With the super-premium mount in World of Warcraft, Blizzard has earned several million. Exactly how much can now be estimated.
In World of Warcraft, there are always minor controversies, but hardly any incident in the past months has attracted as much attention as a mount for a hefty 78€. For Blizzard, this seems to have paid off – as we now have data that allows us to roughly estimate how many people bought this luxury mount.
Which mount is being discussed? We are talking about the “Gold-Crafted Trader Brutosaur.” This mount appeared in the game’s shop at the end of October for the steep price of 78 € (or 90 $). This makes the mount more expensive than most full-price titles and even more expensive than a new WoW expansion.
Nevertheless, the mount apparently sold well, which is also due to its features. Because on the mount, there is not only a mailbox but also an auction house NPC, allowing players to access these services from anywhere in the game world.
Where do the data come from? The website “Data for Azeroth” regularly accesses the Blizzard API and can read a lot of data from World of Warcraft’s characters and accounts. This makes it possible to check the datasets against various criteria.
For example, one can check what percentage of accounts possess a specific mount. Since this query can also be performed with the “Gold-Crafted Trader Brutosaur,” we can calculate how much money this item has generated.
The answer: At least well over 4 million euros.
How is the value calculated? Data for Azeroth has currently recorded 1,156,260 accounts and finds that 5.3552% of all accounts own the mount “Gold-Crafted Trader Brutosaur.” This corresponds to 61,920 accounts. If you multiply this number by the cost of 78 €, it results in a handsome sum of 4,829,760 euros – or, if one takes the 90$ US cost for the mount as the calculation basis – a total of 5,572,800 $.
Are all accounts included? No. Data for Azeroth cannot include all accounts. For example, there is the possibility to disable account achievements for characters, and often not all data can be retrieved correctly.
How high the number of actually active WoW accounts in World of Warcraft: The War Within is, can only be guessed – but it will necessarily be larger than the dataset used here, which also completely omits the Asian region.
If one looks at other datasets for comparison, WoW should have significantly more players – which in turn would mean that the dino has made even more profit and could multiply the corresponding amount.
The actual number of sold trader dinos is likely much higher, so we can only calculate a minimum value here for how much revenue the mount has generated at least. Considering that the Christmas season has now begun, there will surely be one or another WoW fan who places the mount under their Winter Veil tree. Collectors of exclusive mounts can also rejoice – because a true fan favorite will soon return to the trading post.
