I was cooling my heals in Dalaran on the weekend when I started to see a heap of people riding around on these glittery little ponies. While their appearance didn't do a whole lot for me -- in my opinion they look like someone attacked a little girls 'My Little Pony' with a supernatural bedazzler -- the achievement whore in me was curious.

What would I have to do to attain one of these sparkly mounts, and was there an achievement attached? Well... to score the Celestial Steed, as it's known, all you had to do was fork out $25 to Activision/Blizzard and join the download queue. Blizzard have been selling in-game vanity pets for a little while, which doesn't really bother me, but mounts? This is taking things to the next level. When I first heard about it, my first reaction was, 'who in their right mind would pay $25 for a digital flying horse?'

Based on conservative estimates, Blizzards Celestial Steed experiment will be quite profitable. ITWorld estimate that "Actvision-Blizzard are hauling in $2.5 million/hour for an item that costs them pennies to produce (basically the cost of processing the user's credit card and the bandwidth it takes to download the mount) once the cost of designing and implementing the item is covered." At one point WoW.com reported that the download queue for the Celestial Steed had hit

So what's so special about the Celestial Steed? The mount will operate at whatever level of riding skill you've trained. It will switch between being a normal ground mount or a flying mount depending on where you are. It will also allow you to travel at 310% speed provided that you have at least one other 310% mount. Apparently it also pops up in the mail box of all your characters, so in theory you'd never need to buy -- in game -- and other mount again.

Blizzard have also said that any pet or mount you buy will count toward relevant achievements:

These Pet Store pets and the mount will count toward the total number of pets or mounts a character has for achievements like Plethora of Pets, Lil' Game Hunter, or Leading the Cavalry.

The Celestial Steed doesn't really give one player an advantage over another -- although you could try and argue that by spending real world dollars you are saving in game dollars through not having to buy any other mounts -- so that's not really an issue for me. The problem I have with selling the mount is the potential for where this could all end up.

First, by allowing players to buy 'cool' -- whether or not the steed is 'cool' or not is a matter of opinion -- stuff outside of the game using real world money could potentially open the flood gates for a whole host of other real world transactions for in game reward type arrangements. Hopefully this isn't going to be the case, but if Blizzard ever start selling in game gear uprgrades (or anything else that'll give one player and advantage of another) for money, then they can kiss my monthly subscription goodbye.

Second, the apparent success Blizzard have had with selling the Steed effectively gives them the green light to withhold new, innovative, content from the bulk of the player base, and only make it available to those willing to pay a premium for it. Let's face it, $25 is a relatively hefty sum -- and equivalent to more than a months game time -- for what is basically an interesting new vanity style item. Imagine how much they could charge if there was an added benefit. How much would players be willing to pay for an in game item that allowed them to earn 200% XP all the time? If a lame looking pony sells for $25, a ring that lets you level from 1-80 in half the time would have to be worth $50-$75 minimum?

In my opinion, the Celestial Steed is a farely lame looking cop out. It's not something a player has earned through feats of in game greatness (or even luck). When I see someone riding a Steed around, I'm not in awe, I just feel kind of sorry for them.

There's nothing rare or unique going on, besides the fact that someone was able to be convinced that dropping $25 on what amounts to a digital, imaginary, horse.

I guess, what I'm getting at, in a very round about way, is that, how people spend there money is their own business. If they want to buy a sparkly little pony to ride around in game, that's there business, but if one day, Blizzard start selling sparkly ponies that give that player an advantage over someone like myself -- who doesn't want a sparkly pony -- then that's when I'll have to go back to playing Halo.