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New Mount in Blizz Store = $2,000,000 in 4 hours
Synthetick
Member Posts: 977
Skimming through Digg I found this. Pretty hefty amount of cash, don'tcha think?
The Blizzard Pet Store is offering two new virtual pets to World of Warcraft players today, one of which has generated over $2 million in sales in its first four hours.
The "Celestial Steed" (right) is, according to its description on the Blizzard Store, "freshly born from the Twisting Nether" and allows players to "travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust."
More research is of course necessary but as of press time, it is widely believed that the Celestial Steed may be the fanciest horse ever born.
The fancy horse costs $25 and offers no new abilities to players, only riding as fast as a character's riding skill will enable it to go.
According to wow.com, the download queue as of 1:45 Pacific time was at 80,000. At $25 a pop, this means that this noble steed has generated sales of $2 million since its approximate debut at 9:30 this morning, or around $500,000 an hour.
1UP has reached out to Blizzard for commentary from the horse, and will report back if he is available.
Source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178849&cmpid=0101
Comments
Holy Moly, right now Bobby Kotick is saying "note to self: 15 dollar map packs are nothing compared to the gullibility of MMOers."
Haha, I know, right?
I was honestly surprised how many people I seen with it ingame today. Couldn't help but shake my head.
WoW and its community. Finding new ways to destroy the genre all the time!
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
Now, wouldn't that be nice if they reinvested all that cash into game. Instead you get MMOs like EVE, DDO and LOTRO putting out far more content than WoW.
But with him at the top there's obviously no slippery-slope in the works. It'll be entertaining to watch the progression of this cash shop.
Yet, for collectors, this is cheaper than buying most of the Trading Card Game loot codes. For someone that's in it for the long haul, what's $25 over 5.. 10 years?
I have this sinking feeling that this is the beginning of the end of the genre for me.
My thoughts exactly. I think Blizzard's success has started to go to their head... the direction they're heading in now may start to lose them some fans.
you know that saying vote with your wallet?
the missing link in a chain of destruction.
All spelling and typographical errors are based soely on the fact that i just dont care. If you must point out my lack of atention to detail, please do it with a smile.
As this has proven, they don't need content in order to generate ridiculous amounts of money. They just need a mount. Why make games if you can make a single item and generate infinitely more profit than whole games and development cycles? This mount pointed at the Stimulus Package and laughed at it... hard.
Makes me wonder if they already had these kinds of plans when they started to focus more on the gear treadmill and making it as casual as possible so everyone feels a part of it and progressing through it.
I know what you mean. Honestly, I have no idea why they need a cash shop, well.. why a P2P needs a cash shop. I mean, that's why I buy P2P in the first place. You pay per month, so you get access to all <- ALL the content. But now, more and more are starting with cash shops.
WOW is a gargantuan vessel sinking at an incredibly slow rate. It's current mission: to snag as much revenue as possible, while descending unhurried into the inevitable.
Personally I think our genre is deteriorating because of BS like this. Blizzard is the kind of company that should be setting the example. But perhaps that time has passed.
Let's hope their next MMO does some magic, because to be frank it would just be bizarre to see them pressed back into the RTS genre by their own unwiseness.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
What your not seeing is YOU have never had "all the content" - Between TGC Coode, collectors editions and Blizzcon that has always been "extras" that you have to pay for...
Agreed. I dumped far much more money into the TCG than $25 for the mount upfront. Granted it wasn't for the loot cards, but I for some reason really enjoyed the artwork and seeing all the different cards and such. But still.
I also don't know if I qualify "items" as "content" but I still don't agree there should be a cash shop, whether it's fluff and materialistic items that offer no new bonuses or not. I could understand why they did it with EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and such. But, sigh, I just don't see Blizzard really needing the extra profit that bad. At least not bad enough to risk losing potential customers and current ones, while also aiding to skew the market even more with this P2P+Cash Shop model, that obviously isn't necessary.
