it charted on 5 year plans.
    
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Sludgehammer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
At least it’s not Star Citizen prices:

Image

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- Hobo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What the fuck? Do people actually pay that for a virtual bullshit? That’s like the price of a used Honda!
  
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  - Sludgehammer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    There’s also a pack containing every ship they’ve sold which you can only see/purchase if you’ve spent one thousand dollars in their ship store. I’ll spoiler the price so you can try and guess how much it is first:
    
    spoiler
    $48,000, not counting the $1000 you have to spend to be able to see it.
    
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  - SweetBilliam@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s intended for whales and for the 65 crew members to split. But I can’t imagine they sell many.
    
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- Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  More like Scam Citizen.
  
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Backlog3231@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m so glad I got clean.

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- mindaika@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Same. Actual drug addiction (cannabis) has been far cheaper than WoW was
  
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yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I saw people being mad not because they are selling a 90$ mount, but because now everyone can just have it instead of grinding 5 million gold lol.

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- greedytacothief@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Showing off is an important part of social MMOs. If anyone can have the really cool looking thing for some cash then what’s the point of grinding? For a hardcore player, what do they have to show off their prestige?
  
  It’s pretty important for an MMO to respect its most active players. Not to mention, what do new players have to look up to? To think, what do I have to get that? If the answer is “oh I just have to fork out some dough”. That’s kinda disappointing
  
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  - Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    It’s pretty important for an MMO to respect its most active players
    
    WoW chased them off years ago. They cater towards casual players now, and don’t want the lifers.
    
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glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Ok so I cackled when I saw the price on this thing but the more I thought about it, the less shitty it is. FWIW I am not a WoW lifer or Blizzard apologist. I got talked into Classic for a year then played a month or two of each expansion since before quitting but I know the background of the story. It looks way worse from an outsider perspective.

You could buy the original auction house mount for 5 million gold back in the day. It stopped being available regularly and now it’s available occasionally in the “black market auction house” and it always sells for the maximum bid.

To combat Chinese gold farmers, Blizzard started selling gold in a bit of a roundabout way. For $20, you can buy a WoW token to sell on the auction house. This token can be purchased by a player and traded for 1 month of game time. Some players dont pay a dime to play - gold is not hard to acquire.

When this new mount came out, WoW tokens were worth about 200k gold. You’d need to exchange them for 5 tokens to get this mount. 1/5 of the original price.

Now tokens are worth 330k. 1.65m golf. STILL significantly cheaper than it was originally.

Tokens will need to rise to triple in price to match the original cost which will still be a tiny fraction of what it cost a month ago.

By far the shittiest thing about this - and I think the only real reason to complain - is that the rising value of the token hurts players who pay for the subscription purely with gold as it adds a few hours to their “working” time in game. For context, watching TV and semi-afk farming will get you like 50k/hour. You can earn way, way more if you’ve leveled up a profession.

The other (not so bad) thing I don’t like about it is that…I hate those mounts. They’re HUGE and people just AFK on them blocking NPCs I want to talk to.

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- Sylvartas@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  The other (not so bad) thing I don’t like about it is that…I hate those mounts. They’re HUGE and people just AFK on them blocking NPCs I want to talk to.
  
  TFW the year is 2024 AD and blizzard still has not properly addressed this
  
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  - glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Important NPCs have a dismount aura but if they have that to any NPC with dialogue, you’d get dismounted a hundred times a day
    
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- Skates@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It hurts to do this, because you’ve obviously thought out your comment and you obviously like the game and want to believe the devs are doing their best. But I think your entire premise is wrong
  
  To combat Chinese gold farmers, Blizzard started selling gold in a bit of a roundabout way
  
  Why do you think this? Why do you grant a greedy game dev the benefit of the doubt? They’re cashing in on Chinese gold farmers in all possible ways, man:
  
  By allowing their accounts to exist instead of banning and moving on
  
  By controlling the value of gold with a cash shop, ensuring economy is in their favor
  
  The cash shop also brings them monetary value.
  
  They are triple dipping, and you choose to believe they are doing it because they’re a good game dev.
  
  A good game dev would ban accounts guilty of real money trading. A good game dev would fix the in-game economy with in-game methods. A good game dev wouldn’t have micro transactions in a subscription game. You want to believe Blizzard is doing this because of those evil Chinese farmers - I’m here to tell you they’re profiting from this and don’t have the morals to make it right.
  
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  - glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Did you maybe consider that they did…both? Gold in the cash shop comes with a very minor downside to players and a big upside.
    
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- radicalautonomy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  To combat Chinese gold farmers, Blizzard started selling gold in a bit of a roundabout way. For $20, you can buy a WoW token to sell on the auction house. This token can be purchased by a player and traded for 1 month of game time. Some players dont pay a dime to play - gold is not hard to acquire.
  
