Hell...you can even think of this as a good thing. As the one blog up there pointed out, Blizz just made MILLIONS today, and will probably make MILLIONS each day for the next week until the craze dies with almost no overhead.

If there's something better to keep money-hungry execs off your back for a period of time while you put the Blizzard Polish on a game, I can't think of anything better.

As for the slippery slope argument, I don't know. I guess it's just the optimist in me, but I really doubt Activision is SO shortsighted that they'd run the risk of poisoning their longterm cash cow just for a couple of quick bucks now. And if Blizz does start offering purples for cash a few years down the road, well...then...I'll admit that I was wrong.

"but I really doubt Activision is SO shortsighted that they'd run the risk of poisoning their longterm cash cow just for a couple of quick bucks now"

You mean like releasing 7 guitar hero games in one year and then realizing they killed it? Yeah, they'd never do something like that.

But Guitar Hero isn't a long term cash cow the same way WoW is.

WoW: You buy a 40 dollar expansion once, but then continue to pay 15$ a month to play it.

GH: You pay 120$ (or whatever high number it is, I don't know, never bought one) once...and then don't do buy anything again until Guitar Hero X is released the next year.