WoW fans are furious at Blizzard over ridiculous store mount and they’ve got a point

World of Warcraft and the Blizzard store has long been a place of contentious takes and controversial topics. Despite that history, few could have predicted just how much one big dinosaur would change the mood around the game so quickly.

The trouble started when Blizzard announced that they would be adding the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur to the cash store, for a scarcely believable $90/£60. The mount is a slight redesign of the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur, which players were able to buy in-game for five million gold before it was removed.

Obviously, this is egregiously pricey from the outset but there is a totally fair argument that these purchases are optional. They don’t offer tangible benefits to players who are able to afford them. At least, that was the case until it became clear exactly what this mount does.

For the first time in the game’s history, the mount includes both a vendor for the mailbox and a vendor for the auction house. This means that players can buy items and collect them, all without having to return to town to do so.

It’s this functionality that’s causing consternation and division among players in spades. Those who make a living talking about and playing the game were quick to voice their displeasure.

For raid progression, there is no longer any need to return to town and buy new consumables before the next encounter. Sure, it’s not a huge deal now, but during competitive raid races? We might need to take a look at the rules.

The mount also makes life a hell of a lot easier for crafters and traders, allowing them to pivot on a dime and respond to market changes. It puts those without the mount at a disadvantage and they aren’t able to be anywhere near as agile.

The fun doesn’t stop there, though. Streamer Xaryu demonstrated just how busted this mount can be in the PvP arena. During a match on his Mage, he was in relatively low health and had little recourse to heal. Quickly hopping on the mount, he bought bandages, healed up, and claimed the win.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people are going to buy this mount and that is likely more than enough to validate Blizzard’s strategy. But is it the right thing to do for the game? The answer does feel like an obvious no.

It’s the first-ever foray into a pay-to-win strategy that the developer has tried to snuff out by going after gold sellers, boosters and even GDKP runs. That bold direction felt like the right move for the player base at large and they are now undermining their efforts with a big, chintzy dinosaur.

It doesn’t help that this arrives at the same time as a patch that has busted the current game state. Some classes/specs are now breezing through progression as a result and there are as many winners as there are losers.

Blizzard has rolled out several sweeping, consecutive fixes in an attempt to deal with the worst of the damage and a bad patch can happen to the best of games, but this last week has soured an expansion that has otherwise stood as a remarkable achievement and return to form.

In isolation, the mount is a misstep that can be addressed with an earnable equivalent in-game. The chief issue is that real-world money acts as a barrier to entry to a certain portion of the game for the first time in WoW’s history, and that’s a huge thing.

What happens next is key and there are ways for Blizzard to get out of the situation relatively unscathed. Whether they will be able to do so, remains to be seen.