World of Warcraft made $15 million off of one mtx mount, proving players will pay for convenience

Modified Jan 31, 2025 17:17 IST

World of Warcraft mount — The Trader's Gilded Brutosaur really cleaned up in World of Warcraft - over $15M in sales for just one mount (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

When World of Warcraft revealed the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur mount, there was quite a wide variety of responses. Most of them were disgusted, with forum comments like the mount was “Out of touch with the playerbase in mount form”, or "shameless corporate greed". It was and still is, the most expensive mount ever offered on the real-money shop for WoW players. Technically, there are other, more expensive mounts, but those require a year-long subscription to the game and aren't purchasable with a microtransaction.

While the official numbers from Blizzard haven’t been released, thanks to data from Data for Azeroth and Raider.io, it’s being suggested that the mount made somewhere in the neighborhood of $15M, just for that one World of Warcraft mount. It’s such a ridiculous thing, but it’s not too surprising.

Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflects the writer's opinion.

Not everyone was a fan of this mount (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

World of Warcraft’s Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur cleared $15M for just that one mount

Wowhead crunched the numbers for this expensive World of Warcraft mount, based on the data from Data for Azeroth and Raider.io, and determined it made somewhere in the neighborhood of $15M. Keep in mind that this Data for Azeroth only accounts for players who actively upload their data to the site — with that in mind, it could wind up being so much more.

$90 is a pretty serious investment for just one microtransaction (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

So what’s the story behind this expensive World of Warcraft mount? The Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur was available for a limited time and cost $90 — somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 CAD. That’s easily the most expensive mount that Blizzard has ever offered their players. But what did it do that made it worthwhile?

In addition to simply being a cool-looking mount, it features an Auction House and Mail Facilities simply by having the mount active. You can do all of your Auction House selling on the go, without ever having to go back to town. This mount did so well for a few reasons. The first, being obvious, it’s incredibly convenient. This is the kind of item you see in pay-to-win South Korean MMOs.

It feels incredibly pay-to-win, even though it’s not. It’s certainly pay-for-convenience, though. On top of that, it’s a version of another mount that’s technically not in the game anymore — unless you count the Black Market — home to some of the coolest mounts in World of Warcraft.

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The Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur is a version of the Reins of the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur — which was the first, and only mount with an Auction House — until the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur anyway. The Mighty Caravan Brutosaur cost 5M gold in-game, and that’s the typical starting price on the Black Market as well.

However, neither is available anymore in-game, through normal means. Seeing a mount make this much money all on its own tells me we can probably expect stuff like this in the future.

While I don’t begrudge anyone who bought the mount — it’s your money/life after all — it’s a ridiculous asking price for real-world convenience. It’s not going to ruin the game, and it’s not the end of the game as we know it.

It just means we can probably expect other expensive, useful mounts/items sometime in the future. Whether you paid up due to FOMO, or you legitimately feel like it was worth the money, I imagine it won’t be too long before we see something similar pop up for a limited time once again.

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Edited by Jito Tenson