sliderider wrote:There's also a difference between paying for a piece of vintage hardware that you are going to actually use and one that you are going to hang on the wall.
Again, that's your personal preference. You seem to prefer hardware that is ready to use and can actually be used. I like doing that as well, I've got a lot of working retro stuff, hooked up and ready to go.
But everybody prefers different things and just because you personally don't have any connection to this particular piece of hardware, doesn't mean that anybody who does and pays more for it than you would, is getting ripped of.
The fact of the matter is that everyone who bought one of these servers got ripped off for the purpose of boosting Blizzards bottom line.
I collect old PC DOS games in their original box. I've got two shelves full, takes up a whole lot of space and constantly eats holes in my wallet.
Some people, when finding out how much I paid for some of these games, tell me that I'm stupid because many of these titles are available from websites like gog for next to nothing. Strictly looking at the games themselves, my boxed collection doesn't offer anything that the downloads don't already do. It's just a sentimental value or nostalgia that makes me spend the extra cash to put them in the shelf for collecting dust after I installed them.
I honestly don't think that Blizzard made this whole thing to get a couple 100 grand in additional tax refunds. For what? They make insane amounts of money with WoW, which makes that money look like nothing.
Tell me, would you prefer to have them make these servers available to the public via auction for the same price and conditions but without giving the money to charity? That would've been more honest (assuming your tax deduction theory is correct), but it certainly wouldn't have brought any money to the charity.
To me this was pure fanservice from Blizzard. I completely agree with you, that there is no way in hell, that a 2005 HP BL25P blade server is worth more than...what...75$?...and anyone paying significantly more is being ripped off (or braindead if they spend 1000$+). However, you can't put a number on an item with sentimental value to someone, no matter how useless, outdated or "overpriced" it might seem. People collect, and pay handsomely for, all kinds of useless crap.
It's a really nice thing that Blizzard did for the fans. And I've not really seen anyone else do something like this. Usually old hardware goes right in the junk, which is often a damn shame. Auctioning these off and giving the money to charity is nice, even though I don't like much of what Blizzard does these days.
Sorry for writing so much 😉
maddmaxstar wrote:I hate WoW personally, but I still think this is cool. In 10-20 years from now, if kept in it's original state or close to it, the value of an "Original authentic WoW server blade" is only going to rise, and even if it was a shameless ripoff for tax reasons, St. Jude's still gets paid. Think of it as the Hospital still gets the money, and Blizzard got a tax discount for it.
That's pretty much the point. The hospital gets the money...that's what's most important.
And I'm pretty sure that 90%+ of the people bidding on these servers (myself included, I admit it) wouldn't have given the money to charity if it weren't for these auctions.
So yes, Blizzard is greedy, but the Hospital got a lot of donations they otherwise wouldn't have.
Plus, even for a 2005 machine, it's gotta have some serious horsepower under the hood - what are the system specs?
It varies, but they should have two single core Opterons and 6-12GB DDR ECC RAM. Later realms might have two dual core Opterons, since the BL25P recieved several upgrades after release.
It's not much, but certainly not too shabby, especially considering the age of the systems.
Here are more specs:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupp … dTypeId=3709945