Massive Nerd

Earlier this month, Blizzard announced their Pet Store.

Twitter exploded, blogs went nuts. Some people hated it, some loved it and raged at those hating it. Calm discussions were few and far between.

It wasn't pretty.

Now that the dust has settled, it's time for me to chime in.

To begin with, I have absolutely no problem with the concept of the store. Instead, my issue is with the pricing.

If you feel that $10 is a good price for a cosmetic addition to your character, then that's great. I'm sure you'll be very pleased with your purchase.

While I am more than able to afford the $10, I don't feel that a purely cosmetic upgrade is worth that price.

$5 for extra missions and gameplay in Mass Effect? Sign me up.
A couple bucks for a Guitar Hero song? No problem.
$10 for extra maps in Halo or Call of Duty? A bit more than I'm willing to pay, but a fair price, given the amount of development needed.

How do these differ from the mini-pets? The all do something, add content to the game. To me, that makes them more worth the price.

So, what would I consider a good price for these pets? Let's look at some other online games that offer similar services:

$10 gets you a large selection of costume pieces, as well as emotes and powers in City of Heroes.
Free Realms offers a huge shop, with costumes, pets and weapons that run anywhere from $1-$5.
Even World of Warcraft, itself has offered transactions already, costing up to $30.

The thing that sets these transactions apart from the WoW mini-pets, is there's a balance between offsetting production costs and still offering a fair, but profitable price. Those WoW transfers cannot be a simple thing to get right. That's a lot of tech to manage.

Seriously, how much did it cost Blizzard to create each of these pets? 3 guys working 2 weeks? Granted, they're AWESOME pets and do far more than just stand there. Let's assume 10% of WoW's vaunted 10 million players purchase a single pet. That's $10 million. Let's say half of those are Pandarens, which gives half to charity. That's still $7.5 million. For, what, a couple hundred thousand dollars of investment, between development and distribution? Something tells me that profit number is MUCH higher, though.

One argument I'd like to shoot down is the loot cards. "I spent hundreds of dollars getting my Spectral Tiger, $10 for a panda is nothing."

No, you did not spend hundreds of dollars on a mount. If so, UR DOIN IT RONG. You spent hundreds of dollars on trading cards, the mount is a BONUS. I bought crap-tons of those things. Why? Because I liked collecting them. The in-game items were nice (I LOVE my turtle), but not the reason I bought them. $3.99 is the market price for a Booster Pack for a Trading Card Game. The WoW TCG is an amazing value at that price, offering roughly DOUBLE the amount of cards compared to other games.

That, right there, is my main issue with the pet pricing. Blizzard has shown in the past to give amazing value for its products. They released content updates for Diablo II almost a full decade after its release. WoW has received several expansions worth of content, while only charging for two. If they were charging half the price for the pets, I think they could sell more than double the amount. In addition to making more money, Blizzard would be staying true to their business philosophy.

Does the recent Activision merger have something to do with this? I despise Activision enough to believe it's a definite possibility.

So, 3.3 and Icecrown Citadel is currently on the Test Realm. It will likely see live by Christmas.

Cataclysm will definitely be out at some point next year. With Starcraft 2 slotted in the Spring, it's highly unlikely we'll see it in the first half of the year.

I've been told Blizzard says they want Cataclysm out before next year's Blizzcon. They seem to be rather far along in the development, based upon what they showed at this past Blizzcon. That said, with Blizzard, I'll believe it when I see it. Theoretically, they also expect to have Diablo 3 out this year.

However, let's ASSUME Cataclysm will be out by this summer. Let's give it until July, which is eight months away.

Blizzard has said that Icecrown Citadel is the end of the Wrath of the Lich King storyline. Where does that leave the game over the next eight months? Blizzard obviously can't go that long without updating the game. The community would riot.

I'm sure November/December WILL mark the end of Wrath. I doubt we'll see a Sunwell-style extension of the story. It's kind of hard to top taking down freaking Arthas. Who's to say, though, that February/March won't mark the beginning of Cataclysm?

Whether it's 3.4 or even 4.0, I'd say the odds are good that we'll see the start of the Cataclysm story well before we even think of the expansion. There are two things that make this theory strong in my book.

First, the Chamber of the Aspects in Dragonblight. Thus far, only one of the five wings, The Obsidian Sanctum, has been utilized. Since Deathwing is the central character thus far in Cataclysm, it would stand to reason that the other Dragonflights would be part of the build-up. How? I have several theories, perhaps to be explored in a future post, but those portals are down there for a reason.

Second, there's the sheer scope of the Cataclysm itself. The event will change the entire game world of Azeroth and Kalimdor, in addition to the new zones being added in the expansion. Since Blizzard has said they want players both with and without the expansion to experience the Cataclysm. This will require a MASSIVE overhaul of the game files, all through patching. Unless Blizzard wants to release a single GIGANTIC patch, I would hope they'll do it in a series of smaller patches, slowly changing the game world along the way, as the Cataclysm progresses. Each level of change will have accompanying story elements. Perhaps it will evn be possible to level a Dwarf Shaman through the newly-redesigned zones BEFORE the expansion even launches.

This would be a brilliant move on Blizzard's part. Players like myself, who are currently inactive in the game, waiting for Cataclysm, will be more likely to renew their accounts sooner than expected. As we all know, Blizzard likes money.