WoW's 8th anniversary...

[Sukurachi]

is there any buzz yet as to anything special for us (pet-wise or otherwise) with regard to WoW's 8th anniversary? (coming up in a little less than 2 weeks)

[Chimera]

I havent seen anything going on yet but i hope they release the cinder kitten to the store! or have it as the reward for logging in during their 8th anni event! What day is their official anni anyways? Ive never been able to remember ><

[Magnakilro]

I dunno...last time they just gave us like an exp/rep bonus and I don't think anything came from the year before

And the Cinder Cat was confirmed to be a store thing I think

[Eternallylostx]

We got Onyxian Whelpling one year.

[Magnakilro]

that was way back in the 5th anniversary. and a baby polar bear the year before.

[Maizou]

And the Cinder Cat was confirmed to be a store thing I think

It's labeled blizzard store in the 5.1 Journal.

That doesn't mean it can't be an anniversary pet that they didn't want people to get too mad if they decide not to go that route, so they labeled it such. xD

[Tahlian]

According to WarcraftPets, the cinder cat is confirmed to be a store pet, with a portion of the proceeds going to help victims of Superstorm Sandy. Which, I happen to think, is a really decent sort of thing for Blizzard to do. I'm looking forward to getting that little guy and helping out at least a tad.

[Shadow]

A portion being 100% of said proceeds. Because of that, I'm buying two the day they come out.

[Makoes]

sadly since the blizzard bear, the onyxia whelpling...what about the penguin, mr chili? Anyhow, the blizzard anniversary things have been unremarkable. Rather sad anniversary's lately, maybe this year they will actually do something...maybe.

[Lisaara]

Well they've talked about the anniversary's before. They didn't wanna do something every Anniversary. They wanted to wait to do something special on a significant milestone.

[Rawr]

In regards to the Cinder Kitten it's just a tax deduction. Think about it if they really wanted to help wouldn't they just have donated the day after? I watched a TED Talk yesterday from a guy who researched WoW's revenue, he said that it cost (in vanilla) 3 billion dollars total to make, but at 5 million subscribers they make that in a month, something tells me they aren't hurting for cash. This is just a tax deductible ploy to make them look good and hope that you buy something else while your in the store. I'm still buying one because it's cute, I can donate on my own.

[Makoes]

Any "Buy this item and we will donate X% to charity" is a tax deductible. It's tax deductible to encourage places to actually do charity fund raisers like this. They don't Have to do this, but they choose to do it, and that is what make it good.
In this case, Players get a cute pet, Blizzard looks good for doing it, and people who have been hit by the Storm get help. Everyone wins.

Not sure what they mean by "milestones" one would think for an MMO, anytime it hits another year would be considered a feat, lol.

[Magnakilro]

sadly since the blizzard bear, the onyxia whelpling...what about the penguin, mr chili? Anyhow, the blizzard anniversary things have been unremarkable. Rather sad anniversary's lately, maybe this year they will actually do something...maybe.

Mr Chilly was given to players that merged with bnet before it became mandatory.

[Sukurachi]

In regards to the Cinder Kitten it's just a tax deduction. Think about it if they really wanted to help wouldn't they just have donated the day after? I watched a TED Talk yesterday from a guy who researched WoW's revenue, he said that it cost (in vanilla) 3 billion dollars total to make, but at 5 million subscribers they make that in a month, something tells me they aren't hurting for cash. This is just a tax deductible ploy to make them look good and hope that you buy something else while your in the store. I'm still buying one because it's cute, I can donate on my own.

let's at least get the numbers right if we're going to cast aspersions on Blizzard's "benevolence".

there are around 11 million subscribers.

and the cost is $12.95 monthly (although I think the millions of subscribers in China don't pay anywhere near that amount monthly), but let's keep it at that.

That isn't anywhere near 3 billion dollars. If the guy you saw give a TED talk said there are five million subscribers, and he said that Blizz makes $3 billion in a month, the guy is an idiot and failed basic math.

Going by these numbers, Blizzard doesn't make that in a year either. It would take two years to recoup $3 billion.

If it takes the company two years to recoup that investment, then it wasn't a very good investment. And we're talking two years of of FULL subscription as it is now. When WoW started it didn't have anywhere that many subscribers. I'm certain that Blizzard had no expectations that WoW would be as huge as it is. Even if Blizzard was planning on there immediately being half of those subscriptions, it would then take FOUR years to recoup this supposed "3 billion dollar" investment. That's a pretty crappy business model. So take what you heard on TED with a rather large grain of salt.

Blizzard doesn't need to "look good" for the public. That's not their job. They are there to sell a service/product: video games.

If they decide to give away the proceeds of the sales of this pet, fine.
To begrudge them the gesture because in your mind a "tax deduction" is all it is, well, ALL freakin' corporations get tax deductions for their generous donations.

What would you prefer? Cut the tax deductions, and have fewer corporations bother making donations?

