There are plenty more possibilities as to why the value has crashed on the companion pets, but I wouldn't expect the value to return to where they were pre-MoP. So this is more proof and more warnings to cut your losses because the companion pet market is no longer a good market to invest in.
Companion Pet Price Data Tables
Here are a few tables of data detailing the price drops for WoW companion Pets. This is just a few of the major companion pet markets because I didn't want to bore you with a post with tons of tables in it, but the results are almost identical across all of the pet markets. The holiday pets are far worse than any market though as some have lost 90% of their value already. Squashlings were 8 gold the other day on my server! I'm so glad I unloaded mine for 600-800 gold each a few months ago when I warned everyone to do the same!
Chart Data
Jun 1 - The average price across all servers on June 1st, 2012.
MoP - The average price across all servers on September 25th, the MoP launch date.
Now - The average price as of today or yesterday.
Change Since Jun 1 - The % change in price from June 1st.
Change Since MoP - The % change in price since MoP launched.
I chose June 1st as a baseline reference because it was one of the historical dates still archived on TUJ and it was near the beginning of summer. Many of these pets saw an increase in price from the months leading up to MoP. This most likely can be attributed to people stocking up on pets to flip as well as collector's filling out their pet rosters prior to the Battle Pet launch. Normally this would have been a wise move, but as the data shows, stocking up early actually cost extra gold because almost every single pet is cheaper now.
Argent Tournament Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
Average Price Across All EU WoW Servers
Dragon Whelpling Companion Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
Average Price Across All EU Servers
3 Popular Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
Average Price Across All EU Servers
Originally I thought the Dragon Whelpling Pets would have performed better since they are some of the best Battle Pets for pet battling, but they are seeing the same price drops as all of the other pets.
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The Biggest Losers In MoP: Companion Pets
With the Launch of Mists of Pandaria also came the beginning of the Battle Pet era. Originally the Battle Pet addition to WoW sounded like a great way to make even more gold off of the companion pets that had been so lucrative during previous WoW expansions. That was after the initial Battle Pet announcement, but as we started to learn more and more about the details of the Battle Pet System, my opinion started to drastically change.
As soon as we learned that duplicate Battle Pets from multiple alts would be refunded back to us (then changed to be added to our Pet Journal), I started unloading my pets in droves, especially the holiday pets. Remember my post Pet Battles & Pet Flipping: Get Our While You Still Can? I hope you took my advice and didn't listen to the others telling you to stock up on companion pets to flip at a later date.
Originally, I thought the same, but as the details rolled out, I warned you to dump your pets here on the blog, on both of the podcasts I am on. It turns out, I was correct. While some pets saw a slight increase in the average price over the weeks leading up to the expansion, as soon as MoP launched companion pets across the board have been on a decline ever since. Some of the companion pets have taken a huge plunge in value, especially the Holiday pets since everyone got a ton of them refunded back into their pet journals from all of their alts. For example the Sinister Squashling has lost 90% of its value since the Battle Pet system launched.
The Companion Pet Market Crash
There are many factors that have contributed to the collapse in value of the WoW companion pet markets. The overall pricing discrepencies between battle pets and companion pets is only one of the contributing factors. Here are a few more reasons that prices have come crashing down on companion pets.
- Refunded duplicate pets - The flood of pets from alts lead to plenty of flooding and price drops.
- You don't need to purchase pets to complete achievements - The pet achievements can be completed by capturing wild pets without wasting gold.
- Pet Battles are not as fun as expected. - It's another archeology type grind to get a pet to level 25.
- Anyone can sell pets on any server. - There can be more competition from other servers listing on your server too.
- Wild pets can be better quality than the purchased non-rare pets. - Why buy a white pet, when you can get a green or blue one in the wild?
- Pre-Leveled Pets - Why buy a level 1 companion pet when you can buy a higher level Battle Pet?
Companion Pet Price Data Tables
Here are a few tables of data detailing the price drops for WoW companion Pets. This is just a few of the major companion pet markets because I didn't want to bore you with a post with tons of tables in it, but the results are almost identical across all of the pet markets. The holiday pets are far worse than any market though as some have lost 90% of their value already. Squashlings were 8 gold the other day on my server! I'm so glad I unloaded mine for 600-800 gold each a few months ago when I warned everyone to do the same!
Chart Data
Jun 1 - The average price across all servers on June 1st, 2012.
MoP - The average price across all servers on September 25th, the MoP launch date.
Now - The average price as of today or yesterday.
Change Since Jun 1 - The % change in price from June 1st.
Change Since MoP - The % change in price since MoP launched.
I chose June 1st as a baseline reference because it was one of the historical dates still archived on TUJ and it was near the beginning of summer. Many of these pets saw an increase in price from the months leading up to MoP. This most likely can be attributed to people stocking up on pets to flip as well as collector's filling out their pet rosters prior to the Battle Pet launch. Normally this would have been a wise move, but as the data shows, stocking up early actually cost extra gold because almost every single pet is cheaper now.
