It's for charity. WoW Gold doesn't seem to sit well with WHO.

Its all perspective, I suppose. Some would argue that your subscription fee is "paying real money for in-game items". These are at least account based.

charity? Only on the For the Moonkin Hatchling purchased from November 29 through December 31, and only 5 dollar or less (depend on tax) goes to Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The Lil' Ragnaros pet does not put any of his asking price to charity! I will send Make-A-Wish Foundation 10 dollars my self and do really help the charity! Also I will not self promote how good I am and invite the newspapers when I hand over the big huge check and take full credit!

@Revynn Paying a subscription fee is for address the content and keep playing the game like Blizzard pays a ton of money every month and many man hours are going in keep the game servers running! How and not forget the power cost! So that's a fair trade!

Paying real money for in-game items with little man hours and reused in-game models that you will lose access too when you cancel you account and not see again until you pay the subscription fee and reactivated you account is not!

You can say hey I support Blizzard and help them keep WoW up and running is noble but the true is that the people that working on keeping WoW up and running never see a penny of this money! It does not matter how much Blizzard earn and how great WoW is going this people will get payed the same for there work...

so much negativity. how about you just don't buy them and shut up about it? that's great you think you're on some moral crusade keeping your hard-earned 'real' money (which, by the way isn't real anyway if you really want to get into it) for entertainment (well, except for the entertainment you've already come to terms with paying for by your monthly subscription, and possibly any movies you go to since that is also paying 'real' money for nothing substantial) but that doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way or wants to hear about it. at least you have your integrity right? my baby moonkin will still dance with you.

I'd pay $10 for a baby boomkin even if none of the profits went to charity. So, the donation part for me is just a special bonus.

See, Jack, I have the exact opposite opinion of you. If they unlocked content, I would be very strongly ethically opposed to them. As they are, they are just pretty pixels that follow my character around and give me no in-game benefit.

The moment they micro-purchase in-game content...

I'm being a very cynical today.

To be honest... I somewhat agree with the OP but for different reasons. Personally, I don't care if people spend real money for virtual items. You're spending more on a monthly sub for virtual experience... you've already crossed that line and purchased virtual things just by being in wow. I've also donated money to charities through virtual spaces before... fund drives held in virtual worlds and such.

To me the marketing ploy is to attach a charity to the pet to gain more sales and that is what doesn't quite sit right with me.

Maybe they're doing a good job by donating money from sales to the charity or even raising the profile of the charity by attaching its name to this effort, but it seems like they're getting the credit for my money.

It's a campaign to make me get this pet to help a charity when the benefit is mostly towards good PR and some profit for the company and not the charity.

If I were to buy this pet, I'd do it becaue I wanted the pet... Not because I wanted to feel good by helping a charity and not because the justification for spending them money that a portion of it went to a charity.

It's cute. If it makes you happy, great. I'd maybe like to get one, but I'd do it after they've detached it from the charity thing.

I agree with elvendude. Paying for in-game items that meaningfully change the game or give stats etc.. will be the end of WoW as we know it. Period.

Also, Jack, if you want to donate to Make a Wish, that's awesome. Blizzard has been very up front about the specifics of what is and is not going to charity (which is how you are able to state the facts), unlike a great number of organizations out there. Since most people are buying the pets whether or not a donation is made, it is very nice to see Blizzard donating some of the proceeds to the charity.

Is Blizzard wealthy enough to make large, independent donations to whatever charity they want at any time? Sure. Could Blizzard sell the pets and not give any donations to any charity? Sure. But instead, they've created a program that falls somewhere nicely inbetween with the added benefit of giving players the satisfaction that their purchase helped make a difference.

Personally, I have never understood why people get so offensive about the charity aspect of these sorts of things. Assuming Blizzard handed over a big fat check with out any sort of promotional item, they would STILL be using money you provided them to make their donation (since that is where their profits come from). What is more, Blizzard is not obligated in any way to give any part of proceeds gained from any of their products, but they choose to do so. So what if it is a publicity stunt? The children that receive the benefits are helped regardless of Blizzard's intent whether it be genuine or insidious. And honestly, what would make Blizzard seem worse? Not helping any one at all or at least trying to help those in need, what ever their agenda?

