Blizzard Pet store causes protests!

"The Blizzard Pet Store has just been updated with a couple of fun new choices that you can get for your characters. Continuing in the theme of cute, miniaturized bosses, we have Lil' XT, and the CelestialSteed is the first-ever mount to be available through the service." It was anounced yesterday. Opinions are now flying all around Azeroth about the Celestial Steeds flying all
around Northrend.

Much of the talk in the trade chat around the servers, much of the grumbling I saw on othersites and on Facebook, complained about the commercialization of ingame items. 'They're destroying the game for profit,' or 'I can't believe they're just letting people buy their way through the game,' others complain. The heated debate has been raging for hours now, and there's not hint at it stopping any time soon. Maybe it will peter off when the 50,000 person queues in the Blizzard store lessen.

What do I think about the whole shabang?

The playerbase has been paying for additional content /fluff pretty much since video games began. Remember buying that Special/Collectors Edition with the extra gun/armor/map (whatever) or DLC (Downloadable Content) . Ultimately 'what can I get for my extra $10?' is a personal choice.

In today's society people generally strive to be different, stand out from the crowd an individual. Whether this is driven from a basic psychological need or not is up for guys like Dr. Phil to decide :) Driven by the need for bragging rights or individuality, this addition revenue stream is nothing new and will always be a part of gaming. How else is Blizzard supposed to compete with the likes of Farmville!

At the end of the day I have to agree with one quote I saw on a blog "It probably doesn’t matter beyond me just saying “Eh, I think it’s too expensive” and then I move on and forget about this tomorrow."

Personally, I feel sorry for the poor Lil' XT no-one seems to give a hoot about him. Which ever way you feel about this, one thing is for sure: Blizzard must be laughing all the way to the bank with all this ruckus!