Diablo 3 Auction House Announced - Spend and Earn Real Life Money!

[Deleted]

ugh wrong. There is not nearly enough gold sinks. Thats why people are sitting on thousands of gold and many over 100K in gold (and I bet many more with hundreds of thousands). D3 will be no different. Sure they will try to have a few in game things to pull gold away but it was never enough of a real gold sink to make any real difference. Wow couldn't do it an D3 will be no different.

In Diablo 2, there are no gold sellers. Gold was completely rejected as currency because it was literally worthless. WoW gold is not worthless, in fact a quick perusal through google reveals that the going rate for WoW gold is about 1.5 euros/thousand (£1.30 or US$2.10). Try searching for gold sellers that actually sell gold for Diablo 2 - you won't find any because there isn't any demand for it.

THAT is the value of gold in those two games and that is how you know one has a better balance of seed vs sink over the other.

Now, some players do have tens, even hundreds of thousands of gold stashed away. However, this is an example of individual player activity and not the overall health of the currency. Blizzard obviously know how much gold people tend to stockpile and are mindful of that when adjusting the seed:sink ratio. This is actually an important factor to consider as Blizzard (and every other gaming company that runs an MMO) will never default on the ownership of in-game currency. Result? No matter what happens, if the player cancels that account and never returns, all that money is gone from the system.

[Cubano]

I hope Obama passes an income tax law over Diablo 3. For every auction the US gets cut too!! BACK TO US GUYZ

[Deleted]

Dude they will charge fee for 3 times if you want to get your money.You will farm your ass up for a month or more to sell things worth 100$ and they will take half or more of it if you want to withdraw.

Do you have a source for these figures?

[PricklyBear]

The only people that are mad about this are poor people. News flash, you don't HAVE to use real-life cash...you can still use the in-game currency if that's your cup of tea.

[kelyne]

Here is the problem...

GM: Hello what can I do for you today.
Kelyne: I got hacked and my credit card is maxed out.
GM: Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately there isn't anything we can do. You should contact your credit card company.
Kelyne: Great... Something tells me they aren't going to help much.
GM: Is there anything else I can help you with.
Kelyne: No...
GM: Then I am off. I wish you the best of luck adventurer.

-Law suit ensues after visa refuses to re-fund purchased digital content.

Best idea ever.

[Deleted]

Here is the problem...

GM: Hello what can I do for you today.
Kelyne: I got hacked and my credit card is maxed out.
GM: Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately there isn't anything we can do. You should contact your credit card company.
Kelyne: Great... Something tells me they aren't going to help much.
GM: Is there anything else I can help you with.
Kelyne: No...
GM: Then I am off. I wish you the best of luck adventurer.

-Law suit ensues after visa refuses to re-fund purchased digital content.

Best idea ever.

Your credit card credentials will not be viewable on any part of Blizzard's games or support websites, they never have and never will be (for this very reason).

[kelyne]

Your credit card credentials will not be viewable on any part of Blizzard's games or support websites, they never have and never will be (for this very reason).

/uses in-game feature to buy content and trades it to another account for re-sale.

I have no doubt it will happen. Sure blizzard could track it to a point, but I bet they will come up with a way around that too...

[Mithsploit]

The question then maybe sould be... why is Blizzard creating a system that allows selling of items at all in D3? If they can not monitor who buys what then there is no excuse to open up the game for selling items online or ingame or whatever.

The logical thing would be to close down all sales of both gold and items between accounts. Player can only use items that drop for him. Does not dmg the game in any way shape or form. It creates 100% balanced fair game for everyone involved. Go out and play to get items. Period.

Because if trading is shut down, then you get what we have in WoW with BoP items: Instead of buying and selling items, people buy and sell accounts (with characters) to which items are bound.

But Blizzard can monitor who buys what, and they are implementing the only way this is possible: Sanctioning the buying and selling and making it available automatically in-game for players to do.

[Deleted]

/uses in-game feature to buy content and trades it to another account for re-sale.

I have no doubt it will happen. Sure blizzard could track it to a point, but I bet they will come up with a way around that too...

Items bought in game cannot be sold again for 24 hours (can't remember the source for this) to, once again, help prevent this very thing happening. For example, you might log in one day and wonder why you now have 30 Swords of Godslaying.

In addition, you'll likely have to fill your virtual wallet before you'll be able to make bids on in-game items which, won't happen unless the hacker has already got your credit card information by some other means. This ultimately means the only cash that's at risk when your account is compromised is what you have in your wallet at the time - and Blizzard will have additional systems in place that'll help protect that, too.

