WOW Guardian Cub enables gold buying

By Robert Purchese Published 11 October, 2011

"Safe, secure" alternative to 3rd parties.

The new World of Warcraft Guardian Cub can be bought at the Pet Store using real money, then sold in-game at the auction house to make WOW money.

The Guardian Cubs are bind-on-equip, which means they're not locked to a character until a character uses them.

In other words, you can spend real money to make WOW money, legitimately, with Blizzard's blessing, for the first time ever.

"While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we're OK with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services," wrote Blizzard on the World of Warcraft website.

"We're OK with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services."

Blizzard

"However, please keep in mind that there's never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they'll pay for it. Also, it's important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts.

"While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that's preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling black market and account theft."

Does this signal a bigger change for World of Warcraft? Are free-to-play-style micro-transactions finally creeping in?

"It's too early to say how we'll handle future Pet Store pets," Blizzard added. "We made this change in response to feedback from players looking for alternate ways to get the Pet Store pets, and we're always looking into other opportunities for improvement. We're interested in hearing what players think of the Guardian Cub when it launches, and we hope you'll have fun with this new flying friend."

The Guardian Cub is a small, cute version of the Winged Guardian mount. It's got a flaming mane and flaming tail. From the Pet Store a Guardian Cub costs $10. How they'll price on the auction house you'll have to wait and see - 100g? They occupy a bank/bag slot each; they're not stackable.

In other news, BlizzCon next week.

pet
Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (48) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dagas #1 8 months ago

    So they lost the war and legalized drugs (I mean gold).

  • bobfish09 #2 8 months ago

    Not surprising, it is the last avenue for them to make money from, short of selling power directly to the player (epic gear / levels).

  • Flipper79 #3 8 months ago

    Feel sorry for those that like to collect companions. Putting people who never spend money in the store above those that always do and who won't be able to send this new pet to all their toons is a bit of a slap in the face really.

  • Senixter #4 8 months ago

    @dagas I thought they are drug dealers.

  • arcam #5 8 months ago

    This is like Eurogamer giving up and actually selling fake Jordans and Ed Hardy T-shirts. Disgraceful, IMO.

  • Kami #6 8 months ago

    In-game economies are shaking in fear.

    The problem this pet introduces for each server is a direct official monetary value for gold. Whatever this pet sells for on an AH can be divided by ten to get a directly correlated exchange rate to the pound/dollar/euro/yen/babybel (delete where applicable). Economies will struggle with this concept - either crash because gold becomes worthless, or impossible as pets are priced out of reach and directly affecting the values of other items on the market.

    And as for the goldsellers - they're LAUGHING their asses off. Who is Blizzard fooling here?! They've given the black market RMTers official exchange rates per server. This isn't going to stop hackers, this isn't going to stop the spamming and it isn't going to suddenly stop people buying gold. Exactly the opposite, actually, this is likely going to make the spam, the malicious e-mails and whispers even more regular as they feel their trade is "legitimised" somewhat by the official exchange rate.

    If Blizzard want to sell gold, then they should. Let us be fair here, there is nothing stopping Blizzard now, they've gone back on most of their promises so this is the final U-Turn before they apply the Diablo 3 Real Money AH to World of Warcraft. But at least they should be honest with players, and not introduce an element that is as laughably bad for the economies of the game as it is for the players - who now will have to accept that a pet can't be shared across their three or four alts for the flat fee of a tenner, now they'll have to buy four, at £40 the lot, for each of their toons. Which also shows up how greedy Blizzard have become.

    I can't see much about this that can possibly pass as a good idea. All I see is greed motivating a company to commit what could end up as professional hara-kiri. World of Warcraft has suffered immensely the last year with so many hostile and unnecessary changes. This is just another terrible decision that will further alienate their long-standing customer base, many of whom can say they have characters which have been there since Vanilla, since release.

    That said, it may also be one final step to making World of Warcraft a F2P Game... Blizzard will need to decide sooner or later where they take this game from hereon in, because otherwise they'll end up with a game that is inaccessible for players on a pure, monetary level...

