World of Warcraft players won't stop making fun of its new cash shop fairy armor

World of Warcraft's cash shop is a contentious thing for World of Warcraft players. It features some extremely cool mounts at extremely high prices (averaging around $25 each) and some equally overpriced account services. Want to join your buds on a different server? That'll cost you another $25 on top of the base price for the game and its monthly subscription. But people won't stop making fun of its latest addition, an extremely colorful fairy costume complete with multicolored wings.

Called the Sprite Darter's Wings, this eight-piece costume set costs $20, but is free if you buy a six-month subscription (or currently have one). It's the first time Blizzard has ever sold armor sets in the cash shop, but I'm not sure what players hate more: the costume itself or the fact that you have to spend money to get it.

Since releasing yesterday, the trailer for the Sprite Darter's Wings has been downvoted on YouTube 17,000 times—far more than it has been upvoted—but I've also been having a laugh at all the memes mocking it on the WoW subreddit.

Let's help Blizz fund Shadowlands. from r/wow

Naturally, players are a little miffed that Blizzard is selling the costume instead of putting it into the game as something players can earn. Some of the most popular memes I've been seeing are targeting Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who makes a grossly high salary of $30 million.

Blizzard when they release yet another thing to the cash shop from r/wow
Hey kids! Wanna buy some transmogs? from r/wow

While players are used to a lot of the cash shop mounts looking extra pretty, a few have also pointed out how frustrating it is that most regular armor sets don't have special openings for characters with ears or horns—which is pretty much half of WoW's races—but the Sprite Darter's Wings does.

This. THIS is what makes this feel so bad. from r/wow
"Transmog restrictions exist for armor types because people might have trouble telling classes apart" from r/wow

Many of the top posts on the WoW subreddit are mocking the costume, but not everyone hates it. I've seen quite a few comments from the news post on the WoW website and in the forums of people downright excited to dress like a magical fairy. But it is pretty funny how such a harmless thing has caused such a stir in the community.

(Image credit: Blizzard)
Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.