Seriously? Everyone talks about how WoW is not original and used all its ideas form different MMOs. So yes they opened a cash store with fluff items like so many other MMOS have and yet becasue its WoW doing it everyone is suddenly up at arms.
I haven't seen a single P2P with a cash shop implemented that people haven't frowned upon. Not really sure what you're talking about.
From a Buiness point of view: Good for them!
From a Gamer point of view: I stopped expecting mcdonalds to make burger king burgers long time ago!
Blizzard, NCSoft & SOE.. No thanks!
I just don't see why people are saying this ruins the MMO market since obviously it seemsed to work in this instance. THey offered a fluff item mount and people bought it.
I enjoy WoW.
I like the Celestial Steed.
I have a fair amount of disposable income.
Thus, I will buy the mount, and do not see how being able to do so is dooming the entire MMO genre.
Isn't the point of games to have fun?
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
{mod edit} - REALLY? Ok rephrase, if Blizzard discovers that there is a market for these fluff items then they would be extremely foolish businesspeople to ignore a revenue stream that does not affect the playability of their game at all.
That is just a complete load of old bollocks. This has nothing to do with the genre and how it is evolving (or not). If people want to spend hard-earned (well someone earned it) cash for pure fluff items then let them.
Nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING about these items makes them needed to play the game. They are for collectors or attention seekers - and with that many people buying it then must be just about every active subscriber is going to have one so not sure the attention seekers will really be satisfied.
It isn't. It's just this is the internet. If Blizzard decided to do away with the cashshop and actually campaign against the use of a cash shop people would still be on here complaining.
Because there was a time that a subscription fee was the income for the company and they actually used the money to produce regular monthly updates (see: Asheron's Call for an example).
Then again, Blizzard could do anything to WoW and it wouldn't change a thing. I could care less about how they improve/destroy their game, it's the dollar signs in other aspiring companies eyes that worry me. It's not like majority of the games released in the past 5 years have been clones of this particular game, though.
Oh wait, they have been.
where in an economical crisis in many countries yet this kind of money is being thrown at digital items or the fact that thier are devistated families accross the globe because of war, famine natural disasters and so forth. Not going to get into this but wanted to just state it.
The main problem i see here besides the above statement that pertains to the gaming community is this. F2P had item shops and that was a money making model but usualy didnt run as long or was as well made as a p2p hence the sub. But now the lines is getting closer to each other so the shops arise in both. Yes its a nitch that blizzerd might be foolish to over look your right. But will it end with fluff items, probably not. What i fear is that in the future MMO's not just rpgs will all ahve item shops and not just for fluff but for xp faster gains, loot and pots you cant get in game that may casue an inbalance. The fact that people are willing to spend money on somehting dosnt mean we have to sell it. Now i know peeps are going to say that i am wrong and buisness wise thats supplya nd demand well then i guess since my neighbore likes crack i need to supply it. And please dont fool yourselfs games are addictive and make some people do very foolish things, taking advantage of that while being industries and profitable is not always the way to go.
Now this being said anyone can spend thier money the way they want to, if they need those mounts that bad thn so be it bt for a game that you buy and then pay a monthly sub i would be upset as well that it is not offered in the game. IMO at least offer some realy long quest line or something to get it, so the people who dont ahve time and money or just simply have money are happy and so the people who think they have paid enough are happy.
To all those unhappy souls and the ones who forked over the cash ITS A FLUFF ITEM IN A REPEAT MMO THAT HAS NOT MADE ANYTHING GROUND BREAKING SINCE IT CAME OUT, OH WAIT IT CHARGED YOU FOR A FLUFF ITEM--still not ground breaking lol a repeat.
Crossing my fingers that this industry dosnt turn into nothingmor than fluff items and how much they cost a player instead of actual playing experience--better content and a better pvp system (which includes open world, palyer driven, ganking and all the other stuff)
That's 4 million'ish to invest back into SC2, D3, WoW and the new MMO (and we know MMO's aint cheap to make)... keep giving blizzard money so they can continue to create some the best game around and not release unfinished junk cus they ran out of money.
I dare say 2 mil is a lot of votes....