WoW Mount Worth $3,500 in Giveaway; Players Divided
The giveaway of Feldrake on the occasion of the release of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight did not please people who previously spent a small fortune on the mount.
Giveaway in video games (and more) are an effective way to attract potential customers. However, there are times when such gifts stir up a lot of controversy. Blizzard Entertainment found this out after it announcemed a free mount, which annoyed some World of Warcraft players.
WoW: Dragonflight - how to get Feldrake and other Twitch Drop bonuses?
The gift in question is Feldrake - a dragon warped by demonic energy. The mount will be available for free as a Twitch Drop.
The condition will be assigning your Battle.net account to Twitch, and then watching at least four hours of streaming from WoW: Dragonflight, between its release on November 28 and November 30.
This is not the only reward for celebrating the debut of the new expansion on Twitch. Nevertheless, few people are paying attention to the two pets or fireworks. Players focused almost exclusively on Feldrake, and there is no shortage of Internet users criticizing Blizzard for this decision.
A card worth thousands of dollars
The root of the problem is Feldrake's status, so to speak. This is because it is not a new mount, but one of the rarest mounts in the game. Originally, it was a bonus associated with World of Warcraft TCG, available to those with a rare card variant from the Timewalkers: War of the Ancients expansion.
To unlock it, we need to enter the 25-digit code provided on the physical copy of the card on the promotion website. After that, we get another code, after using which we can go to Landro Longshot in Booty Bay.
It's not hard to guess that such reward must be very rare. WoW TCG ended its life in 2013, but the card codes still work. Added to this is the relatively small number of copies of Feldrake in the so-called Loot variant (the card was supposed to appear once every 246 packs of Timewalkers: War of the Ancients).
As a result, a card that as recently as 2014 could be purchased for less than $200 (which is a fairly standard price for relatively rare copies in collectible card games; via Cardmarket), in recent years it has been auctioned for as much as around $3,500. Even the cheapest copies have sold for at least $1,500 (via eBay).
Of course, we are talking about cards in the Loot variant with unused code - the "ordinary" Feldrake does not cost even a fraction of this price.
Feldrake giveaway has outraged the rich
Like any rare and expensive item, Feldrake is a symbol of wealth for WoW players, so to speak, and owning one is proof of prestige. At least this will be the case until November 28, when the game's servers will be overflowing with newly acquired Feldrakes.
Aside from the obligatory memes from Internet users amused by Blizzard's decision, some players were by no means thrilled by the developers' generosity. Some current Feldrake owners acquired it relatively recently - back in September, for example (via Twitter) or even last week (via Reddit). So it's hardly surprising to see their reactions, which are well summed up in a thread on Reddit.
Some Internet users point out that Blizzard could either prepare a completely new award, or "repaint" the giveaway Feldrake to be different from the original, which would have preserved its value, at least partially. This was done in the case of Amani War Bear, which returned after many years as a "colored" Amani Battle Bear.
Not only Feldrake
Some people began to wonder (or throw around suggestions) whether Blizzard will not repeat this procedure in the future. For example, with Spectral Tiger or other valuable Loot Cards from WoW: TCG. Probably some owners of the rarest cards are already considering a quick reduction of their collection.
It's worth noting that Feldrake is not the only relatively rare catch that will "slightly" lose value at the end of November. The Dragon Kite pet and the Perpetual Purple Firework toy were also up for grabs via TCG.
- The first of these soon-to-be-gifts also had its own Loot Card variant. Nevertheless, the Kite card is incomparably less valuable than Feldrake. We will pay 50 euros for Dragon Kite, and even at max its price did not exceed 90 euros (via Cardmarket).
- The second one could only be obtained with UDE points, or Upper Deck Entertainment - the publisher of WoW: TCG. The company (which was a division of Upper Deck) ceased operations more than a decade ago (albeit only temporarily). Perpetual Purple Firework would require earning 3,000 points. Each box of booster packs yielded only 2,400 points, and fireworks were one of many rewards to be earned with UDE points.
"Proto-NFT?"
Of course, players who don't own any of these loot items are mostly thrilled at the chance to get them, and practically without spending money.
Some will also consider Blizzard's move as further proof that buying virtual goods for big money is a bad idea. There are even comparisons to NFT, which so far has not conquered the market (quite the opposite in fact). Some point out that Feldrake is also not a particularly unique acquisition compared to the huge number of dragon mounts.
Valuable loot is only part of the promotional campaign of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. Blizzard is also releasing more videos introducing the plot of the new expansion. You can watch the latest one with the former Dragon Aspect of Nozdorm below.
The expansion will debut on November 28.
