Brawlers Guild Blues

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 11:59 AM

With the introduction of patch 5.1 another controversial new content comes to the forefront of Warcraft players.

The Brawlers Guild is an invite only club that players are drooling to belong too.   As a gold goblin supreme anytime that there is a lot of interest in something,  the gears in my head start to grind (it's a big hamster making that wheel turn around in my noggin).

But for one of the few times in JMTC history,  I'm staying out of this battle.   Not just on a personal level but also on a gold making level.  Let me give you my logic and see how you feel.

The biggest complaint about the Brawlers Guild is that the invitations will be only available on the Black Market Auction House.  This means that there is an expectation that the first invitations will go for large amounts of gold.    There has been supposition that the first invites could go for hundreds of thousands of gold,  even the thought that it might hit half a million gold.   For any gold goblin that's a big investment.

Lets go back into history about a little invite only project during the early 00's.   A search engine with the odd name of Google wanted to become an email portal that challenged the big kids on the block at the time (Hotmail,  Yahoo) for email dominance.  While they were in beta they would allow a limited amount of people to try the system,  each of those people were given a set amount of invitations for others.  You could go on many tech sites and see advertisements of people wanting Gmail account invites,  offering real money for access.   10, 20, 50 dollars were not unheard of in the first 6 months of the Gmail project.

Then people started seeing how to jinx the system.   A person would advertise on Craigs list that he had 100 invitations for Gmail to give away.   The person had taken his 10 invites,  giving away 9 of them and then creating a new account on the 10th to give away another 9.   Others would do this and so the 'newness' and exclusivity of Gmail came tumbling down.   The dollars that people were making dried up because only the gullible would now spend money on something they could get for free.

Many servers have guardian angels that will do enchants,  craft glyphs for the AH at next to nothing,  collapsing the market.   The same thing will occur with Brawlers Guild invites.   The first couple of Guild invites will become valuable.  But very quickly the cost will drop to nothing once one of the guardian angels on a server get a hold of an invite.   One player who gives an invite will cause an avalanche of invites to guilds and to players.   So paying a large amount of gold to be one of the first to get an invite will get a big surprise when the 'exclusive' club is not so exclusive anymore.

Also remember that with the Brawlers Guild there is no new gear.  There is no upgrades to your weapons or items itself.  This is a fight club simply for the sake of personal recognition and a few achievements.  So once the newness wears off,  there will be less demand for requests for new invites.  Less opportunities for sales always makes a Gold Goblin sob in their beer.

At any point Blizzard might change their mind and set a specific cost to enter the Brawlers guild.   Similar to paying for epic flight (yes,  the 5000g version) without any type of invite system would still allow fewer opportunities to enter the Guild.  This would retain the exclusivity of the Brawlers Guild while not making the requirements for entry earth shattering.   Players would pay the same to be holding a golden ticket  for entry as others down the road. This would make more sense to give a sense of specialness for the invite without the need to be fleecing everyone for a little bit more gold.

Keep this in mind if you start to think that picking up and selling Brawler's guild invites is going to be a whirlwind investment.  At first you may make a lot of gold.  But one nice player offering free invites will kill your market in a heartbeat.  So let the buyer beware and keep a close eye on your invitations.   Remember the first rule of Fight Club.

We do not talk about Fight Club.

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

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