Money Sinkhole

blizzard and wow.com just announced that soon there will be two new plushies to buy in blizzard's official online store. these plushies will have matching companion pet codes attached to both. a wind rider cub for the horde plush, and a gryphon hatchling for the alliance plush. of course people of either faction can purchase both should they wish to.

there is still some time before the actual release of the two new items, and before blizzard places an official price tag on them, i hope they think carefully and deeply about the path they are taking.

in my previous post i address some concerns that i had about "paying-to-pet," and some things blizzard could do to make this a less controversial/touchy matter. these steps included but are not limited to: donating some or all of the proceeds to non-profit charities, keeping the online store vanity pets (and plushie counterparts) reasonably priced, and maintaining the quality of current and future in-game pets that do not require more real life money.

will i be buying the new plushies? it all depends on the two of the three conditions above. will they be extraordinarily expensive for a stuffed animal? where will the proceeds be going?

the stuffed animals listed on the Toys-R-Us website range from $9 to $60, however the majority of the plushies are in the $20 to $30 range. what should be noted is that the "top sellers" and "top rated" are mostly under $20.

this is just a very narrow comparison to the blizzard store, though. blizzard specializes in blizzard items only, and the demand for quality will be high. i wouldn't hold it against blizzard if they charged a little more due to the exceptional quality of the soon-to-be stuffed animals. that is... if they are indeed exceptional, and they most certainly NEED to be. blizzard enthusiasts have high expectations and will want to get their money's worth.

outstanding detail and craftsmanship or not, one thing (at least for me) that would take some of the edge off of dumping more of my money into world of warcraft vanity items would be if blizzard donated some of the money earned from selling the wind rider cub and gryphon hatchling to a non-profit charity. this may mean they would need to increase the price to actually create profit, so i'm slightly torn.

all in all i just don't know if i'll be heading over to the blizzard store to nab the newest plushies once they've been released. i'll need to mull it over a little more before making a decision. one thing i'm acutely aware of is that if the price is good and the interest is high, i probably won't have much time to make up my mind before the blizzard store has sold out on these cute little guys.