Fancy Horse Makes Blizzard $2 Million in Four Hours at $25 a pop

[Dumac]

This is what is wrong with WoW

New in-game pet for World of Warcraft is generating sales of about $500,000 an hour, so far.
By Frank Cifaldi, 04/15/2010

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 players $25 to purchase 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 debute 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.

How many of you bought the horse?

Source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178849

 

[Dorkenstein]

Scary stuff.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

$25 bucks? Thats more than the subscription for a month...

Blizz sent me an email giving me a free 7 days to come back to WoW.. must resist.

 

[zerocool84]

Don't blame Blizzard, blame the retards that plunk down the money for something like this.

 

[Maleficus]

This is why I have no faith in humanity, not murderers, not politics, millions of people willfully spending exorbitant amounts of money on nothing and dedicating massive amounts of time to the pursuit of nothing.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Don't blame Blizzard, blame the retards that plunk down the money for something like this.

bingo.

 

[KeithTalent]

Wow, ridiculous. Their money though, so they can spend it in whatever stupid way they want. I'm sure people would laugh at me for the $40 Cuban cigar I bought last week, but it was worth it to me, even though I can't ride it.

KT

 

[AstroManLuca]

I guess I should have figured WoW nerds would also be into My Little Pony.

 

[SaltBoy]

Wow, ridiculous. Their money though, so they can spend it in whatever stupid way they want. I'm sure people would laugh at me for the $40 Cuban cigar I bought last week, but it was worth it to me, even though I can't ride it.

KT

Paging Monica Lewinsky...

 

[zerocool84]

Wow, ridiculous. Their money though, so they can spend it in whatever stupid way they want. I'm sure people would laugh at me for the $40 Cuban cigar I bought last week, but it was worth it to me, even though I can't ride it.

KT

Well that's talking about something tangible you can touch to something that's just in a game and adds nothing to your character.

 

[KeithTalent]

Well that's talking about something tangible you can touch to something that's just in a game and adds nothing to your character.

True enough, but the WoWites could argue they will have their magical steed, even though it's digital, much longer than I'll have my cigar. These days people seem to place more value on digital items than they used to.

KT

 

[MJinZ]

This is why I have no faith in humanity, not murderers, not politics, millions of people willfully spending exorbitant amounts of money on nothing and dedicating massive amounts of time to the pursuit of nothing.

Yea, I have problems with things without end and prequels.

 

[rcpratt]

Ridiculous. I still play casually, but pay real money to get some queer looking horse? Jeez.

 

[Tristicus]

I really, really, really hate the gaming community sometimes.

 

[KaOTiK]

Pretty sad, but I can see some of the value you too in a way.

The mount is Bind to Account so you never need to buy a mount for an alt character ever again since it scales with your riding training. So saving some gold by not having to purchase more mounts. You'd have to make a few alts to make the gold savings worthwhile I'd imagine (don't remember mount prices since I haven't played in over a year now).

 

[coloumb]

Proof there is no recession.

Now only if Blizzard would implement a way to resell our in game items for real world $$$... they [and we] could make a nice little profit.

 

[Genx87]

They are the Nintendo of the MMO world. Basically print money when they want. They could deliver a mounted turd, including extra peanuts. And people would happily pay 25 bucks to ride around on a floating turd.

 

[KaOTiK]

They are the Nintendo of the MMO world. Basically print money when they want. They could deliver a mounted turd, including extra peanuts. And people would happily pay 25 bucks to ride around on a floating turd.

I'd buy it if it left skid marks on the ground

 

[Genx87]

I'd buy it if it left skid marks on the ground

lol

 

[allthatisman]

Although I agree that this sort of thing is lame, what is the difference in buying a $25 "virtual" horse and buying a $100 sports jersey for a team that you don't own or play for...? I.e. why is is socially acceptable to worship professional sports franchises, but a nerd behind a computer can't worship his character that HE has spent the time and effort into building. Again, to me, both are pretty lame... but I fail to see how one gets a pass and the other is somehow unnacceptable.

 

[Anubis]

as i said in the wow thread

its up to 166k now but you enter the queue before you even finish the transaction you are in it without even checking out, so its prob not totally accurate,

IMO mount is ugly and IDK care about pets so im 35$ less poor then many people
__________________

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Although I agree that this sort of thing is lame, what is the difference in buying a $25 "virtual" horse and buying a $100 sports jersey for a team that you don't own or play for...? I.e. why is is socially acceptable to worship professional sports franchises, but a nerd behind a computer can't worship his character that HE has spent the time and effort into building. Again, to me, both are pretty lame... but I fail to see how one gets a pass and the other is somehow unnacceptable.

for me, the breaking point is that the horse is made of pure ether, and i expect a $100 ($250+) shirt to not only exist but to exist very well.

 

[zerocool84]

Although I agree that this sort of thing is lame, what is the difference in buying a $25 "virtual" horse and buying a $100 sports jersey for a team that you don't own or play for...? I.e. why is is socially acceptable to worship professional sports franchises, but a nerd behind a computer can't worship his character that HE has spent the time and effort into building. Again, to me, both are pretty lame... but I fail to see how one gets a pass and the other is somehow unnacceptable.

Because one is tangible and you can touch and feel it and so can others and one is umm fake.

 

[CurseTheSky]

As much as I think it's stupid to spend $25 on some sparkley virtual horse in a game world, I don't think we should criticize other people for feeling the same way. After all, how many of us have spent similar amounts to take a few people out to a movie? After the movie is over, what do we have left? A bag of popcorn shells, an empty soda cup, and some memories. If they're willing to pay $25 for something else to add to their memories, more power to them.

I think the real issue here is all the cash Blizzard is raking in and what they're doing with it. They have a smash-hit, wildly grossing game. IMO, they should be giving something back to the community - not new smash-hit games (though those are nice, but let's face it, they're going to make more cash off of those as well). They really should pick a charity, and if they have, be more vocal about it.

I'd gladly pay for a WoW subscription if I knew my money was going to a good cause. Blizzard is good as is, but like I said, I would like to see them giving something back as well.

 

[blurredvision]

Who gives a shit what people buy? I love it when you guys judge other people for buying a $25 digital horse. You're in the PC forum, it's quite probable that you've spent more money on digital bits yourself.

And no, I did not buy the thing, it's too damned expensive for what you get. Not only that, but everybody has one. Even on my podunk server, there are 50 of them running around Dalaran.