First off, I own both of them already.  For the sake of full disclosure:  I bought the pandaren pet and was gifted the baby KT pet from a relative.  Blizzard finally adding micro-transactions to WoW seems to have caused quite a stir among the MMO blogging community.  I guess I just don’t understand what the big deal is.  Yes, the price is pretty steep for what amounts to a few minutes of “oh cool!” in the game, but I am a big boy who works a big boy job and brings home a big boy paycheck … that I am free to waste on little boy toys.

I am a Warcraft nut.  I love all the games, their art, their music, their lore, etc.  I am the Warcraft equivalent of that crazy guy you know who has an entire wing of his house devoted to his Star Wars collection.  These days, when I go into a Toys R Us and I see that Star Wars action figures cost $8.99 a pop, I think that they are out of their minds for charging so much.  To the Star Wars nut, I imagine that I would sound a lot like other people sound to me right now.  So I guess my point is that I am probably not a good candidate for judging if $10 is too much to pay for a virtual item in an online video game.  Hell, I am their target audience!

By all accounts ( and thats not saying much ) the pets seem to be selling pretty well on my server.  Good.  I hope Blizzard makes a killing.  I love their products and I want them to make more.  Would I prefer that they reconsider the price point?  Of course!  The thing is that these pets are the brand new hotness.  If they expand their store to include a dozen NEW pets, all $10, well thats way too much money for me.  I will then have to start being choosy.

I find it sort of funny that people say “Hell no I wont buy this in game PET for $10!  We can talk when it is a mount.”  Both the pet and mount would pretty much be cosmetic vanity items, but it is cool when it is something your character can ride?  If said mount was a 310% speed mount, well then that crosses a line because that directly affects your performance in the game.  However, if it is normal speed then it is just another cosmetic change for $10.

Some people cynically say that this is just the beginning and that these pets and character changes they are selling will be the gateway to them selling epics right from their store!  I firmly believe that one should never say never, but I would call this one as very far out there.  Blizzard really takes game balance seriously and introducing items like that would  make their balancing job a million times harder.  Cosmetic changes though, fire away, I say.  If they charge $100 for a new in game hat and enough people are prepared to buy it, well, I may not have the hat, but it is still a good move on Blizzard’s part.  They obviously knew the market better than I.  It is all about supply and demand.