A bombshell was released today from Blizzard’s Rob Pardo, game design EVP, who revealed that Diablo 3 will have an auction system that will allow players to buy or sell their D3 gear as well as gold to other players for real money. Blizzard would profit by having both a listing fee and closing fee once the item is sold.
Should players accept in-game currency, their payment will go toward their Battle.net e-balance, which covers auction items, WoW subscriptions, and pets. Should players decide to cash out their items, a currently-unannounced third-party payment provider will handle the transaction and take a percentage of the sale. There won’t be any limits on item trading, but there will be a 24-hour cooling period before players can resell a purchased item.
Real Money Transactions have been a controversial issue over the years, some claiming they are unfair and ruin the game, while others seem to have no problem with it. Of course they are nothing new these days, every Free2Play MMO has a RMT item show that is run by the game and SOE has been doing it for years with their Station Store, so to expand that into the player market is a logical next step for Blizzard.
I for one am all for RMT. Let not all pretend that it doesn’t already happen. There are countless number of websites that cater to players that want to RMT, most of which are not safe and plagued by thieves and scammers. Blizzard being fully aware of this is now offering players a safe and secure marketplace for them to buy and sell their in-game items.
If fact Blizzard should take this one step further and allow entire accounts to be bought and sold in the auction house. Of course that’s even a bigger taboo that not even Blizzard wants to tackle yet, however could be something that is added in the future once the negativity of RMT fades away from gamers minds.
While some say this will allow players with the biggest wallets an unfair advantage to those that choose not to spend any money, I say, what’s wrong with that? If you like playing the game and don’t want to spend money, why do you care that some other guy bought all his gear from someone else? How does that effect you in any way? Is it any different then if the guy that found the item kept it?
If anything, I think item stores run by the games developers that include game effecting items and gear are much worse then the proposed store for Diablo 3. In those stores there is an unlimited amount of items available which can flood the market. In Blizzard’s case, someone still needs to obtain the item, so supply is not effected by selling it.
I congratulate Blizzard on taking this step forward and would love to see more game do the same and eventually include full game accounts.
Seriously? How is this in any way good news? Not only have I lost my hard on for Diablo 3 ENTIRELY I honestly cant respect the opinion that this is a good thing based off of “why not”
August 1st, 2011 at 11:16 amThis is terrible news me, This will create a market that is not accessible to every player, and WILL enable players with higher expendable cash to have an advantage over those who might have more skill.
This does not promote fair gameplay.
This does not provide a “safe” environment for transactions that will inevitably exist.
This is a money grab that will destroy the competitiveness of this game.
GG D3
Quote
The only downside to this is that it further blurs the line between tedium in games and tedium outside of games. Am I working in the office or level-grinding/gold farming? WHO CAN TELL ANYMORE?!?
August 1st, 2011 at 12:54 pmQuote
I agree this is a horrible thing. I understand it, but games like League of legends have a RMT system that doesn’t effect the game play in any way. I have read there will be PVP systems in this game and that would make for huge disadvantages for player who PLAY the game.
Another note there will be a HUGE farming ring established for this system. . . I suggest we get some College kids to farm items and pay for school this way.
August 1st, 2011 at 3:04 pmQuote
This isn’t a store where Blizzard is selling items, these are items obtained in-game then sold, big difference as there isn’t an unlimited supply.
If you want to spend 20 hrs getting 1 item to sell for $10, I don’t see what the big deal is. If anything I think this will lead to less farming by Chinese companies as there will be hundreds of thousands of players selling the same items competing with them. If they farm an item, prices will drop so low that it won’t be worth it for them.
August 1st, 2011 at 4:02 pmQuote
I don’t have any problem with this change. There’s no difference between a BoE epic dropping in Firelands that’s then sold on the AH than there is with this; there’s no lack of fairness, it’s just RNG.
Sure, you can use real money instead of gold, but making gold in WoW isn’t hard and if you do need gold you can go buy some online with real money.
I can’t picture myself ever buying gear in a game for real money, especially given that there will inevitably be expansions with even better gear at a later date that nullifies the purchase, but I’m definitely willing to sell that same gear myself.
