New Pet Introduces Officially Sanctioned Gold-Selling To World Of Warcraft

Blizzard has been selling World of Warcraft pets for some time now, but their latest model introduces a controversial decision: You can now buy this new pet and sell it to other players in-game.[excerpt]

The Guardian Pup -- a tiny version of the Winged Guardian mount -- will be soon be available for purchase in the World of Warcraft pet store for $10. So what's different about this pet? Unlike all of the others, a player can purchase it and then give it to someone else in the game.

This means that players will have the opportunity, should they choose, to spend $10 in real-life to buy the pet and then sell it on the auction house in-game for gold. Here's Blizzard's official statement on this possibility:

"While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services. However, please keep in mind that there's never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they'll pay for it. Also, it’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts. While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft."

There's no way to know how much in-game gold the pet will be going for -- or for how long the demand will keep up -- but it's an interesting step for Blizzard to take, and I'm curious to see if it will carry over to future purchasable pets and mounts. Blizzard says older pets and mounts on the store will remain bound to the account that purchases them.