  To combat Chinese gold farmers, Blizzard started selling gold in a bit of a roundabout way. For $20, you can buy a WoW token to sell on the auction house. This token can be purchased by a player and traded for 1 month of game time. Some players dont pay a dime to play - gold is not hard to acquire.
  
  Eve Online has been doing that since 2008.
  
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- Jax@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Crazy how I just detailed this exact thing in a different comment and got downvoted for it.
  
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  - glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    People are just looking for a reason to be mad
    
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- parrhesia@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The price of the tokens crashed by the way. Is now 258k
  
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Voytrekk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s going to sell like crazy. It’s not just that it’s a Mount, but it also has an auction house and mailbox that you can use anywhere at any time. The only other mount that has the AH is no longer attainable regularly, only on rare occasions for gold cap.

I am going to get it, but I’m going to use my gold in game to convert to bnet balance.

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- MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I was going to say who cares if they’re selling a mount skin, but if on-the-go access to the auction house and mailbox isn’t normally accessible, this seems shitty.
  
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  - Voytrekk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The thing is, they won’t be able to sell a Mount like this again in the future. This is kind of a “break glass” type of situation.
    
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  - glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s one of the most overhyped things in the game. I can more than afford it (both through $$ and in-game currency) but I just do not care. There’s easy to get mailboxes and the auction house is in every main city now.
    
    Not to mention the amount of people who have the original auction house mount and the influx of people with this one - it is barely a convenience.
    
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- thesmokingman@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think it’s a terrible decision because of this. The whole point of hubs is to get players together and interacting. Putting AH and mail around hubs requires many players together. Giving folks a mount means the hubs stop being hubs and contributes to the continued decay of the multiplayer aspect.
  
  Take this with a grain of salt. When I last played hubs still mattered. If that isn’t currently the case this is just old fart complaints.
  
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Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They’ll keep doing this because dipshits keep paying for it. Blame the whales.

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- errer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They should abandon all pretenses of restraint and just add a literal whale mount for $500
  
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  - misterdoctor@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Square Enix literally has this in FFXIV and it’s half of what Blizzard wants for their mount ($42 USD). And at least the FFXIV whale mount has in-world lore history and isn’t just an overt cash grab.
    
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dinckelman@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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- EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  This is truly lowest of the low type of scum behavior.
  
  I get being upset about it. But, ffs, get some perspective.
  
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  - Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Right? Lest we forget about the rapes?
    
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- glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It is literally earnable in game lol
  
  You can sell gold straight to Blizzard. Even at 360k per token, this is WAY CHEAPER than it was when it was originally introduced for 5 million gold
  
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  - TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You can not sell gold to Blizzard
    
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- TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That thing is still earnable every so often in game if you catch it on the black market
  
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  - Mora@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Lol, that is not realistic for most players. The original 5 million gold was not realistic back then either.
    
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casmael@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
TIL world of Warcraft still exists

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Zarxrax@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m more surprised that this game is still running. I haven’t heard of anyone playing it in years.

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- Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I quit after they fraudulently charged me a 6 month subscription renewal and then refused to refund it for months because no customer service reps anymore, and then the next expansion had paid early access for a huge paywall. It’s a total scam now
  
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  - meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I had jumped back in when tbc classic was released. I wound up on a dead server. It made end game content essentially impossible. I was hoping to move right into wotlk classic at release as that was my jam back in the day. Except they weren’t going to include the dungeon finder or cross realm groups meaning it would still be a dead server with no chance at end game content. I was done with pointlessly dumb leadership. Unsubbed and found a private server that hits all the right buttons.
    
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- SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a few at work who have admitted to still playing. Blizzard owes a lot to the very concrete social structures built around the game.
  
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- JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s one of those games I’ve always been interested in trying, but the idea of paying a subscription for a videogame makes me uncomfortable for some reason.
  
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- thirdbase@lazysoci.al ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s not the same amount as its heyday, but it’s still the most popular MMO. Hell i picked it up last expansion after not playing it for ten years and still have a good time, for now.
  
  I will never buy this mount though. I refuse to pay more for a game that costs money to buy and a sub to play. What’s unfortunate is you can really tell blizzards priorities now. Content is severely lacking, every patch has quite a few bugs, and it really feels like they have a skeleton crew working on the game while milking the remaining population. And so many people are totally okay with that. If there was at least another decent MMO out there I’d drop wow and play it. But the MMORPG space is sorely lacking.
  
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Reygle@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
On the up side, it’s now very, VERY easy to tell who is an idiot in the main hub cities within 10 seconds of the auction house.

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- EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Be careful judging because there will be plenty of people here who will think “anyone still playing the game is an idiot.”
  
