Activision Blizzard opens Diablo III real-money auction house

[Shawn Knight]

Activision Blizzard has opened the real-money auction house for Diablo III players after nearly a month-long delay. As the name suggests, the service allows gamers to buy in-game goods using real-life currency, albeit in a limited capacity for now.

Blizzard announced on their blog that players in the Americas game region, which Battle.net defines as North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, are the first to have access to the new feature. Supported currencies include the US dollar, Australian dollar and the Mexican peso.

The company says that real-money auction house will open for the European game region (European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates) in the near future.

Home game region is determined by the country of residence that is registered to a player’s Battle.net account. The service will automatically select the most appropriate auction house for you but note that gamers in certain regions will have access to multiple currencies in their region. For example, Latin American players can use the US dollar, Australian dollar and the Mexican peso.

To use a real-money auction house, gamers will have to attach a Battle.net Authenticator or use the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator app with their account as an added measure of security. Additionally, should you want to link a PayPal account to buy or sell goods, you will need to register for the Battle.net SMS Protect service. SMS Protect will occasionally send text messages to your phone with codes that must be entered online to complete transactions.

Once inside the real-money auction house, players will be limited to equipment-only trading for now (weapons, armor, etc.). Blizzard plans to eventually provide commodity trading but they want to take one step at a time to ensure that everyone has a smooth and enjoyable experience.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/48990-activision-blizzard-opens-diablo-iii-real-money-auction-house.html

 

[davislane1]

It'll be interesting to see how well this system functions over the next few months. I'm sure the net cash flows for the service will be on the radar of every major developer & publisher out there. If successful, it wouldn't be surprising to see similar services pop up elsewhere.

 

[Prosercunus]

At the moment it is hard to see exactly how Diablo 3 and the RMAH will shape up. I am sort of in the naysayer camp.

I am saving full judgment of both the game and the RMAH until Patch 1.03 comes out and the auction house (both gold and RMAH) are less ridiculous.

 

[davislane1]

In what way are they ridiculous? (I haven't actually used the AH, just looked over its offerings a few times.)

 

[Prosercunus]

In what way are they ridiculous? (I haven't actually used the AH, just looked over its offerings a few times.)

Well... the prices of course are really inflated. I am mainly waiting until 1.03 comes out and more people have access to more higher end gear, that way the Gold and RMAH auction houses should go down in price.

 

[davislane1]

Ah... That's one thing I did notice about the auction house. The supply discrepancies that might crop up between the two may also be an issue for those who don't care for the RMAH. I haven't really followed the services (the auctions don't add value for me) so I don't know if they've imposed limits on real money auctions, but if it isn't properly regulated the gold AH might get stuffed by the money crowd (why sell for virtual gold when you can sell for cash?).

 

[davimous]

If I was Blizzard I would have given everyone ten dollars to be used in game. It would really get the ball rolling and wouldn't cost them much in the end since they take 30% of each trade anyway. Obviously there are some flaws but its interesting to think about.

 

[Rasta211]

Yes, time to make some money!

 

[Ma_ga]

Nice, $60 dls for a Pay To Win game.

 

[Guest]

Blizzard talks a good 'game'... but will they really care when farming bots take over... since this 'round'(sans WOW) they claim 15% profit each transaction 'reguardless'... gee I wonder how fast they will react to hackers snatchin' awesome gear and posting it for sale...

 

[spydercanopus]

**** gets 'real'. I want to see the top-ten investments in Diablo 3. It can be like a reverse American Idol.

 

[Guest]

Obviously designed for *******es with too much $$ in their pockets and 0 imagination.

 

[Mister_K]

Nice, $60 dls for a Pay To Win game.

Hate to break it to you Mr Pro @ Games but P2W has been around since D3 launch and even prior to it, just higher chance at scamming.

Oh snap.

 

[Prosercunus]

I never seen a time where I actually rather give the farmer and exploiters my money over Blizzard. Not to mention their prices are better also.

Not that I would buy a digital item anyway, but if I did...

 

[Arris]

Didn't buy runes/duped items in D2 for real money, didn't buy gold in WoW for real money and won't buy items in D3 for real money. Obviously there are enough people willing to spend money on virtual items otherwise companies wouldn't be heading down that road, but I just find it quite inconceivable.

 

[Guest]

Pay To Win in this game? This isn't an MMO or FPS which matters, PvP won't be an esport most likely so how does it matter.

Some people really have terrible logic.

 

[Guest]

actually, bots would lower prices for players. and lessen profits for blizz. so they might actually go after bots. but if they don't, cheaper for me.

I think the RMAH and regular AH will find a balance over time. and this will equate to a currency exchange similar to real-world currency markets. whereby you can determine how much gold is equal to 1$. money=goods OR money=gold. this will be much more regulated than WoW blackmarket gold sellers, and less costly than EvE gametimecards

 

[DanUK]

Pay To Win in this game? This isn't an MMO or FPS which matters, PvP won't be an esport most likely so how does it matter.

Some people really have terrible logic.

+1, Woo a good guest comment for once!

Would be interested to see if people can make any sort of significant money off this.

 

[gwailo247]

I only played the first one, and that was a long time ago, so to ask a noob question, this market is basically designed to do away with the grinding necessary to obtain enough gold/loot in order to progress to further levels?

 

[treetops]

I love the idea of being able to cash in my items legitly.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

I only played the first one, and that was a long time ago, so to ask a noob question, this market is basically designed to do away with the grinding necessary to obtain enough gold/loot in order to progress to further levels?

My understanding is that it was introduced to combat gold farmers. In WoW there are rooms full of people (usually in China) who farm gold and sell it for real $$ on 3rd party websites. This makes it hard for players to acquire things because you have to compete with these 'professionals'
The real problem though is account theft. If you can make money selling gold, it's far easier to steal it than make it, so lot of sophisticated mal-ware, keyloggers etc sprouted up to steal passwords and hack players accounts to clean them out. That's obviously a big problem.
By allowing the players to trade their goods for $$ on their own, it's going to (in theory) eliminate the demand for players to use these 3rd party sites to buy game items. Of course, the pirates will be able to sell stuff on the RMAH too, but they'll be competing with all the players, not just other pirates.

 

[j_king]

If I was Blizzard I would have given everyone ten dollars to be used in game. It would really get the ball rolling and wouldn't cost them much in the end since they take 30% of each trade anyway. Obviously there are some flaws but its interesting to think about.

If they gave $10 to spend to everyone that would be $47 million using just the numbers they sold on day one. Assuming they have sold quite a bit more copies since then I'm sure we are looking at more like $60-$65 million.

 

[Omnificent]

They take $1.00 from every item sold. The least you can sell an item for is 1.25 therfore netting you only $.25. There conversion rate is 100 gold = 1$ which should not be right. I've picked up 1000K gold already... It will take awhile for you to make any substancial money unless higher value items can be obtained (which is rare).

From what I have seen you can buy 1000K gold for under $20 from sketchy web sites. Then using the gold auction house you could buy something with 62500 gold which is roughly equivalent to $1.25

To get an idea as to how far 62500 will go, I buy most of my good <level60 rares for 5-10K

 

[Omnificent]

IDK why it got cut off. Most of my good <60 rares for 5-10K each max

 

[treetops]

I plan to buy a bot and a 2nd d3 account, use RMAH to get the 60$ back Ill spend on the second acc with bot farmed items and then wave good bye to farming headaches. My poor barb needs around 20 million gold to beat a2 inferno.

/honesty, love it hate it, do it?