Blizzard Entertainment, long opposed to the exchange of real currency for in-game items, has added World of Warcraft mini-pets to their online store for $10 a piece.

A mini-pet in World of Warcraft, for those who don’t play the game, is essentially a cute little companion. These non-combat pets offer no practical advantage to the user; they simply follow the player for vanity’s sake. However, now that Blizzard has established that they’re willing to take your money for a useless in-game pet, who knows where they might end up going with this?

Careful, Blizzard. Your zero-tolerance policy on gold sellers is now on awfully shaky ground.

Blizzard announced today that they have brought Sam Raimi (director of the Spiderman movies) on board to direct an upcoming tale of Horde vs. Alliance on the big screen, with a big Hollywood budget.

Of course, the speculation begins now. Will Sam Raimi’s previous translations of fantasy worlds to the big screen serve the Warcraft universe well? Will the screenplay capture the epic struggle of Horde vs. Alliance? Video game-to-movie skeptics that we all are, there’s a good chance of “fail” here. Hopefully they got the screenwriters right.

Taking a quick glance at the Blizzard Job Opportunities page shows that at least in the interactive entertainment sector, life is good. They’re still hiring major positions for upcoming properties, such as a Senior Game Designer and Writer for Starcraft II, Senior 3D artists for Diablo III, and several positions for World of Warcraft. Future unannounced properties are also getting the treatment. A bunch of  listings for “next gen MMO” reveal that only technical positions are being filled right now, so don’t think that by applying you’re going to break some news about the new MMO that’s coming out.