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Blizzard auctions off old server hardware for charity

by Mike Schramm on Oct 14th 2011 5:45AM

You can't actually own a piece of Azeroth, because the virtual World of Warcraft doesn't exist -- sorry, ThrallFan6969, it's true. But this is probably your closest chance to the fake thing: Blizzard is auctioning off a group of hardware server blades that were used to run the popular MMO in the past, so for a price you can own the circuits and silicon that served up all of those boars, dwarves, and elves.

All of the money raised in the auctions is going to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. All in all, about 2,000 server blades will be auctioned off, and you can even aim to buy one from a specific realm -- the hardware where your very own characters once resided! Each blade will be mounted in a windowed case adorned with the WoW logo, and the hardware displayed prominently.

The auctions start on October 17 (just a few days before BlizzCon), with sales occurring in four different rounds. Good luck!

Source: eBay
More coverage: WoW Insider

Tags: auction, blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, Cataclysm, charity, pc, world-of-warcraft, World-of-Warcraft-Cataclysm, wow

Reader Comments (16)

Neat - wish they would tell us more about the hardware itself, but guess that would just spark off a lot of technical snobbery about which unix is better. I guess they are using a partitioning setup by now.

@Chiren They don't seem like they're meant to be reused, so I wouldn't see the point in them giving the nitty gritty.

@Oddgirl The whole point is that these were part of WoW "history"! Why wouldn't collectors love the nitteh gritteh (no not THOSE Collectors)!

It makes inanimate objects more... interesting. It's all in the details...

Let me be the first to bid:

My life for Ner'zhul!

It's a great cause to participate in, but without being told a 'back story' on the server; I don't know how it would be worthwhile. I'd just donate the money to charity and tell Blizzard to just recycle. Nearly everyone wins.

@foxhound

@LaughingTarget

Oops, hit enter accidentally.

This is actually a situation where an auction sale makes sense for a charitable contribution. Other causes, like the Pink Ribbons on consumer products, have large overheads to recouperate costs, leaving little left over for charity. Since these server blades don't have back-end costs to recouperate as part of the production, the full amount auctioned can be contributed. Further, this also dips into a population that doesn't care much for charity but is willing to buy a part of the game for personal collections, expanding beyond the population willing to make direct contributions.

wouldn't it be nice and beautifully ironic if a private wow server snagged a couple of these for there server lol.

This makes up for the butt-ramming that will be Diablo 3 and then some.

The fact that big companies still donate money to charity and do things like this for charity restores some of my faith in humanity. Good job, Blizzard. You've won me back!

@Apsac D
Yeaah...Corporations only donate to try and balance out the public image of all the evil they do the rest of the time. May I present your post as evidence...lol

@(Unverified)

And because they get tax cuts doing that...

But nevertheless it's a good thing...

I'm a firm believer that if you donate something you'll get it back and then some more...

ANyone else wondering about the data that might be taken from these machines, i know the probably wipe them clean but the information might still be deep in there. Im just saying "DATA RECOVERY"

@emirabal

Yeah, I'm SURE they'll give you the hard drives with it....

I'd doubt it by looking at the image on their about page, but I'd like to know if the blades are actually still usable. I'd find it much more awesome to say I have a machine running on part of what used to be the official WoW servers than just mounting it on a wall or something in my apartment.

Azeroth IS real. I know it.

This may be my hoarderism talking but I wouldn't mind having owned one of those. I currently don't play the game anymore and don't plan on going back anytime soon, but I think I had my most fun during Vanilla WoW.

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Blizzard auctions off old server hardware for charity

Reader Comments (16)

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 5:59AM Chiren said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:23AM Oddgirl said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 11:28AM Mike DPad said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 6:17AM mistwolf said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 7:38AM foxhound said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 8:49AM LaughingTarget said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 8:54AM LaughingTarget said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 8:30AM Decanus said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 8:33AM Apsac D said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 2:14PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 6:42AM Ashkental said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 10:16AM emirabal said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 5:20PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 10:20AM Draken Stark said

Posted: Oct 14th 2011 11:06AM Skylord Wander said

Posted: Oct 15th 2011 9:08AM KinseySS said

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