August 1st, 2011 at 4:28 pmQuote
Is this Blizzard stretching the gain on entertainment, not actually making money off the sale of virtual goods in a single-player lobby-system rpg with a multiplayer component, as opposed to a free-to-play mmorpg item-shop?
Is there a difference?
August 1st, 2011 at 7:37 pmQuote
*now actually making money…is what i meant to type.
August 1st, 2011 at 7:38 pmQuote
RMT… I don’t mind. Assuming its still in the same vein as D2, having better items, does nothing to others. Its not like I’m not geting into groups because I don;t have a high enough Gear Scorem or have to worry about PvP, or competition in anyway. The closest thing to competition in D2 was trying to get higher on the leaderboards after grinding Baal over and over.
One thing I would suggest though, is any item traded through RMT be flagged so that It can never go to a Hardcore character.
Now the other bombshells Blzz announced, like NO offline play (and therefore no mods either) make this RMT issue moot. Since I will not buy the game anymore anyway.
August 1st, 2011 at 8:49 pmQuote
Wow. The man who wrote this article is…for lack of a better word, an idiot. This is just another cash-grab by blizzard to make more money off of the players. There are four separate fees that blizzard takes from you during this transaction process. First you have to pay a premium account fee to be able to even use this real money auction house. One fee is taken from you everytime you list an item on the auction house. And if somebody undercuts you by 1 freaking dollar and your item doesn’t sell, you don’t get your listing fee back under any circumstances. Then they take another fee from you if it does sell and it’s a percentage of what you sold the item for. THEN once you try to take this money you got from the AH and put it into your, lets say Pay-Pal account, they take another fee from you. So what they have done is basically created a license to print money that requires almost zero maintenance on their part because it is all automated. Not to mention the fact that in Diablo 3 you will be able to buy gold straight from blizzard so the normal AH prices will be ridiculous which will make more and more players have to purchase gold if they want something because they are just not going to have enough from farming. And adding this auction house to the game while also adding a new pvp system to the game just makes no sense. Diable has always been about gear; there is very little skill involved. So once we have all these chinese farmers coming into the game, everyone will be able to just buy the best gear and then what was the point in playing at all? Once again this shows that blizzard feels the need to try and charge it’s players for everything it possibly can.
August 2nd, 2011 at 1:36 amQuote
This is not a good thing at all. With such (uneeded) systems in place we will get ever closer to a tax on virtual goods, and then things will really start to suck for players and developers.
Exchanging items for real life money is just pointless as it promotes lazyness and not gameplay.
August 2nd, 2011 at 3:25 amQuote
Im sorry Blizzard, but i dont want to be connected to you anymore. I just need my own space.
Its not you, its me.
and no.. we cant be friends.
August 4th, 2011 at 6:46 amQuote
There seems to be a number of posts that seem to be against purchasing in-game items for RL currency but do not appear to have a problem with purchasing items for in-game currency. I am sure everyone has heard the expression ‘time is money’. Even if you do not think this is the case you have to admit, spending 8 hours grinding for gold to buy a specific item or getting item with RL money will achieve the same result. The only reason RL money purchases do not cause inflation.
August 5th, 2011 at 12:41 amQuote
Making a game into a job means it’s not a game anymore!Considering all facts and currently discovered chinese gold farming prison camps ,where ppl are placed in front of a screen for 14 hours straight,makes this a no-no for me at least.Seting that aside (but can you realy!?),the game surely will be super fun and i’m guessing will top even WoW sales but…..I think that many ppl will feel a little cheated out of their monney seing noob rookies in the game kicking their *@* with newlly bought loot,loot that cost them hours and hours of gameplay to aquire!It seems that Blizzard chose to intergrate a corrupted system from WoW that saw that couldn’t be faught!I’m looking forward to how this will turn up…….
August 17th, 2011 at 8:19 amQuote
“Not to mention the fact that in Diablo 3 you will be able to buy gold straight from blizzard so the normal AH prices will be ridiculous which will make more and more players have to purchase gold if they want something because they are just not going to have enough from farming.”
Here is C/P from Blizzard:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/info#q12
Can we buy gold from the currency-based auction house?
Players will be able to buy and sell gold through the currency-based auction house at whatever the current market price is, as established by the player community.
I take that to mean blizzard is not selling gold but they allow players to sell gold among themselves.
August 25th, 2011 at 12:47 amQuote