Blizzard let's you pay real cash for WoW gold (kinda)

Blizzard will soon introduce a new pet in World of Warcraft (WoW); the Guardian Cub.

Like many other pets, this is going to be something that you are going to need to lay down some real life dosh to get your hands on.

However, unlike these previous pets, you will be able to trade the Guardian Cub, as it will be a so called "Bind on use" item (meaning it will not be locked onto a character until you use it for the first time).

Therefore you will be able to throw this puppy (or cubby, more precisely) up on the auction house, where there will no doubt be a lot of buyers prepared to part with a significant amount of gold for the privilege of owning this purple bundle of cuteness.

This is about to be the most controversial pet in WoW history

So if you're light on Azerothian currency but your pockets are bulging with greens, then you will be able to change 10$ into gold with this dragon baby as your middle man.

Blizzard is fully aware of this and in their post previewing the Guardian Cub they explicitly say that they consider this an okay way to get your hands on more in-game gold:

Q: Could I put the Guardian Cub up on the auction house to try to make some gold if I wanted to?

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. 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. (You can read more about our stance here.) 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.

You can find the full Gurdian Cub preview post here.


So it looks like Blizzard is finally starting to open up for allowing players to use real life money to get an in-game advantage, as being able to get more gold means that you can buy better stuff from other players, and better stuff in WoW is pretty key to the performance of your character.

By giving players the option of selling the pet for gold, Blizzard is not giving direct access to "cash for gold", but it's also pretty clear that there are going to be a segment of the market out there that is going to use this pet for exactly that purpose.

Got money? Ned gold?
Blizzard will soon have a solution for you

I guess that Blizzard will use this as an experiment to see how the presence of this pet is going to impact the player economy and how hard the blowback from the community is going to be.

I would not be surprised at all if 6 months from now we'll be seing Blizzard straight up offering players to buy x amount of gold for x amount of real money.

A desparate move from a MMO that has passed its prime?

How do you see this development?