Blizzard has recently announced that its upcoming dungeon-crawling RPG sequel, Diablo III, will feature auction houses in which patrons can part with real cash. Trading items, equipment and even characters is still a popular activity for Diablo II players, though trade is conducted completely via third party sites which isn’t always the safest of options. Anticipating that D3 players eventually follow suit, Blizzard has set up its own dedicated auction houses to promote and protect the game’s player-driven economy.
Insertion fees will apply, mainly to prevent an endless tide of unwanted items, though cashing out will be conducted exclusively between players and their third party vendors; Blizzard won’t be handling any of the money itself. A number of other features include buyouts (“Buy it now” for you eBayers) as well as auto-bids. It’s important not to forget that regular game currency auction houses will continue to operate as well as one-to-one player trading.
Though clearly beneficial to D3 players looking for in-game shortcuts, the implementation of real-money auction houses has called into question as to whether Blizzard now condones or even promotes activities such as gold-farming.
Source: Gamespot
LunaticSoul
I don’t like it at all. This game went from “must buy” to “no, thanks”.
Erroneus
Why? Nobody is forcing you to use real money in the auction house. If you don’t like it, then use the ingame gold to buy stuff at the auction house or don’t use the auction house at all.
hazelam
so can you make money with this auction house?
real money i mean, not in game gold.
Jim H [Teabags]
Yes. You can play the game, loot some items and then sell them on the auction house.
Mick939
Seems pretty good idea
gideon1451
I’m not a fan of these microtransactions getting into games. They all add up.
bunimomike
Same here, fella. I understand them wanting to monetise the game but this? Really? Meh. Hope it’s a great game outside of the whole trading thing.
wearejimbo
I’m really looking forward to this game, but I will have to play it off-line so the Auction house will not affect me. You do not need to buy anything to complete the game I assume?
wearejimbo
Just read somewhere else that you need an always-on Internet connection to play this. Sounds like It’s not the game for me after all. I guess I’ll have to stick to Skyrim.
BrainDiver
Really? If that does turn out to be the case count me out too.
hazelam
no game that can be played single player should require a net connection to play.
another instance where the pirates will get a better experience than legitimate players.
i bought whiteout on bluray the other day, i go to watch it, but there were four trailers and a snickers advert, yes, a frakking snickers advert, the one with mr t in a tank, and you can’t frakking skip them.
you have to fast forward past them, and it resets the speed back to normal at the start of each bloody trailer.
is it any wonder people pirate?
it’s like they make piracy more attractive so they can justify their need for more laws to abuse the copyright system.
it’s funny how the penalties for violating copyrights are very severe, yet for making false breach of copyright claims they’re nowhere near as bad.
making false claims should carry a prison sentence just like piracy does.
maybe the publishers would check before making bogus claims if that were the case.
you know on youtube if you dispute a copyright claim they give your accuser all your details.
name, address, phone number, all that stuff.
sorry for the rant it’s just too many of our rights are being sacrificed on the alter of these big corporation’s profits.
and that snickers ad thing, that was just too damn much.
Forrest_01
Yeah, but look at it this way – You got free Mr. T!!! :D