Having seen the item on sale and then later today this thread I decided to log on in to Azeroth and see if it affected the game much. It seems so, for the first day of release I saw at least 20 players in various capital cities and the like toting these phat mounts. And they are phat, both proper land based speed and walking and amazing looking flying. Added to the fact they are spectral, something of which there is a fad, it makes them a very desirable mount.
aside
For those who don't play (and I am new to the game myself) anything usually that cool involves DAYS of game play (see Time-Lost Proto Drake). Often awesome content requires coordinated play between 10-25 players and that can again takes hours and hours to get to.
/aside
So given this and what has been said before, I feel Blizzard have been too contemptuous. The ccg was okay and offered in game stuffs with epic rare cards etc... so that required some effort (or ebay). But this is a flagrant way of cutting out the point of the game, which is to play it to get stuff. By allowing it to be okay just to stack up a wedge and get a great in-game reward, how is that different to buying an account from some one stacked with epics or skill. By Blizzard condoning what seems to basically farming rewards for ig rewards, it removes any leg they have to stand on when dealing with gold farmers and account sales. These are things every MMO works at least a little at to stop such things and now the people who run the game are doing the very thing they banned.
So i disagree with just having it for sale. I feel it should be achievable in-game.
That's it
Well almost...
...the mount is mega cool and I would love to have one but not at this price.
Also from WOW Head
RE Spectral Tiger
"Unlike other loot cards in WOW TCG sets 1 and 2, this loot item requires you to spend gold to acquire it. This is because the loot items are not supposed to affect gameplay by giving a player an advantage over another, thus, it merely unlocks the option to purchase a different mount rather than giving away a free mount."