Diablo III to feature a real-money Auction House

[Ningamer]

Anyone who's been following Diablo III news will know about this: Blizzard have announced an Auction House for players that uses real-world money as a currency. This means that you can put an item up for sale for $5 or so, and someone can buy that or bid on it with their REAL money, and when the auction ends YOU will get REAL money (After Blizzard have taken their own share of it). Obviously there will be another Auction House using in-game currency.

I wanted to hear your thoughts on this. I don't know a lot about Diablo, almost nothing really, but I think I might soon know a lot 'cause I want some money. You just know there will be people who will spend literally hundreds of dollars on in-game items, and you could probably make a fair bit of money from this. Groups of people farming items will probably be set up and start raking in cash (Or it could just be one smart kid in his bedroom, who knows?).

[Jaredvcxz]

I think Blizzard is taking the money-whoring a bit too far now...

[DashArmy]

I like the idea. Who doesn't mind a bit of cash?

[PokeRemixStudio]

Hey, that sounds cool. It reminds me of the money-making capabilities in Second Life (I made a whopping 5 cents with that game!)

Too bad the game is gonna be online-only (even to play singleplayer) and mods will be prohibited.

Originally Posted by Executive Producer Rob Pardo

"...You can go into and start any game that you want, you’ll just be connected to the Battle.net servers, and we can authenticate your character.”

I don't see what they were hoping to possibly accomplish with this.

Nevertheless, I am still quasi-interested in this game. After all, I greatly enjoyed playing the Diablo rip-off, Fate from WildTangent Games.

[mattRlive]

I don't think this is a good idea for Diablo III or Blizzard

[LiteTheIronMan]

Apparently the DRM is terrible as well.

Also doesn't this remind Valve players of an auction-based version of the Mann-conomy?

[Jaredvcxz]

Originally Posted by LiteTheIronMan

Apparently the DRM is terrible as well.

Also doesn't this remind Valve players of an auction-based version of the Mann-conomy?

Pretty much.


I can see the turn of events now:

Everyone shrugs this off, assuming it won't be so bad.
D3 comes out, millions of people buy it.
Riots in the street.
Go back to D2.

[Jared]

The way that I see is... many sites for popular MMOs like World of Warcraft and Runescape sell gold or items for real money, but most of them are scams. What Blizzard is doing is taking out of the middle man, and can guarantee 100% that you're going to get your product. Then again, it opens a whole new world with gaining money yourself, farming items and then selling them for real money is a good idea. Interested to see where it leads.

With the whole DRM "problem", If you don't have an internet connection are you really in the correct place to be gaming anyway?

[PB Black]

I dont really know... i like ALOT diablo2 and im positively hoping the best for diablo3