Cash out on RM AH?

[Lathais]

Let me tell you RIGHT NOW that anyone trying to make money off of this- real money, as in an actual job- is deluding themselves.


I will tell you EXACTLY how this will go. Ok, ready?

When the RMAH first launches, say, the first few days, you will note that some items actually sell for surprising amounts. Poorly itemized rares will sell for a bit, well itemized rares will sell for a medium amount, and legendaries and the legit rares will sell for an actual large amount of cash.

This is because of a few reasons. First, most people right now playing the game are "consumers"- they aren't 60, and if they are, they have stuff they can't beat. Second, of course, a lot of people are playing the game and none of them know the real value of items. More on this in a second. Third, people aren't adverse to paying some in experimentally, so there will be more money per person. Fourth, the game is new, meaning that all the things haven't been done by everyone yet, and people aren't bored with the game except for the real hardcore. Fifth, some people are sitting on cash waiting to just be awesome. Sixth, there aren't enough good items to go around yet.


Ok, the problems:

1)- Most of the above mentioned reasons won't last long. You can go ebay everquest accounts for cheap that have more work put into them than a graduate degree. People will figure out which items will and won't be good. The market will saturate with items that are good enough to get stuff done in game, and once they have those items, they won't need to buy more unless Blizzard changes stuff massively, which will create ill will if they do it ever, and MUCH if they do it soon. Many players who play casually will drop ten to forty bucks and hit their personal limit.

2)- For the reasons that remain, the Chinese will come in and do all the farming for less than you can. Understand, 80% of people reading this: you are pretty well off. If you are young and haven't been on your own more than a couple years, than you probably have little to no idea about money, at all. If you DO fall into that category, telling you that is useless beyond measure, so whatever. But understand that someone in a country with a lower standard of living can do all the things that actually matter to you (eat, get positive social feedback for contributing to their family, provide for a wife) on about 1/10th what you need, and they WILL undercut you, especially if the task is something stupid like clicking on a screen. Much more importantly, these low cost of living guys will also write bots to help them, and are already compromising accounts to steal everything possible. China is the big focal point for a variety of reasons, but you will not be competing with these guys just by playing.

3)- The real money will come from flipping the virtual property with the virtual gold. The "cash-out" fee is likely there to minimize the amount of this arbitrage as much as it is to guarantee that Blizzard gets a cut. Assume that gold settles at something more reasonable than the 15 / 100k that we see now, because that is being farmed by 60s or stolen, and most players aren't 60 yet, and definitely are not thieves. Let us, in fact, assume that 1 million gold sells for 10 bucks at some point between now and September, and further assume at that time that there is an object for sale on the RMAH that you estimate to be worth 2 million gold, but it is up on the AH for 13 dollars. You buy it, and either relist it for more dollars, or put it on the gold AH- wherever you are more likely to get the higher profit. If you do this fast enough (aka, if you are a robot, which you totally should be if you are thinking about making any dollars playing this game), then you'll be able to benefit from this.

3)- Long term, the predictable spikes and dips in value will we:
+When pvp launches, for anything that is in style for pvp.
+When more people enter the market (Christmas, price drop, promotion).
+If an expansion launches that includes classes that need the existing items.
-If an expansion launches that raises the level cap or adds better items.
-Time passes
-Another game launches that targets D3's market, even sideways, as in Pandaland or a TOR expansion.





Ultimately, if you want to play markets, you can probably make some cash. That involves being smarter than people who are more desperate than you, and to whom this represents a larger opportunity, because the cash you can use to get halfway decent food and barely make rent with your friends will let your competitors be respected, get laid, and upgrade their transportation. Who is gonna be all over that plan more? It's not the guy that can get 7.25 / hour at McDonalds, that's for sure. It's the one to whom $5 / hour is a living wage, the one who gets paid that as an office clerk.

What WILL NOT WORK is expecting to gain anything by farming. Competing with third world workers is one thing- competing with third word hackers is another, and competing with third world robots is what you'll actually be doing. Don't expect farming to be worth ANYTHING.