[Syroa]

I don't really mind this change since I probably wasn't going to buy Diablo 3 anyhow but what I'd like to point out about this system is the fact that you'll be more than likely to just lose money all the time if you frequented the AH. If you use the RL currency auction house there is a listing fee just like any other but this will actually cost you real money. If you aren't posting something that is so incredibly rare that odds are no one else will post it or maybe just 1 or 2 other people you will almost immediately be undercut (especially with the gold farmers that are bound to be around). Then blizzard takes its cut and the additional cash out cut if you chose to take your money and be left with a small amount. Really it is high-risk, little reward.

[Deleted]

Syroa, there are two auction house systems in Diablo 3 - one using real cash, the other in game gold. If the item you want to sell is of low value than just sell it for in-game gold. Little risk, little reward.

[Mithsploit]

I don't really mind this change since I probably wasn't going to buy Diablo 3 anyhow but what I'd like to point out about this system is the fact that you'll be more than likely to just lose money all the time if you frequented the AH. If you use the RL currency auction house there is a listing fee just like any other but this will actually cost you real money. If you aren't posting something that is so incredibly rare that odds are no one else will post it or maybe just 1 or 2 other people you will almost immediately be undercut (especially with the gold farmers that are bound to be around). Then blizzard takes its cut and the additional cash out cut if you chose to take your money and be left with a small amount. Really it is high-risk, little reward.

It's only high risk if you're retarded.

Another side effect is that the real money auction house will be less cluttered and far more sophisticated in terms of what users actually list (what items, what quantities, and at what prices) because of the risk involved of not selling and losing the deposit. No more auction bots with pages and pages of items listed at wild fluctuations to artificially increase (or decrease) the value of items viewed by auction monitoring mods, for example.

[kelyne]

Items bought in game cannot be sold again for 24 hours (can't remember the source for this) to, once again, help prevent this very thing happening. For example, you might log in one day and wonder why you now have 30 Swords of Godslaying.

In addition, you'll likely have to fill your virtual wallet before you'll be able to make bids on in-game items which, won't happen unless the hacker has already got your credit card information by some other means. This ultimately means the only cash that's at risk when your account is compromised is what you have in your wallet at the time - and Blizzard will have additional systems in place that'll help protect that, too.

Doesn't matter how many protections they put on it... Unless they are running their entire game via SSH or some other equally protective method someone is going to find a way to hack it. (Hell even then they probably will with enough time to sift the client code). I am not really sure I'd trust a game client for conducting transactions with actual funds. Granted they may force a wallet system like you said, but that doesn't rule out the potential dangers or conducting transactions in game. They are going to have to link accounts to their accounting system somehow; to a hacker they might as well have exposed a WCF service for retrieving account information.

I'm not trying to prove anything one way or another, I'm just saying what I think will come of this kind of thing in a game.

[Ares42]

. . . So I gather this summary: This is officially supporting behaviour which has alteady been occuring with Diablo 2. Only instead of a 3rd party black market scam site, it's sanctioned and controlled and moderated by Blizzard. Everything being sold is sold by Other players, not Blizzard. Therefore, Blizzard is not making more money, other players are. Prices will be player controlled and with their stricter stance on Outside modification, less shenanigans will result. ...So a player run item shop which other players get money. ...How is Blizzard getting money from this again? Someone point to me where it says this in the article, I can't find it.

"How is the transaction fee determined?
A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn’t sell, it will be in the seller’s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date."

[Deepstroke]

Hmm... I must be one of the few who sees this as a good idea. The amount of time I put into playing these games I might be able to atleast swing my internet bill off the items I sell.This just solved the US's economy woes.

[hello1357]

Quote from the article: "As with other popular online-purchase services, players will also have the option to charge up their Battle.net account with a balance of funds that can be drawn from for purchases of any digital product available through Battle.net -- this includes not only auction house items but also things like World of Warcraft subscription time and paid services, to name a few examples." Does this mean that when Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm comes out and I have acquired the require amount of Battle.net account funds, I can buy the game using these funds? For those seeing this as a method to make real money, do take into account the many fingers that will dip into your pockets. First, the RMAH will take a certain percentage of the seller's price (similar to in WoW). This money goes to Blizzard. It is hinted that this feature is also an advanced feature (aka. premium, you have to buy feature). This money goes to Blizzard. Then there will be a fee to cash out. This money goes to Blizzard and to the third-party payment service. Now you see why Blizzard is implementing the RMAH?

[Nanosphere]

Well Blizzard I guess it was a good run while it lasted.

[Sunshine]

Does anyone have the original link? On all of MMO-Champion's other posts they link their sources. This links nothing.

It comes from a press kit from a recent press tour; for some more transcriptions and so on, see DiabloFans.

[jtgizmo]

I'll bet there will be at one point a case : Person X committed suicide after loosing all his money in the D3 Auction house.....

oh well

[Tovya]

Its sad to me how many gamers look at this and say they are not buying the game just because of this. D3 was never meant to be an E-Sport, blizz has stated that over and over and over! You are not required to use this system or ever spend real cash on items. If this will really make you skip D3 then the community will be better off without you.