  • Benno #7 8 months ago

    hahahaha

    this is worse than Colvin setting up hamsterdam in The Wire

  • Ryboy #8 8 months ago

    ^^ Agreed. But I'm still gonna buy one and sell it on day one. 30k easy. :)

  • Benno #9 8 months ago

    to honest i dont think that this is that big of a deal, the fact that there is an item in the way of the real money-wow gold transfer process means that as soon as demand for that pet falls the cost of using this system to 'buy' gold greatly increases.

  • Benno #10 8 months ago

    its economics baby

  • nuanimal #11 8 months ago

    Wiat... so I could buy something at a fixed price say - $10 for example, and then auction that item for 2000 gold... And this creates a base line exchange rate for gold farmers to compete with? Actually you'll probably find that the auction rates, will probably be similar (or lower) to what $10 would get you from gold farmers, anyway.

    I'm not sure if this is a good idea - the only thing I can see it doing is de-value/over-value the gold farmers current real money rates (not sure if this would make players who buy off farmers better or worse off).


  • TheDudesRug #12 8 months ago

    I could understand at the time why people bought gold in Vanilla, when it was relatively hard to obtain in large quantities. But, the game throws cash at you now and there seems little need for more. Good luck to them though, I'd swing from udder to udder if it were mine.

  • Ceatlan #13 8 months ago

    Surely there are only going to be a limited number of people that want to buy these things from the auction houses in game, and as times goes buy and there are fewer and fewer people who want them, then there value will drop like a stone. So isn't this is only going to be a meaningful way to buy gold for a very short while ?

  • anomagnus #14 8 months ago

    Seems a stupid way to avoid gold selling. The price for those cubs will collapse pretty quick.

  • Popzeus #15 8 months ago

    If WoW hadn't jumped the shark already, it has now.

  • Kami #16 8 months ago

    Quite possible nuanimal, but it still create for them a baseline exchange rate. There's every chance most economies will be able to handle this - but I just wish Blizzard weren't being such utter knobs over it. I have no qualms about the D3 RMA. I think a similar system is intended for WoW - and as long as that eventually entails a F2P model, there is no real issue in that (well, there will be issues, but one bridge at a time).

    I think the problem has been the rather brash way Blizzard have gone about this. So much of their attitude the last year and a bit has been, "Don't like it? F*** off then!". And, as we all know, people have. And still are.

    Considering the problems the game had with spam, and those horrible fake whispers from people pretending to be GMs being abusive about flagging your account, I get WHY they feel the need to tackle it. But if you're going to try and cut the black market out, you have to go the whole hog - doing things by halves (which this pet is) doesn't work, because it appears to all intents and purposes really half-arsed.

    And whilst Blizzard have made half-arsed a bit of an artform the last couple of years, this is a degree of half-arsedness that is both spectacular in its own way, whilst being embarrassing at the same time.

    Part of me wonders if there is any love left in Blizzard HQ for this game. I can almost hear the devs shouting, "Please stop playing this game! We're tired, overworked and have no new ideas! We've practically recycled EVERYTHING now! At this rate we'll have to start selling armours which are textured from the blisters on our poor, beaten arses! Please, stop. We need a break! We're dying here! Stop it!".

    Shortly afterwards Bobby Kotick walks in, dressed in tight PVC and with a leather whip ready to "punish" the devs for their insolence...

    Sleep well! :p

  • Phoenisis #17 8 months ago

    Next step: Real money auction house, like in D3.

    There's only one way from here, and it's down. Hell, it's already been heading that direction for a couple years.

  • kangarootoo #18 8 months ago

    "in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts"

    Is that really true? I thought that sweatshop style gold farming was big business, and that in fact the vast mojority of 3rd party sold gold was obtained by grinding specifically for the purpose of resale. I don't play WoW so I don't know, but that was my outsiders understanding of things.

  • Colvin #19 8 months ago

    @Benno

    Yeah, but look at my corners, my worst corners.

  • swills #20 8 months ago

    I hope they do a RMAH in WoW. According to most gold seller's websites the gold my chars have on them is 'worth' $500+. Would be nice cash that out.

    Regardless, both this and the Diablo 3 RMAH seem to me to be good research for Titan *(Blizz's next MMO). Will be intersting to see how that ends up being funded long term.