I totally agree that this is probably what will happen, however, there is a part of me that just wants to believe it is not true and has to give it a shot. Like I said previously though, I am not doing anything drastic like quitting my job like some people I have heard about. I was actually talking to my UPS driver the other day about this. He delivers to a few Gamestops in the area, and some other video game stores as well. Talking to the managers, they all lost a few employees due to them thinking they could make money off this. They actually quit their job at Gamestop to try to make money on the RMAH. I have heard a few similar stories from my sister and people she works with and their husbands doing this. I think it is ludicrous to quit the guaranteed paycheck for something that is only a possibility, and likely to not last.

I do still think that farming will be the best way. Arbitrage may work, but will be very limited by the 10 item limit. Farming and selling lots of things very cheaply, and therefore quickly, may make money. Selling cheaper than the chinese farmers/botters/what-have-yous because I have another sustainable income may make me money. Like you said, they are doing it to put food on their plate and out of desperation for an easy way to "get-rich." I am doing it just for the hell of it. I have nothing to lose by selling extremely cheap, they do.

Like you said though, I doubt it will work and will not be profitable for very long if it is at all. I can't resist trying though. Also, my wife is a stay at home Mom. She can farm for a little bit during the day and that is just straight cash, even if it is only a small amount. She can't really get a job anyway cause she would be hard-pressed to make enough to even cover the cost of daycare, so almost anything she does would actually lose us money instead of making it. This way, she can make some money, and have fun doing it.

[SamR]

I can see it now.. Nerds making a living by playing video games...

I guarantee you that there will be articles in the game blogs about Joe the hardcore gamer making thousands of dollars in Diablo 3 and talking about whether you can make a living just paying games.

The idea of a real money community market is pretty innovative. Many Econ papers will be written about the D3 RMAH.

---------- Post added 2012-06-07 at 11:37 AM ----------

Personally, while I've predicted in the past that stuff on the RMAH isn't going to go for that much, I'm starting to come around to the idea that some really serious money will be made on it.

I'm seeing gold seller spam for $15 for 1 million gold. Even if the real rate ends up being half that, there are lots of items selling for 10 mil plus on the AH. The gap between the gold at the top and the bulk of the playerbase is huge.

[Every Pwny]

On the RMAH do you pay real money to post the auction (small amount), and Blizzard takes a percentage of that sale if it sells? And on top of that you pay the 15% cash out?

[Phonic]

EveryPwny,

My understanding is that you don't pay anything to post the auction, but Items do get a $1 cut off the price after being sold. Commodoties will get 15% off the price. Seller gets the remaining.

After that point, no more fees until you try to actually cash the money out like others have mentioned that's 15% to paypal. End of the day, Blizzard is only taking the $1 and % of commodoties.

[Every Pwny]

Oh, then it's not as bad as I thought it was, especially if they aren't charging you just to list it. You can't actually lose any money.

[Elggur]

EveryPwny,

My understanding is that you don't pay anything to post the auction, but Items do get a $1 cut off the price after being sold. Commodoties will get 15% off the price. Seller gets the remaining.

After that point, no more fees until you try to actually cash the money out like others have mentioned that's 15% to paypal. End of the day, Blizzard is only taking the $1 and % of commodoties.

the 15% isn't goint to paypal, but to blizz when you decide to cash out, however, if you decide to drop your paypal money to your bank account, paypal take it's share there too (not 15% I think it's more like 1-2%)

[Lathais]

EveryPwny,

My understanding is that you don't pay anything to post the auction, but Items do get a $1 cut off the price after being sold. Commodoties will get 15% off the price. Seller gets the remaining.

After that point, no more fees until you try to actually cash the money out like others have mentioned that's 15% to paypal. End of the day, Blizzard is only taking the $1 and % of commodoties.

No, the 15% to cash out to paypal is to Blizz. Presumably they do split or give a portion of that to paypal, but it is blizz charging it, not paypal.

Also, you must decide where the money goes when you post the auction. Either b.net or paypal. Once money is in b.net account you cannot cash it out.

[Drakhar]

A handful (important point #1) of people will make a good amount of money by spending their lives (important point #2) in the AH(s) buying low and selling high. The people who think they're going to make anything more than pocket change by farming are going to be crying in a week... mostly about bots and the Chinese in general.

It's also worth noting that by "a good amount of money" I actually mean less than you would make by having any kind of full-time job in a first world country. But hey, at least you're giving Blizzard hundreds of dollars, you charitable soul you.

[JustintimeSS]

Let me tell you RIGHT NOW that anyone trying to make money off of this- real money, as in an actual job- is deluding themselves.


