I just hope this doesn't detract at all from the in-game experience.

Frankly, if I find a badass sword that I don't need, and I can sell said item to someone else for 10 real dollars, I'll totally do it. I'll never pay for it though, because that's for idiots.

I see this as something inherently profitable for me, without detracting from the game at all, so... great! Whatever, just do it!

@Tebbit said:

I just hope this doesn't detract at all from the in-game experience.

Frankly, if I find a badass sword that I don't need, and I can sell said item to someone else for 10 real dollars, I'll totally do it. I'll never pay for it though, because that's for idiots.

I see this as something inherently profitable for me, without detracting from the game at all, so... great! Whatever, just do it!

Until Blizzard starts changing drop rates based on market values, and people close to Blizzard staff members magically end up having caches of in game items worth unrealistic real world values. This has so much potential for scamming and corruption it could have only come from Activision.

It's no secret that  Blizzard  has struggled over the years with  World of Warcraft  and its various players/illicit sources making money off items featured in the game. Be it gold farmers in China, dudes selling swords on eBay, or whatever else, the demand for the sweetest of loot is high enough to where people are willing to plunk down actual cash money to get it. 

@hexx462 said:

This really isn't worth getting super pissed off about. Gold farmers have caused massive damage to the integrity of online gaming and they are seemingly unkillable. Taking the power away (read CASH FLOW) looks to be the only legitimate way to fight their kind. The real problem is that people are more than willing to spend money on loot whether we like it or not, I'd rather Blizzard/Activision control it then have it fun the shady sorts that run Gold Farming "Businesses".

I'm sorry but I fail to see how this stops gold farmers at all. If anything it allows them to be more blatant because they're encouraged to do what they do. Blizzard won't give two shits either because they'll be getting their cut.

Nothing about this is about 'improving the game', it's purely a way for Blizzard to make money on something they weren't able to before.

Interesting stuff they're cooking up for Diablo III, wonder how fans will respond to it..

I am shocked that Actiblizzard are trying to make money with their products. Absolutely shocked.

Hooray, they've upgraded Hell Baal runs into micro-transactions. Its hard to discern which is more bullshit.

@Buzzkill said:

@Tebbit said:

I just hope this doesn't detract at all from the in-game experience.

Frankly, if I find a badass sword that I don't need, and I can sell said item to someone else for 10 real dollars, I'll totally do it. I'll never pay for it though, because that's for idiots.

I see this as something inherently profitable for me, without detracting from the game at all, so... great! Whatever, just do it!

Until Blizzard starts changing drop rates based on market values, and people close to Blizzard staff members magically end up having caches of in game items worth unrealistic real world values. This has so much potential for scamming and corruption it could have only come from Activision.

At that stage though, Blizzard is goddamn Skynet. I see this as a measure to prevent all that outside-trading that used to go on (and still does in WoW), much like how Bnet 2.0 was a way to cut out all those 3rd-party hosting providers. It just gives them more control of their content. I mean, I'm just speculating, but the things you're suggesting sound illegal to me.

I would never pay for anything. But if there are suckers willing to pay ME...

If the Cash shop portion of the AH is mandatory, that means signing up for this "third party" service is also mandatory in order to play and enjoy Diablo 3. This service is a bank and will require you to tie a line of credit or a banking/checking account to it. Is that added vulrenability into your life worth it for a game?

This is the smart choice, it will cut back on third party sites that sell items, hopefully blizzard does the smart thing and sell gold at reasonable prices, that will also cut out the farmer industry, they should of done the same thing with WOW.

it's a whole new market, i would gladly buy gold when i need it because i don't have time to play 20 hours a day.

Come on Blizzard, deny it all you want but this is exactly the kind of thing nobody expected from you and instead expected it from someone like Activision... Wait a minute

@Buzzkill said:

If the Cash shop portion of the AH is mandatory, that means signing up for this "third party" service is also mandatory in order to play and enjoy Diablo 3. This service is a bank and will require you to tie a line of credit or a banking/checking account to it. Is that added vulrenability into your life worth it for a game?

Honestly if its not paypal i will be really surprised.... and i already have a paypal account. And blizzard already has my card numbers so yea.... Makes no difference.

Not interested at all in using something like this. As we find out more and more about Diablo 3, I find myself getting progressively less interested it in it.

Yeah...I don't see what people are getting so upset about. There's still a normal auction house in place and you are by no means forced to use the real money thing. Like tebbit, I'd never pay, but if I can make 10 bucks on that sweet mace I just picked up no way in hell I'll say no. I guess people just see the word "money" or "cash" or just go into rage mode without considering the specifics or the possible benefits (like cutting down on gold farmers and such). Oh well

Activision motherfuckers!

