Blizzard's Diabolical Offer

Many lives will be lost as a result of this cataclysm.

This email was just sent to all Battle.net account holders, after being announced at Blizzcon earlier. For those of you unaware, in exchange for you committing to the World Of Warcraft Annual Pass, which is a contract binding you to paying for one year of subscription fees for the monster MMO, you'll get Diablo 3 and an exclusive Diablo 3 flavored mount, Tyrael's Charger. Its not a subscription, you literally just have to pay for one year of the MMO at the minimum of $13.99 a month on a dual six month plan.

In a way I can see that they're trying to gain new subscribers to WoW and prevent losing old ones, but doesn't this kind of cheapen the value of Diablo 3 before its even out? Nonetheless, its a pretty damn aggressive marketing ploy from the gaming powerhouse, possibly to recoup for the 10+% drop in subscribers that they've experienced since March 2011. It's a pretty tempting offer, but thankfully I'm strong enough to resist the lifestealing grasp of this MMO.