I will tell you EXACTLY how this will go. Ok, ready?

When the RMAH first launches, say, the first few days, you will note that some items actually sell for surprising amounts. Poorly itemized rares will sell for a bit, well itemized rares will sell for a medium amount, and legendaries and the legit rares will sell for an actual large amount of cash.

This is because of a few reasons. First, most people right now playing the game are "consumers"- they aren't 60, and if they are, they have stuff they can't beat. Second, of course, a lot of people are playing the game and none of them know the real value of items. More on this in a second. Third, people aren't adverse to paying some in experimentally, so there will be more money per person. Fourth, the game is new, meaning that all the things haven't been done by everyone yet, and people aren't bored with the game except for the real hardcore. Fifth, some people are sitting on cash waiting to just be awesome. Sixth, there aren't enough good items to go around yet.


Ok, the problems:

1)- Most of the above mentioned reasons won't last long. You can go ebay everquest accounts for cheap that have more work put into them than a graduate degree. People will figure out which items will and won't be good. The market will saturate with items that are good enough to get stuff done in game, and once they have those items, they won't need to buy more unless Blizzard changes stuff massively, which will create ill will if they do it ever, and MUCH if they do it soon. Many players who play casually will drop ten to forty bucks and hit their personal limit.

2)- For the reasons that remain, the Chinese will come in and do all the farming for less than you can. Understand, 80% of people reading this: you are pretty well off. If you are young and haven't been on your own more than a couple years, than you probably have little to no idea about money, at all. If you DO fall into that category, telling you that is useless beyond measure, so whatever. But understand that someone in a country with a lower standard of living can do all the things that actually matter to you (eat, get positive social feedback for contributing to their family, provide for a wife) on about 1/10th what you need, and they WILL undercut you, especially if the task is something stupid like clicking on a screen. Much more importantly, these low cost of living guys will also write bots to help them, and are already compromising accounts to steal everything possible. China is the big focal point for a variety of reasons, but you will not be competing with these guys just by playing.

3)- The real money will come from flipping the virtual property with the virtual gold. The "cash-out" fee is likely there to minimize the amount of this arbitrage as much as it is to guarantee that Blizzard gets a cut. Assume that gold settles at something more reasonable than the 15 / 100k that we see now, because that is being farmed by 60s or stolen, and most players aren't 60 yet, and definitely are not thieves. Let us, in fact, assume that 1 million gold sells for 10 bucks at some point between now and September, and further assume at that time that there is an object for sale on the RMAH that you estimate to be worth 2 million gold, but it is up on the AH for 13 dollars. You buy it, and either relist it for more dollars, or put it on the gold AH- wherever you are more likely to get the higher profit. If you do this fast enough (aka, if you are a robot, which you totally should be if you are thinking about making any dollars playing this game), then you'll be able to benefit from this.

3)- Long term, the predictable spikes and dips in value will we:
+When pvp launches, for anything that is in style for pvp.
+When more people enter the market (Christmas, price drop, promotion).
+If an expansion launches that includes classes that need the existing items.
-If an expansion launches that raises the level cap or adds better items.
-Time passes
-Another game launches that targets D3's market, even sideways, as in Pandaland or a TOR expansion.





Ultimately, if you want to play markets, you can probably make some cash. That involves being smarter than people who are more desperate than you, and to whom this represents a larger opportunity, because the cash you can use to get halfway decent food and barely make rent with your friends will let your competitors be respected, get laid, and upgrade their transportation. Who is gonna be all over that plan more? It's not the guy that can get 7.25 / hour at McDonalds, that's for sure. It's the one to whom $5 / hour is a living wage, the one who gets paid that as an office clerk.

What WILL NOT WORK is expecting to gain anything by farming. Competing with third world workers is one thing- competing with third word hackers is another, and competing with third world robots is what you'll actually be doing. Don't expect farming to be worth ANYTHING.

This guy knows the deal. To bad people will ignore him or not even bother reading since we live in a TLDR generation.

Oh well. I guess people will find out on their own soon enough, then come here and complain about it.

[Verain]

Arbitrage may work, but will be very limited by the 10 item limit.

To a degree. AH slots cost 6 bucks each right? Just buy another copy!

Farming and selling lots of things very cheaply, and therefore quickly, may make money.