Another thing to point out is that most people are not motivated to donate to charity. Either they think "oh, I will do that later" or they simply don't care enough to do it. Considering the huge player base of WoW, this will undoubtedly raise money from those people who would not have helped otherwise. If you feel your own contributions should be greater than five bucks, by all means, fork over your paycheck but how can getting un-intersted people involved be a bad thing? All in all, I can only see a win-win-win scenario here. Blizzard gets good press, people feel warm and fuzzy that their purchase of their shiny new pet helped some one, and some kid is now the benefactor of this charity drive. Trying to slam Blizzard for an event like this in the name of some grand holier than thou crusade is naive at best, and hypocritical at worst.

i dont get it, you might not like what Jack says but he has neither QQ'd nor flamed, nor ttrolled, nor first'd.....since when do people downvote for not holding a popular opinion?

as far as i can see, the OP was downvoted for succesfully having a different opinion.

I agree, that vanity pet/mount stores are bad. We have now shown blizzard they don't need to give us these little perks now. Why should they when we will happily shell out 10 bucks a pop.

I agree that if charity was the actually purpose (and not some excuse to calm the player base) of these pets you or blizzard should just send make a wish a check for XXX amount of dollars and be done with it. They way Blizzard is doing this shows Charity is not its motivation.

As far as i can see, the OP made some very valid, if cynical, points and was downvoted?

The pets are cute, i'd like one, but will i pay for one? no.

There are those that will say i already AM paying for in game content.

Let me put it this way:

If you have membership to a gym, and oay a monthly fee, where they maintain the equipment, get new gym equipment, provide gym towels and showers, training advice etc...

And then they come out with their own clothing and accessories line.......

there are those who would say "but you already pay for the gym monthly, why not buy some clothing, or a gym bag. Its pretty, and doesn't give anyone who has our stuff an advanatage at the gym. its just optional."

I would say:
Thats not what i pay for, i pay a monthly fee for everything to be all inclusive. I'm not against the gym selling their own cstuff, and i'm not against people buying the gynms brand.

But do i think its a douche of a move for the gym that used have EVERYTHING be all inclusive, start trying to sell stuff to people who are already members? YES Douche of a move.

But if poeple are happy, and them gym is happy go for it. Will i pay for any of these vanity extras? no.

If you want to go and buy a pet from the blizz store i'm cool with that.

Hey jack.
it is great that you contribute to this charity. But for the rest of us mere mortals it is prob not something a lot of us do. If blizzard are going to take some money for their product and hand over half to charity, then i think that is amazing and commendable.
also even though you have now donated $10, blizzard will prob gather a tiny bit more to give - possible tens of thousands, even hundreds. why complain about this, this is how charities generate much of their funds.

Plenty of charitys get my money, if my purchasing something awesome gets them a penny extra, great. A few dollars, even better. Five dollars? good karma will be heading my way, but I care not. Lil'Ragnaros is a cooking fire! That's just too great. Get in my life now wee fella.

Frankly I'd still pay 'real' money for these even if it said in the small print they would be breaking a small childs legs and drowning 10 kittens for every one sold. A cooking fire! Cooking rhino dogs over lil'rag is never gonna get old.

@Everyone who's nerdraging about the charity aspect, you seem to forget one essential thing about these items..

PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BUY THEM ANWAY.

I was going to buy the moonkin hatchling as soon as I heard about it- and I've seen other people do the same. Blizzard has made tons of money from selling other pets, they've made huge amounts from selling the pets that didn't have anything to do with charity, and last year's stretch of Pandaren Monk sales for charity netted Make-A-Wish 1.1 million dollars. They don't HAVE to donate ANY of the money from this to charity, and yet they're doing it. You can complain all you want about how they're doing it for PR purposes or whatever, but seriously, just shut up about it. Blizzard is made up of real people with just as much selfless intent as your average everyday person, which might not be a lot depending on your outlook on charity, but seriously, shut up.

Also, please, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_oAUJ4NW4

It's a really good rundown of the damned if you do, damned if you don't attitude people seem to have about charity donations, when we should really just be grateful that Blizz is donating at all- because I'll say this again. THEY. DON'T. HAVE. TO. They know they don't have to. They know they would make millions off this pet. And I can't honestly say I expect that the charity aspect is going to do a huge part for the number of sales, other than to convince people who might have bought it later to buy it NOW.