Argent Tournament Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Ammen Vale Lashling | 4217 | 4787 | 3572 | -15.3% | -25.4% |
| Dun Morogh Cub | 4375 | 4398 | 3532 | -19.3% | -19.7% |
| Durator Scorpion | 5118 | 5115 | 3698 | -27.8% | -27.8% |
| Elwynn Lamb | 4185 | 4168 | 3128 | -25.3% | -25.0% |
| Enchanted Broom | 5239 | 4970 | 4305 | -17.9% | -13.4% |
| Mechanopeep | 4191 | 4448 | 3352 | -20.1% | -24.7% |
| Mulgore Hatchling | 4702 | 5020 | 3542 | -24.7% | -29.5% |
| Sen'jin Fetish | 4829 | 5616 | 3722 | -23.0% | -33.8% |
| Teldrassil Sproutling | 4124 | 4485 | 3993 | -3.2% | -11.0% |
| Tirisfal Batling | 4418 | 4915 | 3676 | -16.8% | -25.2% |
Average Price Across All EU WoW Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Ammen Vale Lashling | 5144 | 4942 | 3584 | -30.3% | -27.5% |
| Dun Morogh Cub | 5542 | 4637 | 3861 | -30.4% | -16.7% |
| Durator Scorpian | 6525 | 5379 | 4346 | -33.4% | -19.3% |
| Elwynn Lamb | 4893 | 4757 | 4033 | -17.6% | -15.2% |
| Enchanted Broom | 5639 | 5814 | 4697 | -16.7% | -19.2% |
| Mechanopeep | 5309 | 4496 | 3895 | -26.6% | -13.4% |
| Mulgore Hatchling | 5419 | 5049 | 4824 | -11.0% | -4.5% |
| Sen'jin Fetish | 5556 | 5559 | 4615 | -17.0% | -17.0% |
| Teldrassil Sproutling | 5012 | 4529 | 3665 | -26.9% | -19.1% |
| Tirisfal Batling | 5792 | 5503 | 4471 | -22.8% | -18.8% |
Dragon Whelpling Companion Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Azure Whelpling | 17823 | 24618 | 15193 | -14.8% | -38.3% |
| Dark Whelpling | 7206 | 7000 | 5427 | -24.7% | -22.5% |
| Tiny Crimson Whelpling | 23254 | 23046 | 14569 | -37.3% | -36.8% |
| Tiny Emerald Dragonling | 12752 | 13268 | 10848 | -15.0% | -18.2% |
Average Price Across All EU Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Azure Whelpling | 21258 | 24130 | 15228 | -28.4% | -36.9% |
| Dark Whelpling | 8425 | 6653 | 5003 | -40.6% | -24.8% |
| Tiny Crimson Whelpling | 24093 | 21231 | 13557 | -43.7% | -36.1% |
| Tiny Emerald Dragonling | 15046 | 13270 | 10474 | -30.4% | -21.1% |
3 Popular Pets
Average Price Across All US Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Captured Firefly | 10136 | 13023 | 9854 | -2.8% | -24.3% |
| Disgusting Oozeling | 10050 | 10742 | 8911 | -11.3% | -17.0% |
| Guardian Cub | 8717 | 8906 | 7523 | -13.7% | -15.5% |
Average Price Across All EU Servers
| Pet | Jun 1 | MoP | Now | Change Since Jun 1 | Change Since MoP |
| Captured Firefly | 17266 | 15591 | 10628 | -38.4% | -31.8% |
| Disgusting Oozeling | 13722 | 12694 | 11125 | -19.0% | -12.4% |
| Guardian Cub | 14269 | 14915 | 13994 | -2.0% | -6.2% |
Originally I thought the Dragon Whelpling Pets would have performed better since they are some of the best Battle Pets for pet battling, but they are seeing the same price drops as all of the other pets.
How screwed are you with these drops in prices?
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Very interesting data on how much the prices have changed since MoP. I was lucky enough to catch your post about getting out of the pet market in time to liquidate most of my supplies before the bottom fell out. The only pets I had left were a few opposite faction pets that didn't sell. So I would have to say I lost probably 500 gold on these investment pets. However, I have been buying a lot of the cheap AH pets, since I enjoy collecting pets and pet battles.
ReplyDeleteI was able to liquidate some, but not all of the pets I had stockpiled. What I have left I've found have been nice Thank You gifts for the few farmers I seem to employ. At this point they're a sunk cost so what happens to them doesn't really matter to me.
ReplyDeleteI do have hopes some of the rarer pets will rebound. Maybe not to old prices, but to profit making levels again. There will always be a small market for actual pet collectors that don't necessarily want to battle with them.
I've taken the opposite approach. I did stock up on a few of the rare pets pre-MoP and I'll be lucky to get back what I paid on those. However after MoP I've been stocking up on any pets that I feel are way underpriced. To date I've invested about 150k into pets. I really have no idea if I'll make it back or not but I have to believe that Fox Kits, Giant Sewer Rats, Archeology pets, and Crawdads under 500g is too low and should be able to be flipped for a lot more once prices stabilize a bit. What's really hurting my ability in this market is the lack of pricing data. With no prices available on TUJ or Wowauction I'm completely flying blind on my pricing, both buying and selling. Also the fact that TSM accouting just lists all caged pets as "Pet cage" doesn't help me figure out my pricing either. I really wish I would have written down what I paid for each pet so I could set effective thresholds.
ReplyDelete