We cannot seem to get through a day on PC Gamer right now without someone on the team mentioning Moo Deng, the adorable pygmy hippo that has certifiably taken over the internet. Everyone's trying to get their Moo Deng fix, and it seems that Final Fantasy 14 players are no different.
As spotted by GamesRadar, it seems one of the MMO's minions, the Hippo Calf, has skyrocketed in price in recent weeks. It's a random drop during Vanaspati, a level 84 dungeon in the Endwalker expansion. Twitter user Cerulean posted two screenshots comparing the price of the minion on Japanese server Tonberry—one right as Moo Deng's popularity was taking off, and one from last week as folk were in the throes of hippo hype.
The price had gone from a respectable 10,000 to 30,000 gil—which is a dang decent price for a minion that randomly drops from a relatively recent dungeon—climbing up to 100,000 gil before more recent listings had it just shy of an eye-watering 300,000 gil.
- Alas, it's been estimated that WoW's $90 FOMO dinosaur mount probably made Blizzard around $15-17 million, and at this point I think we all deserve to be here
- Final Fantasy 14 is, you guessed it, still making bank for Square Enix as Dawntrail rakes in the big bucks, though it might not be all sunshine and tacos
Power of Moo Deng pic.twitter.com/fWkOFSRTxOSeptember 24, 2024
I went and had a gander on my own server and was surprised to find not a single Hippo Calf on sale, though price history showed me that players were forking out over 100,000 gil to add one to their roster of minions. I tried to peep Universalis, a popular market board tool for tracking item prices across servers, but it unfortunately only keeps track of the last week of data.
Over the last seven days on Europe's servers, prices dipped around as low as 45,000 gil, while one (I presume) Moo Deng fanatic shilling out nearly 340,000 gil to get their hands on one. Out of interest I also checked out the other sellable dungeon minions from Endwalker—the Wind-up Magus Sisters has been going for anywhere from 28,000 gil to 70,000 this last week, while the more popular Wind-up Anima finds itself comfortably in the 90,000 to 130,000 gil range.
So while it's common for minions to fetch a high price, Cerulean's screenshots really do seem to perfectly line up with Moo Deng's rise to stardom. Whatever the reason for the Great Hippo Calf Inflation of 2024, I'm blaming Square Enix on this one. It capitalised on Moo Deng's fame with an utterly adorable short video of the minion on Twitter, having a big ol' yawn while being splashed with some water.
The quote tweets were, as planned, drawing comparisons between the two. This is your fault Square Enix, and I think you should give everyone a free Hippo Calf to say sorry. At least bump the drop RNG a wee bit more in my favour so I don't lose my mind running Vanaspati 100 times just to get the lil guy.
