DotA 2's Pink Courier Earns $38,000 For Its Vendor

[Karloff]

DotA 2's Pink Courier Earns $38,000 For Its Vendor

How much is that doggy in the window? The one with the one-of-a-kind skin?

Defense of the Ancients 2 uses couriers to pick up loot and cart it about the map so your hero doesn't have to, but it turns out that the courier can be worth some pretty sweet real world loot in its own right. An Enduring War Dog courier - worth about $11.99 in the store - sold for $38,000, and for why? Because it was pink and had an Enduring Flame particle effect, that's why.

Pink is big business in DotA 2. Time was, it was a rare randomly assigned effect, something that you didn't often see but which you could, theoretically, pick up for yourself if you got really lucky. Those days are done, and now you can only get a courier with one of ten preselected colors. Guess which color isn't on the magic list? Plus the Ethereal Flame - oo, sparkly [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXgN-n5ilk] - is itself a rare effect, something you might get 1 or 2% of the time from a treasure chest drop. Rare effect plus color you can't get any more equals Ridiculous Cash, at least in DotA 2's world.

The vendor put this auction up on Reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/Dota2Trade/comments/1q0kxp/auction_ef_pink_war_dog_191_78_123_with_bo/] just a day ago, with a reserve of $38,000 and an ending date for the auction of 16th November. In less than 24 hours, the reserve had been met. "I think [your buyout] is lower than peoples' expectation," said one Reddit commentator. If $38,000 for a glowing pink mutt is low, the Ancients only know what high is.

Source: Wired [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/got-38000-burning-a-hole-in-your-pocket-why-not-buy-a-dota-2-courier-with-it/]


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[Me55enger]

Preposterously Pricey Posh Pink Power Pooch.

 

[james.sponge]

This is bad, now people will beg and valve will add more rare particle effects to the game instead of actually finishing it.

 

[castlewise]

Thats a whole years worth of paycheck

 

[synobal]

Thats a whole years worth of paycheck

The guy who sold it lives in Brazil that is like a new house there. I think it is awesome.

 

[FancyNick]

Holy god. I hope he plays a LOT of support.

 

[Flatfrog]

Our society deserves to tumble into the dust from whence it came.

 

[Flatfrog]

Our society deserves to tumble into the dust from whence it came.

Why? Because you don't approve of what other people spend their money on?

Yes. In this case I'll come out and say that straight. Spending that much money on an artificially rarefied virtual object in a game is a fucking disgrace. That's a decent year's salary spunked away on something that doesn't even have any value within the game itself above and beyond its own rareness. I genuinely think they should be ashamed of themselves and I don't care how judgmental that makes me sound.

And before you ask, yes, I would say the same about paying millions for an original Picasso. Rareness in itself is a shitty reason to attach value to something.

 

[Ympulse]

And before you ask, yes, I would say the same about paying millions for an original Picasso. Rareness in itself is a shitty reason to attach value to something.

What you describe is the basis for the barter and trade system, which all of human commerce is based upon. Just saying.

 

[Weaver]

To whomever bought this: I'm in some financial trouble right now, would you care to help me out?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Our society deserves to tumble into the dust from whence it came.

I don't quite agree.

The buyer seems to have a lot of dem monies. The seller might not have had much money, luck or anything up to this point. If the buyer finds it easy to cough up 38k for a digital pink pony thing, it really isn't up for you or me to judge or condemn.

Just look at the latest Humble Bundle. Last time I checked, the average people paid was around five bucks. I paid a bit more, since I want big name corps to not write it off as a futile experiment not to be repeated. A few folks threw several thousand bucks at it. Do you think that is wrong? I doubt they threw 2k at WB. Humble Bundle is, after all, a business that needs to pay bills. And there's the charity bit.

Money as a concept isn't wrong at all. People suck in general, but not all of them do. And assholes come in many shapes and colours, be they rich or poor.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Our society deserves to tumble into the dust from whence it came.

Don't worry about that, mate. It's largely inevitable. We'd be wallowing pathetically in our own rapidly collecting grave dust just like Japan currently is, if it weren't for immigration. Eventually things will deteriorate to the point that people won't even want to go to the effort of immigrating, and then the game will be well and truly up.

But once you properly grasp the futility of our continued existence, why not spend an outrageous amount of money on a stupid glowing pink puppy?

We're already doomed, anyway.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

People paying these insane amounts of money for in game virtual items make me ever realize how poor I really am.

Thanks games industry. :|

 

[Flatfrog]

If the buyer finds it easy to cough up 38k for a digital pink pony thing, it really isn't up for you or me to judge or condemn.

Just look at the latest Humble Bundle. Last time I checked, the average people paid was around five bucks. I paid a bit more, since I want big name corps to not write it off as a futile experiment not to be repeated. A few folks threw several thousand bucks at it. Do you think that is wrong? I doubt they threw 2k at WB. Humble Bundle is, after all, a business that needs to pay bills. And there's the charity bit.

I was expecting a massive flaming for my previous post and was surprised to find it treated so... respectfully. I'm grateful for that.

Regarding your response - I think this pretty much makes my point. If you're going to spend that much money and it comes that easily to you, couldn't you give it to charity? I mean, sure, the guy you bought it off is going to be very happy with his windfall so I'm glad for him, but to exchange those sums for a digital rarity just seems to me to be buying into and encouraging a culture of creating scarcity for scarcity's sake.

It seems to me that geek culture has been too willing to embrace this notion, and publishers have been very quick to exploit it. So from a world where toys and collectibles were cheap first editions that people bought and threw away and only became valuable in retrospect because they led to well-loved franchises (eg first edition X-Men comics or boxed Transformers toys), we've got to the stage where publishers and toy-makers are deliberately creating 'collectable' rarities purely for the purpose of investment.

I really think we shouldn't buy into this. Let things become valuable for what they are; for their own beauty or because we love and cherish them. Not because someone deliberately chose to make them rare.