Diablo 3 : real money auction house - confirmed

Yeah but guess what? There will still be external sites. Because of that usage fee that Blizzard is taking.

http://www.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/2011-diablo-iii-press-event-diablo-iii-auction-house-faq

What’s the difference between the gold-based auction house and the currency-based auction house?

The gold-based auction house uses in-game gold for purchases and sales. With the currency-based auction house, players will be able to conduct these transactions using actual currency from an authorized payment method or from funds that have been added to their Battle.net account. Players can choose to participate in whichever version of the auction house they prefer, on a per-transaction basis.


How is the transaction fee determined?

A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn’t sell, it will be in the seller’s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date.


link below covers bulleted items

http://www.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzplanet-2011-diablo-iii-press-event-coverage
* Diablo III FAQ
* Diablo III Beta Overview
* Diablo III Beta FAQ
* Diablo III Auction House Overview
* Diablo III Auction House FAQ
* Auction House Screenshots
* Diablo III Beta B-roll video
* Diablo III Gameplay Screenshots
* Diablo III New Tristram Concept Art
* Battle.net Interface and Friend Lists
* Diablo III Class Crests Artwork

I remember when Windforce got sold for around $400-500.... so, this is not very new. Besides, Blizzard is turning into a major for-profit corporation.

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SpudOfDoom wrote:

Yeah but guess what? There will still be external sites. Because of that usage fee that Blizzard is taking.

True, but I'm betting the Blizzard legal team is putting fine print in against external sales of ingame content.

And WOW, I didn't see this coming, even though it sorta makes sense... but I'm not a fan of this at all. Unless I get rich! haha

Damn i like idea to sell items on other players its will be very nice !

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Hicks64 wrote:

True, but I'm betting the Blizzard legal team is putting fine print in against external sales of ingame content

Yeah but every online game has those rules. That doesnt stop it.

There is only one problem I have with this - the game will basically end up richest man IRL wins.

And if it wouldn't be such AC then the richest wouldn't "win"?
Basically effect is the same but blizz just make profit from it.
I wouldn't be suprised if they eventually after few years will earn more from this than from selling game boxes.

I see zounds of nolifers grinding D3 dreaming to make themselves rich :)
I see same about the same amount of casuals happy to have option to easily boost up their chars for a few bucks.

The only question is how blizz is intending to solve taxes.
In Eu we got VAT (in most states in US there's something similar afaik).
I'm just curious how it will gonna work since blizz was hunting real $$ transactions for decade if not more, and tax issues were imo one of major causes of it.

Either way it will be big win finanacially for blizz (if it not turn out to be some joke ofc), probably it would attract a lot additional ppl to the game.

Either way.
It's not hard to believe, it was just hard to expect from blizz or any other game company
If I remember correctly there was one mmo with something like that - project entropia, although I don't remember how it worked there.

Yeah it's not that bad an idea. I'm just not that comfortable with the idea that somebody could pay a few hundred dollars and get that super rare item. It really takes a bit away from that awesome feeling when you find ome.

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SpudOfDoom wrote:

Yeah but guess what? There will still be external sites. Because of that usage fee that Blizzard is taking.

Yeah might be. Blizzard is also going to allow a certain number of auctions to be posted for free per week though. So a company that is selling a crap ton of items will have to pay those listing fees, where a person who sells maybe one or two items a week will not have a listing fee.

What this does is allows the player to list cheaper than the company and still make more money, because they are not paying for the listing fee. As you said the company could have an external site that sells items, but why would you want to go to an external site that may or may not be legit when you could buy the item in game and have it guaranteed by Blizzard?

As for the cut they take from the sell... That's how the world works. If you sell through a middleman, they take a cut. With any kind of transaction. You could sell items to your friends and not have to pay the fee if you wanted to.

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SpudOfDoom wrote:

Yeah it's not that bad an idea. I'm just not that comfortable with the idea that somebody could pay a few hundred dollars and get that super rare item. It really takes a bit away from that awesome feeling when you find ome.

For me it kinda makes that awesome feeling quite more real. Its not exactly finding money, but hell if it sells for a couple hundred dollars so it may as well be... You just found yourself two hundred bucks guilt free. Pretty awesome feeling.

Yeah of course there is that side. It's good for the medium-intensity player. It's bad for the low intensity people because once they see they can buy these items they'll be tempted to. It's bad for the hardcore because they will feel like their dedication to the game is cheapened by the ability of others to buy their way to the top.

Oh and no single player offline mode. Sadface.