At least this way I won't have 50 bots whispering me to check out their illicit sites as soon as I log on.

As for the argument of "Who would sell their item for in-game gold when they could sell it for real money?", who would buy their item with real money when they could buy it with in-game gold? If there are no buyers, you're not going to be able to sell anything for real money. The problem of "I can earn real money much faster than I can make in-game money so it costs me less time to just use cash for everything" will hopefully be solved by players setting their own prices. Although if they were undercut by ridiculous gold farmer prices then yeah.. that won't work.

Wow, beyond the AH and using real cash. Is the no mods, having to be online to play, no LAN, and who knows what else. Thinking of this and subscribing to some COD service makes me lol. I can smell the stench of Kotick on D3 and thus will not be buying it. When pirates get more out of the game than I do after paying 60 dollars buying a copy with a license shitting all over my freedom, I'll pass. I'll gladly purchase a copy of Torchlight 2!

@crusader8463 said:

Wow... I'm about this close [ ] to just giving up on video games if shit like this being in ever dam game is what to expect from this point on. I'm sick and fucking tired of being nickle an dimmed in every god dam game. I honestly can;t remember the last time I got to buy a game that was complete and not had some parts of it cut for DLC.

How are you being nickel and dimed? No one is forcing you to use this real money auction house. If Diablo 2 and WOW are any indication (and they are huge indications) then this was going to happen anyways. Now blizzard is just making it a safe process for their users that would want to do this, what is wrong with that exactly?

This is stupid, why would someone buy stuff like this for actual money, i know i wouldn't.....the TF2 store is an exception....and all the clothes i bought for my avatar don't count ether.

@ZeForgotten said:

Come on Blizzard, deny it all you want but this is exactly the kind of thing nobody expected from you and instead expected it from someone like Activision... Wait a minute

I have completely expected a reaction similar to this from blizzard for years. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that most people are shocked about this. Items will be traded through illegal means if something like this doesn't exist, at least now it should be impossible to get scammed if you did want to spend cash on an item.

Controversy aside, I was just thinking about how good a competition this would make for the Giant Bomb crew or just the interns.eg Kessler has to try and live of the money he makes from the auction house in Diablo III.etc

Time to quit our day jobs, right guys!?

To be fair this has been going on in d2 for years just now there is an official safer channel. Can't wait for diablo 3!

@Hockeymask27 said:

To be fair this has been going on in d2 for years just now there is an official safer channel. Can't wait for diablo 3!

There are a ton of people who are missing this very salient point.

@crusader8463 said:

Wow... I'm about this close [ ] to just giving up on video games if shit like this being in ever dam game is what to expect from this point on. I'm sick and fucking tired of being nickle an dimmed in every god dam game. I honestly can;t remember the last time I got to buy a game that was complete and not had some parts of it cut for DLC.

How are you being nickel and dimed? No one is forcing you to use this real money auction house. If Diablo 2 and WOW are any indication (and they are huge indications) then this was going to happen anyways. Now blizzard is just making it a safe process for their users that would want to do this, what is wrong with that exactly?

Next up: Custom hats for Zerglings. 
 
Fuck this crap, seriously. If you can't make enough revenue with your 60$ box + expansions + merchandise + books + comics +, probably think about your management level salary. 
This is Activision having a huge boner about being able to literally print money.

People sure loves to QQ - I don't see the problem with this.  At this point (Blizzard's popularity) anything they do will piss some facet of their fanbase and attract the attention of haters.

Don't like it? Don't use it.  
Buy your gear from Chinese Farmers on ebay? Well now you got a safer in game option. 
Chinese Farmers? Don't have to worry about getting screwed over by paypal, ebay and Blizzard anymore.  
Blizzard? Oh what? Busy counting your monies? Okay, I'll come back later.
 
Personally, I'm going to make a weblog (or a twit)  of me trying to earn 65 dollars on Diablo 3

So is this an MMORPG or do you have to enter arena/ co-op lobbies to play with others?

A couple of years back, I got bashed on this very forum when I said that Blizzard would never be the same now that they're with Activision. Blizzard fanboyz came from left and right to defend the idea that Blizz would never change.
 
And yet here we are, a couple of years later and Blizzard is actually letting chinese farmer sell shit freely, and take a cut off the sales!!! How fucking wrong is this?

Blizz has legalized the "Chinese gold farmers." How hilarious!

