Would you pay $25 for a World of Warcraft mount?

WoW players pony up millions in just a few hours for an epic flying mount

Words: GamesRadarTylerNagata on April 16, 2010

We love horses. But we’re not sure if we love them enough to pay $25 so our WoW Priest can have a new in-game mount to ride. Yesterday, two new in-game pets for World of Warcraft were recently added to Blizzard’s online Pet Store. Currently, the most popular item of the two seems to be the Celestial Steed. According to the official product description, the Celestial Steed lets you “travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust” and allows players to travel at “310% speed.” In case you don’t play WoW, this means that this is a very fast mount.

It didn’t take long before wow.com starting diving into the numbers. Based on the price and the amount of players queued up to download the digital pet, the site estimated that Blizzard raked in $2 million just four hours after the Celestial Steed went on sale. The popularity and profitability of Blizzard’s recent sale has once again sparked the debate over DLC, with pet-loving collectors on one side and the anti-DLC crowd on the other.

Above: Flying mounts were first introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. It was pretty awesome

Here's the Celestial Steed in question. It should be noted that there are lots of other epic flying mounts that can be earned in-game that can fly and travel just as fast as this one. But of course, they aren't as rare as this exclusive pet, which can only be purchased at Blizzard's Pet Store.

So is the Celestial Steed worth it? Is Blizzard charging too much for this item? Are WoW players out of their minds? Or do haters just not understand the fine pleasure of riding on wings of pure stardust? Let us know what you think!

Apr 16, 2010

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Ridgley - April 18, 2010 5:35 p.m.

Here comes the beginning of not so micro micro-transactions.
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DavidELDiablo - April 18, 2010 7:54 p.m.

25$ for a mount that just gives you 310% speed. It's relatively easy to see why people would want it since most mounts of that caliber are hard to find, or farm for. But I'd rather join an arena team and get that Frostwyrm instead.
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camelfro - April 18, 2010 1:14 a.m.

man that's terrible i would like the senior wildlife editor buttercup to way in on this if he could
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Kipper - April 17, 2010 7:55 p.m.

Crikey. Looks like WoW is now going up against Farmville to see who can part the most fools from their money.
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Tfish - April 17, 2010 7:05 p.m.

If they start coming out with a bunch of store stuff that sells as well as this did they might end up justifying it by lowering the Subscription fee to $10 or something, either way it's a good business plan on their part making this much money and people that are hating on it so hard probably just can't afford one.
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NanoElite666 - April 17, 2010 6:46 p.m.

$25 for a mount? That's ridiculous! I don't have anything against paying for add-on content for games, but it's gotta be worth it. Case in point, for about $5 more than this mount I've bought all three of the expansions for Borderlands. You can even get full games for that price, sometimes cheaper, if you look in the right places.
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Canucklehead - April 17, 2010 4:10 p.m.

Not really my scene, but this is an incredibly smart way to get microtransactions in the game without killing gameplay with them. Enough people obviously want cool mounts, they don't hurt gameplay so what the heck. But no, I will not be spending $25 on them
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QWERTYCommander - April 17, 2010 3:53 p.m.

Look at my horse My horse is amazing Give it a lick "Mmm, it tastes just like raisins" Have a stroke of it's mane And it turns into a plane And it turns back again, when you Tug on it's winky "Ooh, that's dirty!" Do you think so? Well I better not show you Where the lemonade is made Ooh lemonade Ooh sweet lemonade Ooh lemonade Yeah, sweet lemonade! Sorry about that, I just saw the picture and it reminded me of that.
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Ded - April 17, 2010 10:43 a.m.

http://static.wowhead.com/images/comic/022.jpg Teehee. I wouldn't buy one though, but not gonna hate on those who do.
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D0CCON - April 17, 2010 5:01 a.m.

I won't even buy the game for the $15 a month fee. No way in hell would I buy a $25 horse even if I did feel like throwing all that money away.
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BazyLastard - April 17, 2010 2:23 a.m.

I haven't bought one of these mounts, but just a couple quick points that the author failed to mention that I found on Blizzards Store site when reading about this item: 1. For $25 this mount is unlocked for to all characters on an account, current and any future ones you create. 2. The mount matches speeds with your current riding skill. It does not automatically give 310% flying speed. Also, it *only* gives 310% speed if *you already have at least one 310% speed mount*. So it's not like this is an easy way to get the fastest speed flying mounts. Like it or not, I'm guessing with the quick cash they made, this is only the beginning of what in-game items Blizzard will start selling going forward. They'd be fools not to.
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tacoman38 - April 17, 2010 2:04 a.m.

25 dollars? for real? I thought it was an arbitrary number when reading the title. holy frijoles!
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Cyberninja - April 17, 2010 1:11 a.m.

with that 25 dollars i would buy both ff7 and MvC2 off psn
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cholobear911 - April 17, 2010 12:48 a.m.

hey i bought 50 of these so dont hate you just cant apreciate the awsomeness n00bs!!!
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Azymuth - April 17, 2010 12:31 a.m.

Yes, it is stupid and a total waste of money from the customers, but they still raked in 2 million in 4 hours. With little to no coding. Without forcing anybody. It is an amazing feat in itself.
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510BrotherPanda - April 16, 2010 11:10 p.m.

Seriously, who would want to ride a fictitious constellation? Have long-time players become so jaded from playing so long that they snatch up anything labeled "RARE and EXCLUSIVE"??? I'm so glad I never got into MMOs. Farmville addiction is sad, as well.
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dland - April 16, 2010 11 p.m.

f no
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2dboy - April 16, 2010 10:24 p.m.

$25 0_o Oh my god.
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kaiben - April 16, 2010 9:29 p.m.

This is like Horse Armour all over again, only worse!
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Modroneman - April 16, 2010 9:28 p.m.

Looks like Blizzard isn't immune to the Activision's over-pricing strategy.
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