Will anyone make money off the AH?

[doodadnox]

I'm curious...

Right now the Diablo 2 market has a pretty low demand especially on the brink of D3. However, on d2jsp you can still see people buying "fg" and trading for items. After a quick look I noticed some high end war travs for 30fg, perfect tals armor for 100fg, and a SoJ for 50fg. Respectively these would sell for $.03, $1, $.05. Seeing how Diablo 3 is breaking all kinds of pre-order records I don't doubt the market will be absolutely flooded with people thinking they'll make a buck.

Has anyone actually done any type of economic study to see if this real-money AH will even work? I'm really curious what the prices will look like for a legendary item that has dropped 800 times in our first weekend. If a very rare, perfect Tal armor is hardly worth $1 what makes us so sure we'll be able to sell anything for more than that when Diablo 3 is at peak numbers.

(This of course negating the fact that the first 1-10 drops will try to be sold for $14,000)

[Deleted]

That perfect Tal armor has had 12 years to drop for millions upon millions of people.

There will be similarly "perfect" items in D3, the best of which will drop in act 4 of the inferno difficulty level, something you or anyone else will not see during the first weekend.

[Herecius]

Perfect Tal armor is barely worth anything because there are bots in D2 that people run. They run D2 in the background with a bot going and they'll run it for days at a time, collecting giant mountains of ultra-rare runes and items, thus devaluing everything.

If Blizz could somehow magically stop botting in D2, then those prices would go up.

[iDot]

Has anyone actually done any type of economic study to see if this real-money AH will even work? I'm really curious what the prices will look like for a legendary item that has dropped 800 times in our first weekend. If a very rare, perfect Tal armor is hardly worth $1 what makes us so sure we'll be able to sell anything for more than that when Diablo 3 is at peak numbers.

(This of course negating the fact that the first 1-10 drops will try to be sold for $14,000)

1. Im SURE Blizzard has done many studies on this to make sure that it will be a success.

2. I *think* you're over estimating the drop rate on legendaries.

3. The max price set by blizzard that you can sell an item for on the RMAH is $250.

[hulkgor]

I think a lot of people are a bit deluded if they think they'll make big bucks at the RMAH, it will be flooded with sellers, bots, whatever.

I do believe however, that upon dwelling into Inferno, with some lucky drops, random guys will be able to make a few bucks, who knows. We'll see. And to the 1-10 drops to be sold for $14.000, the RMAH has a limit on $250? Or at least i think so.

I'm thankful that hardcore does not have a RMAH, at least ingame, looking at D2 people will find a way to do it on the outside, without a doubt.

[SirRobin]

Will anyone make money off the AH?

If there is a way to make money off D3's AH then you can be sure that some "businesses" <cough>China<cough> will and flood the market.

[doodadnox]

I've been under the assumption from reading threads everywhere that people expect to make money on a regular basis from this AH, but it seems that the only people that will make money are those constantly farming inferno or those lucky few who find a godly drop. Even then, should we expect to see more "perfect tals"? Wouldn't that ultimately bring the price even lower?

[Riptide]

I'm curious...

Right now the Diablo 2 market has a pretty low demand especially on the brink of D3. However, on d2jsp you can still see people buying "fg" and trading for items. After a quick look I noticed some high end war travs for 30fg, perfect tals armor for 100fg, and a SoJ for 50fg. Respectively these would sell for $.03, $1, $.05. Seeing how Diablo 3 is breaking all kinds of pre-order records I don't doubt the market will be absolutely flooded with people thinking they'll make a buck.

Has anyone actually done any type of economic study to see if this real-money AH will even work? I'm really curious what the prices will look like for a legendary item that has dropped 800 times in our first weekend. If a very rare, perfect Tal armor is hardly worth $1 what makes us so sure we'll be able to sell anything for more than that when Diablo 3 is at peak numbers.

(This of course negating the fact that the first 1-10 drops will try to be sold for $14,000)

Yes people will, the ONLY reason prices are that low right now (non perf tals is 15.00 on east ladder) is because of d3 and the ladder reset may 2nd. Last ladder season items were still 100-200+.

Items were several hundred dollars for d2 on release. It will not change for d3. In fact items will be even more rare because of no public dupes and the fact that uniques/sets also have random properties in addition to their fixed ones. Which will make the best items EXTREMELY rare. To put it in perspective you're more likely to win the lottery than get a perfect item(20+ affixes, 6 properties, 7 different ranges). I'd expect high end items like that to go for 750+ . (it would have to be traded for several items equal to that value, due to the cap)

[doodadnox]

Hmm, good points. Apart from my child-like excitement over this game's release, the business side of my brain is really intrigued to see how this RMAH plays out.

(clearly being facetious with my 800 drops and "$14,000")

[vian]

Some probably will, but I doubt it will be worth a full days work.