While I disagree with this entirely, Blizzard may have a way to implement this without it royally pissing me off: having "realms" that don't have said auction house, and having some that do. As long as I have the option of not having my gold-focused auction house screwed over because all the players and gold farmers won't put anything of value in the standard auction house, then I'm fine with this.

@crusader8463:

Blizzard was very clear they are NOT selling items. This is peer to peer only. They are not making super weapons to sell you. This is a safer way to implement a system that already exists in every other blizzard RPG already.

@crusader8463 said:

@NickL said:

@crusader8463 said:

Wow... I'm about this close [ ] to just giving up on video games if shit like this being in ever dam game is what to expect from this point on. I'm sick and fucking tired of being nickle an dimmed in every god dam game. I honestly can;t remember the last time I got to buy a game that was complete and not had some parts of it cut for DLC.

How are you being nickel and dimed? No one is forcing you to use this real money auction house. If Diablo 2 and WOW are any indication (and they are huge indications) then this was going to happen anyways. Now blizzard is just making it a safe process for their users that would want to do this, what is wrong with that exactly?

They are forcing me because they are designing the game in such a way that you would have to use that or here would be no point in including it in the game. Next to no one is going to put any really good loot in the in game auction when they can put it in the pay one and earn real money. So that leaves me with two options: Grind away for way too many hours in hopes of getting some uber rare .0000001% chance of an item drop, or be forced to pay money. If you want to compete you are going to have to buy the items, because they always make earning it in game artificially harder then it needs to be to incentive people into buying it instead of earning it. That's how all the nickle and dime micro transaction games work. They make the way you earn it in game so unrealistically hard, time consuming and un-fun that no sane person would ever put that much work into earning it, so that they ether do without, and can't compete with the rich kids with moms credit card, or they break down and buy the items. It's a filthy, vile, and dirty way to design a game, thanks facebook games for that, and I refuse to play any game that compromises the fun in it's design to accommodate it.

First off, anyone who has ever played PVP in diablo 2 knows that you don't need perfect gear to compete, you need skill first and foremost. If diablo 3 doesn't continue that tradition then there are fundamentally more wrong problems then a real money auction house.

Second, you make some pretty big assumptions about a game that hasn't even entered beta phase yet. How do you know this information? I follow diablo 3 pretty closely and I don't even know some of this stuff, please tell me your source!

Third, people have been paying real money for the best gear long before facebook. The only thing that blizzard is doing is making it a bit more safe for anyone that is willing to do it.

And last but not least, diablo has always been about grinding to get loot, this changes nothing, there have always been those people that didn't want to do the grind and bought their gear from less than legal websites, it will be no different now, except those people won't run the risk of getting scammed and losing hundreds of dollars.

I'm okay with this. This sort of thing was going to happen anyways, so better that it goes through official channels and hey, Blizzard gets to wet its beak a little.

So when is Torchlight 2 out?

wow. i used to REALLY want this game. 
 
then DRM. not as much.
 
now this. it's like they're actively trying to push people away.

I wouldn't be buying any stuff for real money but I would sell some, this is gonna make the economy of the game really weird but I wonder if you can buy items for gold or real money and pay gold but the person receives real money, nah they probably won't do that :D. We're going to see some real crazy prices on that auction house :D.

Hmm... that is 2 strikes against Diablo 3, one more, and i am out (not going to buy it). 
 
1. Real money market places 
2. Always on DRM (have to be connected online in order to play) 
 
And the thing that really annoys me, is that they could easily fix this, but won't. If they just included a opt-out option when making a character (i.e. You either took part in this money scheme, therefore have to be connected online at all times to prevent cheating, or you didn't, therefore you don't have to be connected online, and can cheat all you want in single player (who cares what other people do in their single player games))

Only concern is online-only. Consumers shouldn't have to connect to the Internet to play a video game solo.

Yea, I guess this doesnt seem like a big deal to me.  Was never big into playing on-line, never traded items, so dont really see this impacting me a whole lot.  Worse case, I only use loot that I collect personally.  

I was auctioning an item in Everquest once and was offered real money (75 dollars!) for it. I hadn't had much luck selling it for ingame currency so I took the offer, wondering what could possibly happen. Let's just say I failed to consider what the worst was--I thought it was that I just wouldn't get the money, but I'd still have the breastplate. I was so wrong. I received the money via paypal and turned over the item to a dude in the game. Simple, right? Tell me you would have turned away seventy five real dollars for a virtual thing that you couldn't sell for fake money anyway.

