A new holder is available in the World of Warcraft article store. The Gold-plated Brutosaur from the merchant is a gigantic, Brontosaurus-like creature with a number of useful features and adorned with golden armor themed around the game’s 20th anniversary.
It costs $90. It’s only available until January 6. It’s very controversial. And by all accounts it’s selling like hotcakes.
The Wow subreddit is is currently on fire with memes, angry screeds, subscription cancellation oaths, and screenshots of Dornogal (capital of the current expansion The war within) comic busy with the absurdly large animals.
Why is everyone (aside from the obvious) so angry about the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur? And perhaps even more relevant: why does such an eye-wateringly expensive in-game trinket seem to sell so well?
The Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur looks majestic, as befits any special mount. Blizzard says the gems covering his armor represent Wow‘s 10 expansions – but that’s not why it commands such a high price. The mount, which can be summoned instantly from almost anywhere in the game, belongs to a very special class that houses NPC vendors and provides features normally only found in the city. In this case, Bruto’s two suppliers offer access to a mailbox and to Wow‘s auction house.
In an MMO style Wowconvenience is everything. There are restrictions on fast travel and journey times back to the city (or back from the city) can be long. Vendor mounts that offer armor repair, the ability to sell junk in your inventory, and other conveniences are relatively easy to obtain. A mobile mailbox is more difficult; There are several ways to get one, but they are either time-consuming jobs or limited to certain professions or situations.
But a mobile auction house is something different. Until now it was only available on the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur mountain, which was for sale during the period for the princely sum of 5 million gold Battle for Azeroth expansion in 2018-2020, but is now discontinued and very rare. (It can very occasionally be found on Wow‘s in-game black market for even more eye-watering sums.) For trading-savvy players who play the auction house to make gold, a mobile auction house is a huge time saver and potentially a revenue booster. So it is highly desirable and can be a worthwhile investment.
Still, $90 may seem like a lot for a single in-game convenience. But consider the exchange rate between Wow gold and real money (an item called the WoW Token allows trading in-game gold on the auction house for Battle.net balance that can be spent in the item shop, at Wow subscription fees, or for other Blizzard games). Bee current rates$90 is worth about 1.5 million gold – a huge saving on the Brutosaur’s original in-game cost, and within the reach of many players, if they’re willing to cash out their in-game bank balance.
In fact, the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur is so popular that some players are reporting WoW tokens selling out on their servers’ auction houses. This in turn could push up the exchange rate in the coming days, and make the mountain a little less of a “bargain.”
Some players are outraged that Blizzard is putting such a high price on an in-game item, part of a perceived increase in nickel-and-diming by the game’s developer. Wow audience. (For the first time, The war within offered early access to players who purchased a premium edition.) Conversely, some players are distraught that their massive investment in the original Brutosaur has just been undermined.
But it seems a lot of players are happy with their new $90 mounts – and Blizzard has a big new sales success on its hands.