Blizzard is betting you’ll spend $90 on the new Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur mount

While we’ve been admiring the Startouched Furline (12-month subscription mount) and the Coldflame Tempest (anniversary mount), Blizzard has rolled out another shiny new mount in World of Warcraft (retail): the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur. But unlike these other recent prizes, the new brutosaur costs cold hard cash, retailing for $90 USD in the shop.

That’s a big upsell from the typical store mount, which usually cost $25 USD (though the recent Grizzly Hills Packmaster was only $20). The cost includes one (sort of) unique perk: an auction house NPC, letting you check your auctions from anywhere. It’s the same setup we saw on the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur, which was available for 5,000,000 gold during Battle for Azeroth but is now gone — though you can sometimes find it on the Black Market Auction House for gold cap, or a billion gold (a little out of the average shopper’s price range).

Even at $90, this mount could be a reasonable purchase for the auction-hungry player. If you buy the mount with WoW Tokens, you’d spend about 1.2 million gold (depending on current Token costs, which are on the rise) — substantially less than the original Brutosaur. And this sleek, black brutosaur with golden armor is rather more attractive. But it’s still too rich for my blood.

When I first saw this mount, I laughed at the cost. Who would spend $90 for such a thing? The auction house is only a hearthstone away. But I’ve already seen the new Brutosaur all over Dornogal, particularly congregating outside of the auction house — whether for bragging rights or because players didn’t want to walk a few more steps, I’m not sure.

But this is part of a pattern of increasing “micro” transaction costs, particularly as Blizzard offers items with in-game benefits like a repair vendor (such as the Grizzly Hills Packmaster) or an auction house (such as this new brutosaur). We’ve balked at $25 Diablo 4 armor sets and discussed how microtransactions have impacted our gaming experience. Now we have a $90 mount to add to the conversation… and who can say what’s next.