Diablo 3 - Evil Auction House Rises

02 August 2011

Diablo 3 probably makes it into many peoples top 3 most anticipated games currently in development, and is a game personally I am really looking forward to. The hack and slash click-em-up is a genre that is at its core so simple yet satisfying, and when matched with the promise of some shiney phat loot - it simply seems to be some form of addiction. The game currently draws closer and closer to the BETA stage everyone is waiting for, but before we get there Blizzard decided to announce quite possibly the most bizzare feature anyone could have possibly thought of - a "real cash" auction house build into the game along side the gold based one? Thats right, come the launch of Diablo 3 -currently confirmed as "when its ready" - you can walk up to a boss, slay it, get some phat loot, go to the auction house, and sell it for IRL money. Wow....who saw that coming? Now there are some crappy little free-to-play games floating about that claim to do this sort of thing, but each and every one of them utterly fails, and the only other cash auctions I know about were in EVE, and they were sucesful due to heavy community and developer management. Blizzard I feel are the people to do this, and to do it right, and overal it's going to be a good thing for many people.

That's the end of the news, now comes my opinion - please take cover Blizzard fan boys. There are many opinions floating around at the moment (see TotalBiscuit's youtube for a very interesting rant)

The cash can go to one of two places, your battle.net account (free transaction), or a yet unnanounced "third party" (place your bets now - Paypal). The words "free transaction" are there for a reason. Moving money to (for pure example), your paypal account, means Blizzard take their "cut" of the money, and then also paypal would take their "cut" to move the cash to your actual bank acount. Again...wow...oh but yes Blizzard also take their "cut" from the sale of the item........and erm...just for posting it >.<

Thats ALOT of cuts for Blizzard. Hell even if your item does not sell, money for Blizzard. If it does sell, money for Blizzard. If you want to get what is literally YOUR money into your account then that equals, oh yes, money for Blizzard. I'd like to order 1 x license to print money please....jesus. I'd be all for one set fee for the sale of an item - a complete sale - as the service will cost Blizzard to run obviously, but man all this charge for this, charge for that...I'm kinda against it.

Don't get me wrong the idea of a cash auction house is actually a great one, as to this very day there are hundereds of sites selling Diablo 2 items/gold/characters - you name it, you can buy it. Alot of these sites, are ran by people who are not very nice, and scam or steal from their customers. They are like the shady fella down the market place - he's got what you REALLY want, and for a good price, but would you really trust him or his sources of getting the goods? Under Blizzard's Terms and Conditions, this practice (much like in WoW) has been "illegal" and would get your Battle.net account banned if caught doing it - so has Blizzard decided to change the rules all of a sudden simply because they see it as a massive profit?

It's all pure and simply a good and a bad idea mixed into one. Some WoW players are calling it "The Auction House Beta" - as you can bet a large amount if this takes off and suceeds then sometime soon a real-cash auction house will be coming with Blizzards next MMO, and probably WoW...chinese farmers must be in a state of panic! Could however be an interesting way for some of us to make some money ourselves.... :)

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