I got a Celestial Steed yesterday. I received the emailed redemption notice at work because P. had bought it for me as a gift. She’s wonderful. It’s quite funny, because I’d said in jest ages ago, when Blizzard first opened their shop and the first pets were available, that if they ever did a really girly My Little Pony type of mount that sales would be astronomical – because who wouldn’t want a sparkly pony with wings?
Let me just say…I generally wear all black, and every time I pass a display of little girls’ trainers, all iridescent sparkling pink, I’m consumed with jealousy that they don’t come in adult sizes.
And yesterday the community went mad. All you could see if you were anywhere near a city was complaints about the horse, game-breaking predictions of doom, insults directed at the idiots/dupes/”gays” that bought them. The people standing up for themselves for having bought sparkly ponies seemed half-embarrassed, as though trying to explain why it shouldn’t be a problem that you sometimes like to dress up in your wife’s frilly underwear. What silliness.
I don’t see the problem with this. As someone who has a career based around helping people build successful online businesses, I have to say that this mount was a runaway train of a success. Making one million dollars in the first two hours? Guesses about what they may have made since, over (probably well over) $15,000,000 in the US alone? Amazing.
As someone who was very, very upset about the whole Allods Cash Shop episode, and has stopped playing said game because of it, I don’t see what the problem is. The Allods shop was game-breaking in that you could not play the game after a certain level without paying much, much more than you would for a p2p subscription due to the FOD mechanic. This pony is frippery – you certainly don’t need it, and aside from questions of taste, it shouldn’t affect your game experience if someone else has one. It’s purely cosmetic.
I do not have a problem with this kind of microtransaction, even in a p2p subscription game. Runes of Magic does this quite well, for a f2p game – the mounts are awesome. I would totally buy mounts there just because I love the way they look, and to support a nicely-done game. Blizzard in no way needs my support, but they have fed my desire for a sparkly, flying pony. So stop, please, doing emotes at me and talking about how we’re all suckers feeding Blizzard’s greed.
I mean…just look! Sparkles! In a flying pony! That’s one for my virtual bucket list. :D
I love my rainbow sparkle pony!! I’m not using her too much on my main because I tend to get bored of things very easily when I use them a lot, plus, she’s just faction changed so I have all of these shiny Alliance mounts to play with. *bats at a piece of string*
lol…I liked your post about the faction transfer. Great blog. I do love my pony and I hate that people try to make me feel like an idiot for using it. I still use it in Dalaran and so on, but I feel a bit uncomfortable. Isn’t that silly?