Dear Blizzard,

Hi! It’s me, Michael. You know, that guy that plays the Paladin? Not that I’m bitter.

Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you on your recent and most cunning PR move. Your release of the World of Warcraft CCG seems to have gone as swimmingly as everything else associated with your Massive game. Not only are people excited to play the game, but the extremely rare in-game content offered up on some of the cards is being lapped up by the game-playing populace. Your walking-speed turtle mount, unique tabard, and EXTREMELY ADORABLE hippogriff pet are the most in-demand items (shock of all shocks).

The eBay market for these items has kersploded too. Actually looking on eBay, even non-in-game-item producing cards are fetching handsome prices. It’s actually quite brilliant! It totally reminds me of the early days of Magic:The Gathering. You should be proud that your game is so popular that people are paying hundreds of dollars for meaningless cosmetic changes. You should be proud that gamers are paying 2-5 bucks for a single piece of cardboard. It’s like the early 90s all over again.

Do you remember the early 90s, Blizzard? It was a dark time for nerds. I personally witnessed dozens of young men reduced to tears over terms like ‘Mox’ or ‘land’ or ’soulburn’. I witnessed otherwise perfectly normal young men ‘dealing’ magic cards in a bathroom stall. I witnessed hundreds of dollars (in real American currency) transformed magically into meaningless pieces of cardboard. It was a dark time for nerds.

But hey, I’m sure you’ve got only the best of intentions here. The additional addictive element of in-game items will almost certainly stop being interesting at some point. The prices on eBay will drop. Everything will go back to normal.

And, of course, there’s no plans for an expansion to the card game in the works. So … no worries.