  • Ares42 #21 8 months ago

    I think I must be missing some detail here.. You have a pet that can be bought from the official Blizzard store that is allowed to be sold in-game, right ? So can anyone explain to me how this directly leads to gold-buying ? I mean, the real money will always go to Blizzard, so who would ever pay gold for the item unless they actually wanted the item ? There's no profit to make for the seller here. Yes, you can theoretically get gold by paying real money, but the market will be extremely small and dry up very quickly. And I still find it hard to describe it as gold-buying when there's actually no "gold-seller".

  • Phoenisis #22 8 months ago

    "You have a pet that can be bought from the official Blizzard store that is allowed to be sold in-game, right ? So can anyone explain to me how this directly leads to gold-buying ?"

    Why would the fact that the money goes to Blizzard exclude this from being gold-buying? Plenty of MMO's, udually Free-To-Play ones, have official currency / item / whatever shops. That doesn't mean it's not gold-buying.

  • FortysixterUK #23 8 months ago

    If they simply sold gold on the blizzard website for in game use it would be so much easier.

  • Xboxfanuk #24 8 months ago

    Free-to-play just around the corner, probably will do it like EQ with the launch of a new server.

  • Xboxfanuk #25 8 months ago

    Free-to-play just around the corner, probably will do it like EQ with the launch of a new server.

  • Zozzilla #26 8 months ago

    The way people have been talking about this on the official site, you'd think Blizzard were forcing people to buy it.

    This is the same as getting a TCG booster set, finding a pet loot card in it, and selling it to someone in-game. The only difference is you won't fall short of scammers providing a fake code. If you buy one off the Blizzard Store, there's nothing to stop you using it on your own character. If you wish to sell an in-game item for in-game currency...there's nothing at all wrong with that.

    It's also wrong because of this to class it as "gold selling". Gold selling requires you to pay a third party (who gets their gold from either literally living on the game farming the hell out of it or hacking people's accounts to take advantage of their professions) to log on and post you gold. And possibly steal your shit if you don't have an Authenticator. Somehow I can't see Blizzard spamming trade and hacking people. Also you have a CHOICE whether to stick it on the AH or not.

    If these sort of...well I guess they could be called micro-transactions... lead to the WoW sub being cheaper or indeed free (since all F2P MMO's use this system and I've never seen anyone complain), then go for it I say. Just make future pets BoE, but so that they're mirrored to all your characters.

  • HistoryTeller #27 8 months ago

    But why buy a pet for 10.000 gold when you can buy for $10? Makes no sense.

  • felastica #28 8 months ago

    WoW continues to slide away from the great game it used to be.

  • Dave #29 8 months ago

    I don't think this pet is what people are so riled up about, I think it's the fact that Blizzard in their eyes has sold out.

    In a way I can see this as a try-out for a similar real money auction house in Diablo 3 for WoW. They can't just announce an RMA for WoW, that seems to big a risk. So they're trying it with something harmless, like a pet. And like someone above me said, it's sure to be a tryout for Titan.

    On the other hand, it is Blizzard and they're all for the gamer. But since they got Activision behind them, I'm beginning to question their motives.

  • Apaar #30 8 months ago

    A smart, logical move. I have no qualms.

  • Hellion83 #31 8 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • MaxiSleep #32 8 months ago

    Bizarre. Just when you think they cant sink further they amaze you.

  • RedSparrows #33 8 months ago

    Hellion, what are you on?

    In other news, precious Vanilla memories nourish my fetid nostalgic soul.

  • Dexter2015 #34 8 months ago

    There is no way to tell of the pet will sale on the AH and for how much! And there is only a limit account of people even interested to buy pets. They are complete useless in game!

  • RedPanda #35 8 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Kami #36 8 months ago

    Maybe Dexter, but not even a year ago Blizzard were saying; "We will not sell anything on the store that will give players an in-game advantage."

    This pet CAN and probably WILL give an in-game advantage, even if it is merely fleecing silly people on the AH. A new player (I know, just imagine it) can spend an extra tenner and likely get a couple of thousand gold to give them a relatively instant gold boost. That is why I feel lots of people are objecting - it can give an advantage to people who are prepared to trade their actual money for a pet they can sell.

    Economies may suffer, and yes it will give an actual exchange rate for goldsellers (and if it cheapens the amount of money to gold ratio, the hacking and abuse is likely to increase). But it's the advantage it can give, and that people usually buy a pet and it is there for all their alts, this one they'll have to buy for each character.

