World of Warcraft Gets a Tradable Store Pet, Uproar Begins

The new Guardian Cub pet that Blizzard Entertainment intends to sell for $10 to World of Warcraft subscribers has stirred up some major controversy because it’s tradable, meaning that unlike the game’s other pets and mounts, this one can be sold to other players for in-game currency. Ultimately, that means that spending $10 of your hard-earned cash provides you with a legal means of getting gold – something Blizzard has been vehemently opposed to in the past. The result has been lots of angry posts on the forums and in their blog post, and I highly doubt the debate is going to go away anytime soon.

We’ve seen this in other free-to-play games, sure, but it’s very odd to see Blizzard’s stance on gold-selling do a near 180-degree turn between this and the real money auction house in Diablo III. Personally, I find it a bit disheartening, especially for a company that can afford not to do this sort of thing.