[Deleted]

bit of a silly question tbh, im sure out of the MILLIONS of people playing diablo will have quite abit of cash on them that dont mind spending money on diablo items, my friend is planning to spend atleast 30 pounds a month of items for diablo, just because he can, making money will be no problem in D3, and even if its a shitty little blue, i bet u can put it on the RMAH for about £0.50p just because its going to be a upgrade to someone atleast, and they dont mind selling something for 50p

[Cerabret]

Well if i participate (i'm not planning on it) i don't really see big bucks in my future, i'm not a farmer for the most part. It'd be nice if maybe i ease that 15 a month for wow, but other than that, i'm not expecting myself, or the average player to come away richer thanks to the AH.

[BenBos]

I played Beta (closed and open) and it surprised me I made lots of Beta bucks in a few hours time.

Of course I doubt the 50 betabucks everyone received could be representative on a 1 on 1 conversion for real Euros or dollars.

In 2 days of open beta I made 140 extra beta bucks and bought items worth of 60 beta bucks.

Perhaps it this system that will work: now and then everyone will buy and sell according to their needs without spending too much money.

What did sell well ? ... Not the gear but the crafting mats and simply ... gold.

Because gold will be everywhere in this game (it is complete different than D2 where Gold had zero value).

My guess is that 40.000 gold could go for 3 - 4 euro/dollars and crafting mats in the upper regions for packages of 10 for 3 dollars.

Everyone will buy/sell small quantities without spending too much money and SOME über gear will go for as high as 100+ dollars because I guess around 5% of the players will want to beat challenges at all costs.

--
Contrary to what people may say, I think the RMAH will function as an excellent supplementary tool for the gold AH. And by its sheer size it will be impossible to be controlled by anyone or organisations. Bots will not be able to play in Hell and Inferno mode as they will not survive the beating for more than a few seconds and Blizzard can easely trace with tools the accounts that use malware.

If the bandwagon gets rolling Diablo 3 will surpise even the most optimistic prognoses, mostly due to the RMAH.

[Deleted]

I'm sure plenty of people will make money. Not enough money to live off - no where near enough money to quit their dayjob. But I'm sure plenty of people will make something, enough to buy a new game or pay for a wow subscription - or more likely, to buy themselves some new gear back on the RMAH...

[Deleted]

I have been doing some thinking and some minor research aswell but it all pretty much stopped once I found out that:

- you cannot have more than 10 real money auctions up at the same time = nobody makes moneye off "small ticket items"
- once you buy something, you can't sell it nor trade it for 48 hours = reselling more or less dead

With these two requirements nobody will make any noticeable amount of money unless:

a) they get incredibly lucky with some drop (this doesn't really count though), or
b) they run many BNET accounts

[Fencers]

Probably a tiny fraction of players will make any money off the game worth noting. Same as D2, the real cash lies with the middle man or facilitators of trade.

What RMT means to the average is thus: "I don't wanna grind a full set for a year. Here's a measly $15 for a few hours of monster bashing fun."

The psychological impact the RMT AH will have in D3 will be a seachange for the industry. That is why it is important.

[BLSTMASTER]

well if you dont buy anything off the AH, i guess technically you'll make money when you make your first 'sale'.

Making a living out of it will be much more difficult (but I can see some lucky people being able to pull it off)

[BenBos]

I have been doing some thinking and some minor research aswell but it all pretty much stopped once I found out that:

- you cannot have more than 10 real money auctions up at the same time = nobody makes moneye off "small ticket items"
- once you buy something, you can't sell it nor trade it for 48 hours = reselling more or less dead

With these two requirements nobody will make any noticeable amount of money unless:

a) they get incredibly lucky with some drop (this doesn't really count though), or
b) they run many BNET accounts

The odd thing is ... that when the open beta was active (with 300K+ concurrent players) I could sell things in ... seconds.

At one time I hardly put it up and sold it in the same second...

Unbelievable I know, but I think the longest wait I had was 2 hours something.

All mats and gold of course. I only sold one yellow gear (a perfect bow) for 15 betabucks (around 20% of the prices of comparable products).

So 10 items is the limit ... unless you sell these at very competitive prices, then you could sell much more.

[Gsara]

I'm sure plenty of people will make money. Not enough money to live off - no where near enough money to quit their dayjob. But I'm sure plenty of people will make something, enough to buy a new game or pay for a wow subscription - or more likely, to buy themselves some new gear back on the RMAH...

The RMAH wont be used by alot of people to sell very rare items because of the 250 dollar limit. Outside sources will still be used to sell things. The reason Blizzard put the RMAH in D3 was to curb some of the outside sales through ebay and other sources. You would be shocked to know the amount of money people made in D1-D2, I myself bought a new car and my brother put a down payment on his house from D2 sales alone. It took us about 13 months of playing to do that as well. The funny part is, we didnt make shit compared to alot of the farming companies and players that truly made serious money. Our biggest sale back then was 7k for A perfect tal through ebay. I remember clearly the minimum bid was 1k and within 72 hours sold for 7k.

How the RMAH plays out in the long run we have to wait and see, but I know that it will not be the only place to sell items.

[Kuja]

I think there will be too many players selling the same items you are, and better. So no one will be a millionaire, unlike in other MMOs that have real money as currecy. But whoever gets the best loot first is a diferent thing.