    If Blizzard want to account-bind all the pets/mounts in future, that'd be quite interesting. I have a few old toons with things you can't otherwise obtain anymore, which I'd love to be able to use on another character. But this isn't what they are doing now, what they are doing is giving you less, giving the players less and giving the players an opportunity in that less to get a small in-game advantage.

    This isn't a bad idea, I don't see any reason why they can't model WoW in a F2P manner. But to me, it is the manner in which they've decided to do it, slowly and hoping no-one will notice. Well, we do, we have and there is no point getting all defensive over it. We've caught Blizzard out. Now, let's see a little freaking honesty - either "We're looking to go F2P in the future" or "We're not making as much money and we need a cheap and dirty trick to generate some disposable income whilst generating some press inches for ourselves". Or any other reason. Just be honest with the playerbase.

    The hilarious thing is, most of them aren't stupid and are calling this as they see it. Blizzard are losing players a lot as it is - they really should be trying not to piss off their customers any more than they need to. If this is dividing the playerbase as much as it appears to be dividing them, this may end up doing more harm than good.

    But we shall see. All I know for sure is the first days and weeks of this are going to make the AH a much less hospitable place to be...

  • DisneyJon #37 8 months ago

    Hard to see how this hasnt just opened the doorway to the black market gold sellers.

    Not hard to see how they can now protect their business simply by doing it this way;

    *You order and pay for gold with real money as normal via their website/paypal
    *You "receive" a pet in your mail.
    *You auction the pet with the buy it now price equal to the amount the seller tells you so that the price is your gold plus the AH fee.
    *Blizzard cant touch it because theyve just done what Blizzard allows.

    Its better than any current system as no need to meet in game, or risk Blizzard linking accounts via in game mail, and only an hour delay between auction selling and player getting gold, and the close proximity of mailboxes to auction houses makes it easy to shift gold between toons, and the sellable pet.

    Sorry but they have not thought this through,......or maybe the y have.....

  • a8a #38 8 months ago

    In other words, you can spend real money to make WOW money, legitimately, with Blizzard's blessing, for the first time ever.

    Technically not quite correct - this was previously possible with TCG mounts like the Spectral Tiger. They made them tradeable quite a while back, and they sell for a packet in-game.

    On the other hand, you'd have to be blind not to see the difference between an extremely rare £800-on-ebay card, and a limitless supply of $10 tradeable pets. Even though they have already used my example as a justification that its not a "new" idea.

    I want to believe the best of Blizzard - they make amazing games, which I will continue to play - but I'm starting to get a bit annoyed by the creep of this money-grubbing attitude into WoW. Ultimately it probably wont affect me in the slightest, personally, but it seems like every 6 months or so now, they're taking another step on the slippery slope, and every 6 months, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

  • Kami #39 8 months ago

    Of course Blizzard have.

    Let's go for the dirtier, Activision line of thought here. They made millions on the pets, mounts and such forth via the Blizzard store. People want them.

    But, as is the way, they are account wide. So each account only buys them once. This means there is a natural cap on the amount they can sell - i.e. the amount of active accounts (edit; which has been going down in the last year, meaning less people to sell to).

    By making it BoE and one-use, they can sell to the same account again, and again, and again. If someone starts a new toon, bingo! They'll have to buy the pet, or buy it off someone who has already bought it. Gathering alt completionist? Oh dear old chap, seems like you'll also need one.

    A lot of players have two to three main active characters (I sometimes had four or five on the go). By selling per toon, you raise the threshold, and therefore there is no cap, because as long as people make new characters, there'll be a market for the pet. As long as people reroll, start again, alt, the market is there, and people will buy these pets, repeatedly, even if it is to make in-game gold. £10 a time. Every time. Every pet. Bang. More money. Bam. More money.

    It's the dirtier line of thought. It may even be giving them too much credit. But it's probably the one most people will think is closer to the truth.
    Edited by Kami at 11/10/11 @ 21:34

  • Ares42 #40 8 months ago

    @Phoenisis
    Don't think you got my point. At no point will there ever be a transaction between a person that wants to buy gold for real money and a person that wants to sell gold for real money. There is no direct correlation between this and gold-buying. It leads to a situation where it's possible for people to get gold for real money, but there's no real market there as the market is only open for buyers.