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  - GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    “Everyone is an idiot except me”
    
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- glimse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  A lot of people have been playing this game for over a decade and have hundreds of millions of gold. This thing is currently 2 million gold
  
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Tilgare@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m a former player, but played continuously from release for 11 years. This is undoubtedly ridiculously expensive, but the convenience of having your mail and auction house anywhere in the world - the value to certain players is immense. I think if I played still today, it would probably be a struggle deciding whether this limited time offering was worth jumping on - I certainly don’t need it even a little bit, but when I want it, this thing would be incredibly convenient to have. Maybe that would just be the addiction talking. But when you spend all your free time with one game, you do feel a sense of good value relative to things like drinks at the bar or a movie or buying 1 or 2 full priced games a month.

But truly, the utility this provides for you and your guild is immense and impossible to replicate. They definitely shouldn’t be selling mounts on the shop for $90. That’s fucked. But compared to some of the video game devs selling weapon or character skins for as much or more, there IS at least a unique value proposition to the player. I guarantee there will be people with it the second it releases, for better or worse.

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WoolyNelson@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It should have been a flying whale.

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- GladiusB@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Like the lunar whale from FFXIV? What a waste of 40.
  
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rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
People will buy it. And then they will wonder why content quality declines and more and more micro transactions appear in a game you bought and pay subscription for.

The capitalism will always look for the easy route to even more money, and monkey brains with need for status will follow.

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fsxylo@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think I don’t have battle.net installed so they can’t hurt me anymore.

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draneceusrex@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The first $15 Sparkle Pony made more than Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty

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v4ld1z@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
In line with the recent 60$ Ragnaros skin for Hearthstone. The Faker Ahri skin set a precedent and now every company wants a slice of the cake

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HawlSera@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That’s a cool as fuck mount…

And it’s not worth what I could spend to get one AAA game and two decent quality Indie Games

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- Noodle07@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Costs 3 factorio dlc
  
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Jumi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Blizzard is scum

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drmoose@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
it’s selling well too though it’s actually 78$. They put Mailbox and Auction House on it which AFAIK the only mount that has both which is incredibly valuable.

If not the fuction I wouldn’t mind but because the function is so valuable it’s really poor form by Blizzard. I even love the mount and buy it as cosmetic but I’m not supporting this at the state it is currently.

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- CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  They put Mailbox and Auction House on it which AFAIK the only mount that has both which is incredibly valuable.
  
  Create the problem, sell the solution.
  
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- Lesrid@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There was a green mount similar to this one they added in BFA for a large sum of gold. But they claimed to dislike how it encouraged so many people to play the market and removed it.
  
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  - TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They did not remove it, people still use them all the time and it’s available on the “black market” (an NPC that sells normally unavailable things) every so often. The mount was just an enormous gold sink for people with a ton of money.
    
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recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Unfortunately this seems to be a rising trend for AAA studios/games: Riot Said The Quiet Part Out Loud.

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- yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I remember when this privilege was reserved for free games since it was how they made their money, but like Sterling says: they can’t just make money, they can’t make enough money, they gotta make all of the money.
  
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  - CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    There’s also the fact that people will pay for it. Would you take a million dollars to let your favorite game put a skin of you in it holding a sign saying “I care more about the money I made from this skin than the quality of this game”?
    
    I hate the practice, but I despise the fact that it always turns out to be so damn profitable.
    
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- Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s totally wild
  
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sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
the cybertruck of mounts.

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Jaderick@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
0 chance this revenue gets reinvested back into the game lmao

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PunchingWood@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Not even a new trend in WoW either.

Can’t even blame Blizzard, it’s the people who keep buying this shit that are actually the problem.

If these wouldn’t sell in the store they could’ve been items to obtain through in-game activities (which don’t require eternal grind).

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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m thinking I made the right choice to quit a few years ago.

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dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Gee, for the same money… a digital brontosaurus for Orc Game that you need to pay a recurring subscription to actually use, can be taken away from you at any time, or one day the servers may simply be turned off erasing not only your “investments” but also your years of “work.” Or, I don’t know, a CIVIVI Hyperpulse with a groovy pattern welded blade that also happens to be a physical object you can actually hold in your hands and keep forever. Just to pick something out of a hat.

What a tough choice!

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Cipher22@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yes, we get it, your dad has a good job.

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ColdWater@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
People that buy it deserved to get scam

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ZMonster@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is equally as infuriating to me as the rising cost of stamps. 😐

If you are going to pretend to have scruples then at least pretend to have standards, or dignity for that matter. 😂 If you are so involved (even in the most modest terms) in the ecosystem of predatory games like World of Warcraft, to the point that you are even tenuously aware of news relating to them then you deserve all of it.

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