Earlier this week, Blizzard released patch 1.0.3b for Diablo III, which added the ability to buy and sell commodity items on the real-money auction house. This includes gems, dyes, crafting materials, and most recently, gold itself. This makes it quite easy to convert gold to real-money if you don’t have outside funding available, and will hopefully start the trend of selling things for gold rather than real-money.
In related news, the “best gamer in the world”, Athene, launched his project to raise 400 billion gold for Save the Children. By selling the raised gold and items and donating it to the charity, he hopes to help address the hunger crisis in West Africa, where there are more than 18 million needy people. In today’s prices, 400 billion gold would sell for $10,000, so we will see how much he raises. He also plans to visit West Africa at the end of the August and livestream some of the benefits of the charity. Already, his project Operation Sharecraft raised $1 million for Save the Children, culminating at Dreamhack earlier this summer, and Razer has been very supportive as a sponsor in his efforts.
Athene made the announcement about his project to raise 400 billion gold on YouTube on Friday:
We’ll check back in to see how he does. In the meantime, have you bought or sold gold on the RMAH yet?