It can't. The reason is that, even if Blizzard keeps their network clean of bots and account stealing hackers, there will be a dude with a few hundred dollars and some spare comps and a room in China, and he'll hire people for a dollar an hour, and unless you are willing to work for about 2.50 an hour, you won't make your money back. Those will be fully geared 60s, by the way, clearing whatever is most profitable, full time. If it's beneficial for them to be grouped, they will be grouped, solo, they will be solo, and they will be whatever class is best at farming, just as the old WoW gold farmers were mostly hunters.

[SamR]

Arbitrage sucks on the D3 AH because things move too fast. I'm sure we've all gotten the "item is no longer available" message when trying to buy gear. That plus the 10 item limit makes buying and reselling a pain.

Tying up one of your item listing slots to buy and resell a 100k gold item for 200k gold isn't going to be that lucrative. You'd have to hope to be able to grab a 1 million gold item for 100k gold or something like that. And you won't be the only one constantly refreshing the AH looking for that deal.

[Alilei32]

Once the RMAH goes live Im pretty sure Blizzard cant pull their little stunts they are now like taking it down half the day every day. With real money passing hands b/t players Im sure it falls under federal regulations and that 15% Blizzard takes is used to pay taxes on the sales. Blizzard bringing the AH offline for unreasonably long amounts of time interferes with trade b/t players and can even cost people money because if the AH is down then no one is bidding on their auctions. I wouldnt be surprised if even during maintenance Blizzard has to leave the AH up due to federal law but im not sure on that one. I mean does E-bay ever go down and are they regulated by the government? Because thats what the RMAH basically will be, E-bay for virtual goods.

[Raphtheone]

Anyone who makes ten million gold or more daily (and reliably) on the gold AH today should manage fine when the RMAH goes live. With the constant spam in the force-join General chat, you must have a vague idea already what your daily farming is worth. If you aren't up at that level, you should either reconsider your position, or (vastly) improve it.

Farming a few hundred K a day and waiting eagerly to make a living on the RMAH? Let me just say I'm a huge believer of darwinism, but the outcome of the D3 RMAH would just be cruel.

[Gsara]

I guarantee you that there will be articles in the game blogs about Joe the hardcore gamer making thousands of dollars in Diablo 3 and talking about whether you can make a living just paying games.

The idea of a real money community market is pretty innovative. Many Econ papers will be written about the D3 RMAH.

---------- Post added 2012-06-07 at 11:37 AM ----------

Personally, while I've predicted in the past that stuff on the RMAH isn't going to go for that much, I'm starting to come around to the idea that some really serious money will be made on it.

I'm seeing gold seller spam for $15 for 1 million gold. Even if the real rate ends up being half that, there are lots of items selling for 10 mil plus on the AH. The gap between the gold at the top and the bulk of the playerbase is huge.

Already been done, all of it years ago. Wiki IGE, a gold selling company founded by two teenage gamers from EQ1. The vast majority of people thinking they will make money off the RMAH just have no idea whats up. To make any real money and not need a job as well, you are going to need to make at minimum 5m a day. People are already selling items and gold on sites right now and have been since the first week D3 was out. The RMAH was put into the game because of the real money made by item/ gold sellers from D1/D2 and other games over the last 15 year and to try to curb outside sales and make money for blizzard. I think its SOE that is also going to be introducing something like this in there games as well.

It will eventually even out Im sure, but will end up being dominated by the gold/item selling companies. There is already gold farmers with hundreds of millions in the game. Hell I have close to 100m myself but understand Im not going to be able to compete. The real money will be with gold buying obviously, along with some very good items here and there.

---------- Post added 2012-06-07 at 09:09 PM ----------

Once the RMAH goes live Im pretty sure Blizzard cant pull their little stunts they are now like taking it down half the day every day. With real money passing hands b/t players Im sure it falls under federal regulations and that 15% Blizzard takes is used to pay taxes on the sales. Blizzard bringing the AH offline for unreasonably long amounts of time interferes with trade b/t players and can even cost people money because if the AH is down then no one is bidding on their auctions. I wouldnt be surprised if even during maintenance Blizzard has to leave the AH up due to federal law but im not sure on that one. I mean does E-bay ever go down and are they regulated by the government? Because thats what the RMAH basically will be, E-bay for virtual goods.

FTP games do not have to do this and neither will Blizzard.