pets

Reach For Your Wallet Dept.: On Wednesday, World of Warcraft began offering two virtual pets — the first in-game items sold for real-world money in Blizzard’s MMO.

The Pandaren Monk (above left) and Lil’ KT cost $10 each from the Blizzard online store. When you buy them, they bind to your WoW account, meaning that you can equip them with any character you create.

For every purchase of the Pandaren Monk made before December 31, Blizzard will donate $5 to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, an organization Blizzard has history with.

Purchases of Lil’ K.T., a creepy kitty-cat clone of Wrath of the Lich King baddie Kel’Thuzad, won’t benefit any charity, because Lil’ K.T. is evil. Duh.

It’s not uncommon for MMO players to pay real-world money for in-game items, but this practice is generally accepted in free-to-play online games that make their money off of item sales. And WoW with its monthly fee is definitely not free-to-play.

So of course a forum furor erupted about the announcement. While some posters praised Blizzard for making fun items like this easily accessible, others saw panda and cat perched at the top of a very slippery slope.

At the very least, we’ll we all be riding that slide with super-cute pets by our side.

Image courtesy Blizzard

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