Diablo 3 - real money auction house

[psychokind]

wtf: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2397-Diablo-3-Auction-House-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money!

the final step will be done - diablo 3 auction house will be with real money or ingame money that can be traded into real money.

what are they thinking?

"we're killing of goldsellers!"
- no, you're basically telling chinese enterpreneurs to put 10000 PC's into a warehouse to let people farm gold in 12h shifts to sell gold for real money - completely legal!

"we're preventing users on d2jsp.com with their massive forum-currency to buy off the best items in the beginning!"
- now the people willing to spend high amounts of real money will buy them, and this will keep the price high for a very long time. and this will keep ingame gold prices unbelievably high!

besides:

- they're charging 3 different fees for every auction

totalbiscuit sums it up perfectly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrESZJlNvQ&feature=feedu

I don't know who of you played diablo 2 and waited eagerly for d3, but this will have a huuuuuuge impact on the future of PC online gaming anyway.

[EverPhoenix]

this is one of the worst things they could have done i think. going off diablo 2... if they make higher items available for purchase, it means people can essentially buy anything they want. and then trade them for whatever they want.

although it does promise to keep the economy more or less the same, without mad fluctuations like between ladder seasons of d2

[inferiare]

Interesting. So it'll be like Second Life, Diablo-style.

[Flamez]

I have to agree with this.

Go play Diablo 2 online for 1hr, you will have a tonne of bots and spammers try and sell you gear. This way at least the market is regulated. Its not like Blizzard will be putting the best items on the AH and then selling it themselves, someone has to go out there, find it and then decide to sell it. Sure there will be item farmers, but there was going to be anyway, at least this way it is controlled to some extent.

[psychokind]

Flamez wrote:

Sure there will be item farmers, but there was going to be anyway, at least this way it is controlled to some extent.

do you really believe that? with gold/item selling being legal, what is there to prevent hordes of chinese from doing the same thing they did before only on a much bigger scale? why should they stop spamming or trying to sell you gear now?

another big point:
you have gold and money. you can only sell your gold if somebody wants to buy gold. if there's not enough demand, gold value will drop - inflation.

depending on how fast the inflation will rise you may lose real money while playing diablo 3. if you have 10 $ worth of gold on your char, they may be worth only 5 $ a month later. if your rate of gold increase doesn't keep up with the inflation, it's the same as somebody taking money out of your pocket. what happens if I want to stop playing for some time? I need to sell my gold for $ every time I do that.

this is not like WoW, where nobody cares about the inflation rate of about 300% over 5 years (despite Blizzard trying to regulate it). this is toy money, everybody just wants to have enough to buy his stuff. but in d3 you will play with real money, your gold isn't toy money anymore. are you willing to craft (gamble) items worth real $'s?

imagine you look into the AH, seeing your gold could be sold for 10 $. now you play in a group for 2 hours unsuccesfully and you die 50 times. you don't care, cause you're having fun with friends and just go rep and buy your pots. you come to the AH later and see your gold could be sold for 5 $ now because you lost a lot. wtf dude, how can you agree with this? even if this is going to be like 50 cents it sucks huge ass.

another example of what may happen:
I need enigma for my fistadin. damn it's expensive. but if I keep on farming for a week, I should have earned it. there's no way I'd spend the 10 $ on the AH!
wait a second... one week of farming... If I do only ONE hour of overtime I already earned that enigma. a week of farming!?

I hope you don't see this as an offense flamez this is a topic that really heats me up! the gaming market has taken a dangerous route over the couple last years; this might be another big stepstone towards the wrong direction.

[Fazermint]

They only facilitate it in a safe environment. Selling items for real money would happen anyway, just on questionable third party sites instead.

I do agree, though. Selling and buying items for real cash pretty much ruins the game.

[SoulBlazerFan]

This was bound to happen- I mean, it's already happening in games anyway, so why wouldn't they include it in their game? Chances are, they're going to take a slice off the top for themselves of the proverbial cash pie. Did they mention if they were going to be doing that, too? I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't intending on making money off this too.

[Fazermint]

SoulBlazerFan wrote:

This was bound to happen- I mean, it's already happening in games anyway, so why wouldn't they include it in their game? Chances are, they're going to take a slice off the top for themselves of the proverbial cash pie. Did they mention if they were going to be doing that, too? I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't intending on making money off this too.

I'm 90% sure that they won't do that. But only 90% I am reading every news update about Diablo 3 (yes, that geeky), and I recall reading an interview where a Blizzard employee said they included it in the game solely to offer a safe way of doing it. People often got scammed buying/selling on third party sites, and this is the solution to that.

[psychokind]

blizzard stated they won't be selling items no matter what. by items they mean items that have actual impact on your gaming "strength", which means they will be selling style-items most likely. like in WoW, where they sold mounts and pets that had no real use.

they are earning their money in another way:

you pay a fee for listing an item in the auction house.
you pay a fee for buying an item from the auction house.
you pay a fee for bidding on an item from the auction house.

these are non-returnable. even if somebody undercuts you by 1 cent, you pay your listing fee.

if you want to get your money from your battle.net account via a 3rd party (most likely paypal) to your money account, you will pay a fee to the 3rd party.

this will cause problems in germany. blizzard said that spent money can't be returned. if underaged people buy sth in germany, their parents can forbid it afterwards and the transaction is void (even if the game is rated 1. I'm exited about the first lawsuits regarding that.

[Flamez]

psychokind wrote:

this will cause problems in germany. blizzard said that spent money can't be returned. if underaged people buy sth in germany, their parents can forbid it afterwards and the transaction is void (even if the game is rated 1. I'm exited about the first lawsuits regarding that.

"Due to local laws, Diablo 3 will not be released in Germany, we here at Blizzard are sorry for any broken hearts this may have caused" - I'd laugh

[Fazermint]

Flamez wrote:

psychokind wrote: this will cause problems in germany. blizzard said that spent money can't be returned. if underaged people buy sth in germany, their parents can forbid it afterwards and the transaction is void (even if the game is rated 1. I'm exited about the first lawsuits regarding that. "Due to local laws, Diablo 3 will not be released in Germany, we here at Blizzard are sorry for any broken hearts this may have caused" - I'd laugh

LOL. That could cause WW3, dude.

[Blade]

Fazermint wrote:

I'm 90% sure that they won't do that. But only 90% I am reading every news update about Diablo 3 (yes, that geeky), and I recall reading an interview where a Blizzard employee said they included it in the game solely to offer a safe way of doing it. People often got scammed buying/selling on third party sites, and this is the solution to that.

So this is a case of "legalising weed". If you can't forbid it, use it to your own advantage

[psychokind]

Flamez wrote:

psychokind wrote: this will cause problems in germany. blizzard said that spent money can't be returned. if underaged people buy sth in germany, their parents can forbid it afterwards and the transaction is void (even if the game is rated 1. I'm exited about the first lawsuits regarding that. "Due to local laws, Diablo 3 will not be released in Germany, we here at Blizzard are sorry for any broken hearts this may have caused" - I'd laugh

I SINCERELY hope so and if only for my friend who's defending blizzards idea not being able to play it!

[Manibrandr System]

A lot of games are banned in Germany.

[psychokind]

Valerie Valens wrote:

A lot of games are banned in Germany.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Beschlagnahmtes_Computerspiel

13!