But it turns out THAT dude had scammed a third party into paying me, who proceeded to harangue me trying to get his money back. The third party wanted someone to provide a vital item for him to complete a quest, so he had to pay up front. He was out 75 bucks but I was out the breastplate. I decided it was a shitty situation but I was on more solid ground, since I didn't trust in the kindness of strangers to deliver and he did. He tried to get paypal to reverse the payment (and they did, but I'd already transferred the money out anyway) but it was ruled in my favor because it was a virtual thing. Close call.

Point is, the entire crummy situation (and I'm sure the others like it that happen all the time) could have been avoided if there was a secure place for humans to do business.

@crusader8463 said:

@KoolAid: They may not directly be selling them, but doing this is setting up a system that encourages people to go the real money route. Why would someone ever sell an item on the fake money store when they could put it on the real money one and make real money? That just means any of the really rare good items you would actually want are going to be nickle and dimmed among the players instead of like before when you would trade them. I hate that they are adding in this extra fee on top of the game for something that could be accomplished without it, for no other reason then to milk the customers of their money. I know I for one won't be buying this game now that I have read about this. And ya, I know they couldn't give a flying fuck that one less person isn't buying their game, but I hate the way this industry is turning every god dam thing imaginable into some kind of way to milk customers for more money and I do not want to be a part of a video game industry that does that and the only way I can tell these companies to fuck off is to not buy their game. I just hope enough people feel the same way and don't buy the game as well in big enough numbers that these companies stop doing this before it gets too wide spread to stop. Sadly I know that too won't happen because the majority of customers don't follow the news like most of us on here do so they will probably never know about this until after they buy the game, even if they don't want to support it.

I don't think anyone sold items for gold before. I remember gold being completely useless in D2 and I'm sure they will try to fix this, but it probably won't work. I haven't seen anything that says you can't trade. I'm sure many people will. Fundamentally, I agree with you. Paying for rare items sucks. But that system exists. This is cold hard fact. Because Diablo is popular, people will try to sell items. Try as they might, it is impossible for blizzard to stop people from selling items for cash. So... Instead of spending tons of money on a problem they cant fix, they are going to go the opposite route and make money off the problem. Yes, Blizzard is a business. They want your money. Shocking, I know.

I wished I lived in a world where people (users, not blizzard) didn't sell items and characters for cash. I wish I lived in a world where people didn't download cracked games for free. I wished I lived in a world where a game store didn't buy one copy of a game from a publisher and then sells it three times over. But unfortunately, we do live in this world, so there is DRM, online passes and now real money auction stores. I feel that this is the most player friendly solution to this problem I have ever seen and those are the high quality solutions I expect from blizzard. I hope that they take a similar forward thinking approach to DRM, but it seems they already came up with a pretty user unfriendly solution there.

I'm sorry to hear that this situation has scared you off the the game. I just hope enough people feel the same way as me and can see the logical reasoning and forward thinking of such a bold move by Blizzard. Then they can make their own decision about buying Diablo 3

seems like a lot of work for Blizzards to go through, just to 'skim a bit off the top', sure there will be millions of transactions, but the server and legal costs are sure to be hell.

As someone who would never want to buy in-game items with real cash I have to say I ultimately think this is a good thing.  Blizzard probably has some of the best data on cost of trying to prevent virtual item sales verses alternatives.  I bet they've had an economist or two look at things and decided this is the best way to deal with the inevitable.    

I wonder if it's going to have an effect on broadcast spam in multiplayer games.  The seller spam in D2 used to be pretty annoying.

@KoolAid said:

The cold hard truth is that this system WILL exist, no matter what. Blizzard is just accepting it and getting it organized as opposed to spending resources trying to fight it. It's like if the government legalized pot and taxed it, or rather if game companies realized people WILL ALWAYS pirate their game and figured out some alternative to DRM lockout systems.

I'm more upset about always needing a internet connection to play.

Not to call you out here, because I've seen lots of people make this argument. The argument that this sort of thing is going to happen one way or another so Blizzard might as well step in, but I'm not so sure about that.

Did this happen in Diablo II? Hell yes. And the guys must have been pretty damn successful considering the amount of bots in the later portions of that game's life. The thing is, Diablo II didn't have ANY other alternative. There wasn't even a regular auction house. I think if they had just gone with the standard, gold-based AH here, almost all of that desire to pay real money for items would be gone. Not once while playing WoW did I even consider spending money for gear. I think the same thing applies here. They went from having no form of convenient trading to this very risky (some might say dumb) extreme.