A while ago, Blizzard resurrected the 
Reins of the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur mount from Battle for Azeroth in the form of 
Reins of the Trader’s Gilded Brutosaur, a store mount with a hefty $90 price tag.
While the mount can no longer be purchased, you can imagine just how popular it was thanks to its Auction House + Mailbox function!
According to player research from Reddit user ViiPeZzZ, combined with data from Data for Azeroth, 18.38% of all currently active WoW accounts have purchased the mount. item!
Data for Azeroth reports 1,187,832 active WoW accounts, meaning roughly 218,365 players may have purchased the mount. If all those purchases were made directly with real money, not with converted gold or Battle.net balance, that totals a potential $19.65 million in revenue from just ONE digital item!
18.38% of accounts own the AH-Store mount which has earned Blizzard USD $19.6 million
byu/ViiPeZzZ inwow
A Look at the Numbers
Here’s the math behind the estimate:
- Total accounts: 1,187,832
- Ownership percentage: 18.38%
- Estimated buyers: ~218,365
- Price per mount: $90
- Total revenue: ~$19,652,850
For comparison, an annual subscription across those same 1.18 million accounts would generate between $185-213 million per year, depending on the billing cycle chosen (yearly vs monthly).
Data Caveats and Community Commentary
It’s worth noting that this is a conservative estimate. The Reddit thread discussing the data points out that the Data for Azeroth site doesn’t track all players, so the actual number of mount owners, and therefore Blizzard’s earnings, may be even higher.
Additionally, some users may have used in-game gold to convert to Battle.net balance, avoiding out-of-pocket spending.
Keep in mind that retail WoW probably has more active subscribers than just the 1,187,832 tracked by Data for Azeroth. One year ago, a Reddit post discussed subscriber numbers across all Warcraft titles and the estimate was closer to 7.25 million across all Warcraft games.
Final Thoughts
The Brutosaur mount highlights just how far Blizzard can push premium shop items—and how willing players are to pay for utility. Given its success, it’ll be interesting to see what Blizzard has next in store for us (no pun intended).
