Inside Social Games

It looks like Blizzard Entertainment, one half of the gargantuan Activision-Blizzard, has officially taken the plunge into the virtual goods market. Despite having well over 11 million users worldwide for its epidemically contagious MMO, World of Warcraft, this big fish is hardly unaware of the booming virtual goods market. As such, the overseers of Azeroth have officially opened the World of Warcraft Pet Store.

For five years now, players have grinded experience to reach the maximum levels of power, but no matter how many times level caps are raised, no matter how many bosses fall, and no matter how many times lunch gets skipped, millions fall in love with the collection of the simplest of features: the collection of non-combat vanity pets. That’s right, whether you prefer epic dungeons or bloodthirsty player vs. player combat, virtually every user has at least some of these, and thus the Pet Store has come to be.

Currently, there are only two pets available (with more likely to come soon), the “Pandaren Monk” and “Lil’ K.T.”The Monk is, very literally, a “Kung-Fu Panda,” touting Chinese garments, a gourd of brew, some very fancy kung-fu moves, and ab excellent sense of courtesy, bowing to anyone that bows to him first. K.T., on the other hand, is a miniaturized, and significantly cuter, version of the most recent expansion’s (Wrath of the Lich King) first major bosses: The lich, Kel’Thuzad. In league with its lich powers, this pet randomly freezes those nasty level one squirrels and mice all while belting a diabolical laugh.

Each mini-pet costs $10 and is actually bound to a player’s World of Warcraft license. Players are given an in-game pet key, and it will apply to all characters on that account regardless of faction (Horde or Alliance), server, or even existence, meaning that any character you create in the future will also have access to this pet.

Curiously enough, it looks like the pet sales will be going to a good cause as well. Between now and December 31, 2009, half of all proceeds made through Pandaren Monk purchases will be donated to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. According to the copy, this is to “further [demonstrate] his benevolent nature.”

Likely, this is only the first step for Blizzard (and not merely in regards to adding more pets). For a long time now, the company has skirted around whether or not its upcoming rendition of Battle.net would support virtual goods, saying that they were not going to “rule anything out.” Furthermore, the company has suggested it would emulate, at least to some degree, Xbox Live’s Avatar Marketplace. We’ll see what comes next.