// KOTAKU — GAMING
Blizzard’s Got A Serious Scalping Problem On Its Hands
On day 0 of BlizzCon 2026—like, the Friday before the event when you could pick up your badge but there was no con going on yet—the line for the Blizzard merch store was several hours long. It snaked all over the hall. I have friends who stood in it for two, three hours, just for the opportunity to spend money. I saw that line at about 3pm, said “Nope” out loud to myself, and left.
Then, one of my friends who was in the line sent me a photo of a con-goer who had obtained this item:
Comfy Cozy Pepe Plush (2026) byu/Prodigy7594 inblizzcon
Oh! That’s Pepe! The little orange bird friend from World of Warcraft whom I love! I have a little Pepe of my own at home, yes. But my Pepe is not wearing a cozy little fur cloak and holding a tiny cup of cocoa and marshmallows like this one is. I’m rarely one to be swayed by merchandise, but I asked my friend to grab me one if he saw one when he got to the front of the line. Obviously, by the time he did, they were sold out.
I initially brushed this off. Pepe is very popular, obviously many people would want to purchase one, and I didn’t need more plushes lying around. But as BlizzCon went on, it became increasingly apparent that BlizzCon, and Blizzard more broadly, is developing a serious scalper problem. And worse, Blizzard itself isn’t doing all that much to curb it.
First Blizzcon recap/review byu/BlankWall0 inblizzcon
Part of the problem is the exclusivity of many items you could obtain from BlizzCon. As I said, Pepe himself selling out isn’t shocking. He’s very well-loved. It’s irritating to see several of him listed as sold on eBay for as much as $155 when, at the show, he only cost around $30, but I’ll get over that. But lots of other, far more egregious resales are going on, empowered by artificial scarcity. For instance, BlizzCon includes an event called the Darkmoon Faire. The Darkmoon Faire is popular and has a limited capacity, so you have to stand in a long line to get into it. Once inside, the Faire is full of activities, freebies, a bustling hub of pin trading and collecting, and more things to buy. For instance, there’s a duck pond where you first have to purchase a ticket, then wait in line to use it, then use a fishing rod to catch a random duck from a pond, then—if you happened to get a duck with a star on it—you get a code for an exclusive World of Warcraft in-game pet.
So let me recap that again: you have to buy a BlizzCon pass, stand in the long line to get into BlizzCon, then stand in another really long line for the Darkmoon Faire, then make a purchase, then stand in another really long line, all for a random chance at getting a robotic duck in World of Warcraft that you can’t get anywhere else. Oh, yeah, and codes for these ducks are all over eBay, with actual sales as high as $600 just for this pet. You’ve got to be kidding me!
Let’s think about Pepe again real quick: also in the Darkmoon Faire, there’s a $30 plushie blind box you can stand in line to buy that includes one of eight different plush toys, including Pepe. Blind boxes are nothing new, but purchasers also had a random chance to receive a code with their box for another pet: a flying axolotl. These, too, are selling on eBay for as much as $500 a pop! What are we doing here? Why is this a gacha game?
This is, as far as we know, the only way there is or ever will be to get any of these pets. And look, World of Warcraft pets have been somewhat of a meme for years. People who love them love them, but a lot of players just ignore them, as they don’t really have much function outside of aesthetics and a silly, Pokémon-like battle system that’s fully optional to ever engage with. But it still sucks that for people who do care about such things, these pets are locked behind not just an event ticket purchase, but also multiple lines, another purchase, and random chance. The natural result of this is that people with cash to burn are absolutely going to slurp up as many as they can, take them home, and rese