[Nachtwulf]

Basically this. Blizzard doesn't -have- to do this. When was the last time you saw any other big game donating a penny? Halo? Call of Duty? Nope.

Sure, it's something that doesn't cost them a penny to offer (being a digital item with no 'real value'), but then again, they aren't keeping any of the money they get from the promotion, so you can't even call them on greed there. Blizzard doesn't even really need the PR much since most people are pretty happy with them anyway, and what's more, they don't have any catastrophic dirty laundry out there that they have to cover for. Sure, it's fine to be cynical if say, BP or Exxon or the Corn Syrup Manufacturers of America come out with some commercial going on about how they're donating millions to whatever, because that -is- likely to be a whitewashing ploy. But Blizzard? /Really/? What have they done that even -needs- whitewashing, on the scale of a major marketing blitz? Nothing, that's what. I don't even think they CAN, as a company. They're a GAME company, they don't melt down the environment or help make millions of people obese or have cancer. (Well, I guess inactivity can but if we weren't playing WoW, we'd probably still be parked somewhere playing something, so you can't lay that at their door.)

They had the pet designed and created, they were like 'hey, we can do this promo to get some people to donate when they might not otherwise' and are making it available to that end. Frankly, and it's an unfortunate thing yet true, that most of the time in our self-serving and entitled culture, that people just won't help another group unless there's something in it for them. If this is the 'something' that gets a bunch of WoW players to donate to a good cause, instead of burning it on a pizza, then I'm all for it.

As a side note, I'm a fan of boutique perfume oils. Most of the companies I know are also doing a donation drive for Red Cross... but not ONE of them is donating 100% proceeds. The best of them are doing about half, and the biggest is simply putting a really big price tag on the 'donation' blends so they don't eat into their bottom line.

[Wain]

In regards to the Cinder Kitten it's just a tax deduction. Think about it if they really wanted to help wouldn't they just have donated the day after? I watched a TED Talk yesterday from a guy who researched WoW's revenue, he said that it cost (in vanilla) 3 billion dollars total to make, but at 5 million subscribers they make that in a month, something tells me they aren't hurting for cash. This is just a tax deductible ploy to make them look good and hope that you buy something else while your in the store. I'm still buying one because it's cute, I can donate on my own.

Perhaps it wasn't intended that way, but it comes across as extremely, savagely cynical. Combined with the fact it's actually off-topic, it's probably best we leave it and get back to discussing the anniversary.

As far as I know there are no plans. Is there anything that's appeared in the Wowhead database that they could surprise us with? I guess there's a lot of new, unused pets, including the new red pandas. But currently I don't expect anything as there's now a precedent for not doing it every year. A bit sad given that there's a huge load of unused pet colours and they could just give out one. But then some people would say it was just a cheap, lazy reskin or something.

[Wain]

Well, the 8th anniversary reward is out, and it's not a pet or mount. Or anything physical, really.

It's an item that "Increases Experience and Reputation gains from kills by 8% for 1 hour".

For people who only play one or two mains this is probably like receiving a $5 gift voucher for your birthday. They didn't have to give anything, but sometimes it might be better not to :/

For people with a lot of unlevelled alts, it may not be bad.

Actually, $5 might not be a good comparison. "8%" is so frugally precise, a voucher for $5.33 might be more appropriate.

[Kalliope]

It's the same gift as last year - complete with last year's letter in the mail.

Honestly, the non-updated letter really bothers me. It would have been better not to have received a letter at all. Sure, the bonus is nice for alts, but it's the idea that Blizzard couldn't be bothered updating the message....

[Maizou]

I will say what I said on the official forums - it's not out of date.

From: The WoW Dev Team
Subject: WoW's 7th Anniversary!

Wow, yet another year has gone by for WoW!

Why yes, yes one has.

We wanted to thank you again for continuing to play World of Warcraft with us. With the return of a certain large dragon, this has been a rough year for the world of Azeroth. On the other hand, that means heroes like you are needed more than ever.

Why yes, Deathwing's return was crazy, but we managed to kill him. Now that the rough part of the year is over, we can start looking forward to the rest of the year.

Get out there and defend a shattered world!

Of course we'll defend it from the Horde/Alliance. That's what we do.

It's all about the context you read it in. Sure, it would have been nice to get a new letter. However, with 5.1 just around the corner, something tells me there were better things for the developers to be doing than to right up a new letter, and program it into the game instead of the old one.

People are massively over-reacting to the non-updated letter. (Not referring to you Kall, the official forums)

Though, I have to say: This isn't any less than past anniversaries. We got a pet for the 4th/5th, and pretty much nothing for the 6th. Last year was the same as this year. The forums are full of people mad at how little we got. It's like, really? I'd rather they spend their time making patches than doing anniversary items.

[Lisaara]

The non-updated letter bugs me too. I'm not gonna pitch a hissy fit over it, same with not getting a pet this year...but the least they could've done was update it.