It’s that time again folks, in a week where everyone has been going insane about the price of World of Warcraft, the inevitable decline, and the premium services we’re seeing yet another “disaster” brewing. Blizzard has just released the latest mount in the Blizzard pet shop, the Winged Guardian. This bad boy weighs in at $25.00 and can actually fly, unlike the Celestial Steed. Yet, it is raising a storm of questions in an already shaky WoW climate.

Cash Shop Conversion

Let’s revisit the tired, tired, old theorem that WoW is now a “SUBSCRIPTION BASED GAME THAT IS USING A CASH SHOP OH MY GOSH!!!! OH NOES!!!” that, as always, is extremely prevalent during these things. Luckily for us, we can get past this pretty quickly thanks to the sparkle pony conditioning the playerbase and tiring them of making the argument. Is that a good thing? Well, that’s up to you to decide.

A Celestial Steed owner currently playing in the BGs. (Source)

To give you a quick run down of the new mount, yes it’s an optional purchase that has no direct effect on the game. Therefore, if someone purchases it then it has nothing at all to do with you. The only people who should be getting upset at Blizzard are those who are purchasing it, mostly due to the price and variety.

If you think about it, $25 is a lot for an MMO mount. Other games have drastically lower prices, but it’s more like a car lease than purchasing an actual item. You rent the item for a period of time then have it ganked back to the void until you hand them more of your hard earned cash. The other issue is variety; there isn’t a lot in the pet shop right now and this is one of the only two premium mounts currently available.

Attack of the Clones

The pet shop’s variety is so low that it makes me somewhat upset that we don’t have more mounts. Wait, before you grab a pitchfork to begin lynching me, think about it. Today you’re going to see every other person with one of these mounts.  Why don’t we have more? Well, the answer to that question is right above: the community’s response.

So far this mount is seeing significantly less backlash than the original sparkle pony did and everyone is a lot more receptive of it. First, it can fly, removing the big issue that the Celestial Steed had with the playerbase. Second, it’s designed much better and of a much higher quality. Third, thanks to various Internet leaks, we’ve seen this mount for a while now so there is very little shock to it. The sparkle pony was thought to be a drop in an instance for the longest time.

Yet, if we see a surge of mounts, the already fragile playerbase (that has been fragile for years, mind you) would go into full revolt mode. We’d see outrage, anger, and a community shattered. More importantly to Blizzard’s bottom line is that we wouldn’t see a huge response to a variety of mounts. Yet, they stagger it out; we’ll see massive purchases on a single mount, generating additional profit.

Personally, I want to see more mounts for sale. I might not buy them, but I sure would enjoy seeing a lot of different mounts in the various cities. If other people would like to pay for them that is fine and even better if it adds some much needed variety into the game.

The Future of the Pet Shop

In the future we will probably see another mount hit the store in less than a year. Why? Well, it took a year between the latest two releases and the response so far seems to be fairly positive, so why not roll out more mounts? They probably aren’t going to see millions clamoring for the next mount either, so might as well start enticing more people into buying them with more variety.

A recent meeting of the ponies to discuss the lack of pony in the latest update.

Of course, this gets us back on the unstable ground of “WoW turning into a giant cash shop.” We’ve got more premium services being added to the game, more cash shop items, and a playerbase that longs for the past. What will a larger pet shop do to WoW? Who knows and, honestly, I personally don’t care. As long as it is full of pets, mounts, and other things that don’t affect my gameplay.

What are your thoughts? Head on down and leave a comment if you’ve got one of the new mounts or if you’re currently screaming in trade that this is the downfall of Blizzard.