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In case you’ve somehow missed it, the internet’s new obsession is Moo Deng, an adorable pygmy hippo calf from the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. After taking over social media, Moo Deng fandom has now hit MMO Final Fantasy 14, where in-game prices for the game’s hippo calf minion are hitting new extremes.
As picked up by GamesRadar, X user Cerulean posted a screenshot of a market-board search for the hippo calf, showing that prices for the minion had jumped from 17,400 gil in early September to almost 300,000 gil by the end of the month.
Square Enix have even gotten in on the fun, posting a gif of the hippo calf in a scene reminiscent of the Khao Kheow Zoo’s viral videos of Moo Deng.
The hippo calf was added with the Endwalker expansion in 2021, and can be looted at the end of the level 85 Vanaspati dungeon–however, the adorable aquatic minion has very low drop rates, which has resulted in high prices on the market board. The average price of the minion prior to Moo Deng’s rise to stardom tended to be around 40,000 gil, depending on the server.
It’s not often that a minion from a past expansion explodes in popularity like this, but it’s likely the Vanaspati dungeon is going to see a lot more clears than usual over the next few weeks before Moo Deng fever is inevitably replaced by the next viral fad.