  • WrongShui #41 8 months ago

    You'd think they'd introduce an equivilent to Eve onlines PLEX.

  • Laminator #42 8 months ago

    Thinking this is finally pushed me to giving up WoW for good. See I can understand the money milking from free to play games that need that revenue to actually survive but from a company as rich as Blizzard, they don't need this at all it's just pure greed.

    The next MMO game that gets my subscription fee will be a company that actively combats RMT, and sells no in game items and vows never to do so. Because this situation is just getting worse and worse. Do we really need real world class system in our video games too? Sorry you can't have that mount in game because you are too poor in real life? Ironically I can actually afford this stuff I just totally disagree with it and would never buy it on principle - and I am totally put off of any game endorsing real money trading.

    Interesting I spotted that article link for Games bleeding into real life where really it's becoming the other way round.

  • Acrid #43 8 months ago

    Cue Shang Tsung: "IT HAS BEGUN"

  • Phoenisis #44 8 months ago

    @Ares42

    So what? How is any of what you just said relevant or important in any way? Whether it fits the definition of a "market" is semantics, nothing more. What matters is that people can now spend - without having to seek out shady 3rd party dealers - real money in order to get an in-game advantage over other players.

    Blizzard has done tons of moneygrabbing since coming under the heel of Activision, but that was always the line they didn't cross. All the crappy pets and stuff they sold were retarded, but they never impacted the game in any way, it was just a way to squeeze money from idiots with too much of it, and the only ill effect of it on normal players was having to look at an army of sparkleponies and shit for about a week until the people who'd bought them got tired of them.

    Besides the TCG stuff, which was much too rare to have any actual effect on anything, this is the first time they've gone and sold something that can make you better / more powerful in-game. With that barrier down, the selling of (direct) gold or gear or tier tokens is just a small step away, because now it's just a matter of degree rather than principle.

  • Averice #45 8 months ago

    people that actually want the pet will pay $$ for it. People that think it's cool and have gold laying around will buy it. The pet won't sell anymore on the AH after 2 weeks, so no, this is not introducing something like PLEX into the WoW economy. Anyone that thinks this will create a dependable RMT is going to be sorely disappointed.

  • makememoo #46 8 months ago

    I'm sure this will get drowned out in the mess of comments, but you've been able to buy TCG items (from ebay and from the official TCG site) that are boe since patch 3 and it's had little impact on anything and I certainly don't remember any drama lamas over that. But of course since EVE etc this is a very trendy topic to show outrage on, so lets ignore the historical hypocrisy.

    Also note that this is a really shitty way to gold buy as your $10 could easily only net you 5k-10k or so once people flood the market, which considering even my small guild has 500k gold in the guild bank, and I make 5k a week just soloing old instances over 4 or 5 hours which is generating gold in the economy whereas this is just transferring wealth so will have a net zero impact on the server economy.
    Edited by makememoo at 12/10/11 @ 08:43

  • Kami #47 8 months ago

    Ahh, the TCG defense! Hi there!

    Except, you know, TCG cards are taken out of production and then there is a set amount left over. This makes TCG loot "limited edition". Which tends to hold it's value - when there is less of a product around people want, the more it is worth. That's not just simple economics - that's Economics 101: Economics for Dummies.

    The Guardian Cub will not be limited, not be capped, and will always be an unlimited supply. As long as you are willing to part with a tenner, here you go. One pet. And as long as new characters can be made - there will always be a demand for the pet. A really sinister, yet very business-savvy, move.

    You cannot compare the two. This is like kissing a wild tiger just because you've kissed your house cat for years. Sure, they're both felines, but one has the potential to maul you senseless whilst you do it.

    TCG loot and this guardian cub are nothing alike. Any argument comparing the two is, quite frankly, utterly hilarious.

    But on the upside, with a base gold to dollar exchange rate, those WITH TCG Loot now know how much to charge... if a card costs $100, and $1=5000 gold, then their item is now worth 500,000 gold.

    Which means TCG loot will go UP in price, not down.

    I will NEVER tire of this sound effect!

  • Valland #48 8 months ago

    "Are free-to-play-style micro-transactions finally creeping in?"
    Micro-transactions, yes.
    Free-to-play? Bahahahhaha, nope! Gotta milk that cow while it's still breathing.