This is pretty neat.

Best idea to have underage kids earn money for condoms and alcohol ever.

if this plays out like garret reports they should make it to where no1 can make a liveing at doing this..like some random kid playing to just farm his way to a new 100000$ house "irl"

not to mention..idk if there is a fee to pay..but if there is..couldnt you just farm / sell your way to not ever pay a fee..in other words it would be f2p..eck

imo i think this game becomes a farmers paradise and takes it totally away from gameplay..thx but nthx

I think it's great, now we can all become item farmers and sell it for real life cash to other players.

Going to quit my day job and tell my wife I've found a new career.

:)

Worse news is the "You must be connected to battle.net at all times to play Diablo 3, even single player mode."

Guess what, that "you must maintain contact" crap caused me to never buy ubisoft games with it, and now has caused me to drop all interest in Diablo 3.

@ Odinsrath:

The FAQ states that there is a fee the player will have to pay in order to LIST an item for real cash. Whether it sells or not, you'll be paying Blizzard for the priviledge of listing an item for cash.

I think that's bullshit. Sure it will prevent people from listing low-level and/or useless items, but why would people do that to begin with?

Also it states that there will be a fee for transferring from your D3 account to your bank account or other 3rd party handler. So they're gonna charge you for listing, possibly charge you if you sell it (I think I saw that but don't have time to re-read it now), and then charge you AGAIN when you wanna take your money out.

Sure you can argue, "Hey, at least I can make some extra cash if I get a few lucky drops." But c'mon folks... do they really need to charge you 3 times for it?

I'm sure some people will love it, but I'll exercise my right to think Blizzard are money-mongering bastards by not using it.

Lets be honest, Blizzard isn't eliminating gold sellers.  They're just taking a cut.  It's a can't beat 'em, join 'em strategy because Blizzard thinks that the players don't care.  Maybe they don't.  We'll see.

Pardo was cited on other game sites when asked specifically about botting and gold sellers as saying (paraphrasing) Que sera, sera.  I don't necessarily care about the moral arguement, but I do think that gold sellers have a negative impact on games.

That being said, the problem isn't players.  It's the game design that promotes the practice and this is the sickest example of a company that is bordering on official support for the practive.

Bli$$ard " If you can't beat gold sellers might as well become one of them " What was once a great franchise and great company is now tarnished forever.

I don't see how it could affect me. Most of people forget this is NOT an MMO. If You are for a solo play or some fun with no friends You can ignore both AHs and it'll be exactly like old D1/D2. The whole pay to win or advantage is like raging about some Joe playing some game on other side of country using trainer or idkfa cheat.

If You are into global multiplayer than You should know how it looked like with D2 - dupes, exploits and RMT. You had to deal with it whether You were righteous and never used it or not. I for one would prefer AH that I could also use, a legitimate choice.

 [b][color=orange]Anyways as long as Blizz themselves doesn't sell items/gold I don't care.[/color][/b]

Doubt I would ever buy/sell anything, and if there are three points where you have to give Blizzard a cut, it will probably be something like a 95/5 cut, in Blizzards favor.  But hey, they are getting rid of gold sellers, by taking their place.

Heh, everything that Blizzard puts out now seems to be called a "feature" by the gaming media. I think this is true love. Constant online DRM, a cash shop, I can't wait for a 400 dollar collectors box that will be a real steal!

blizzard = hypocrits

nuff said

Gang, this is really fascinating on so many levels.  Whether you like/dislike what Blizzard is doing, you have to give them props for being ballsy.  They're practically creating a new kind of exchange, a new market, that's unregulated.  There are no rules to abide by yet, no federal statutes or mandates and no committee oversight. 

I for one really hope they pull this off the "RIGHT" way.  If Blizzard gets greedy, or manages this incompently, this will go bad for the entire industry. 

Mark my words, the entire industry (not to mention a few legislators)  will have eyes on Blizzard when D3 launches. 

The side effect is all those rare items will be farmed, common, and inexpensive. Common items will be worthless.

If not blizzard, then ebay.  Nothing changes except for the bonus that you can buy stuff more securely, and bliz gets a cut. 

Even today, just look on ebay for diablo 2 items.  It's crazy.  And if you go to bnet chat, it's just constant spamming for buying of d2 items. 

I wanted to post about this before anyone had the chance to overreact, and try to enlighten people who know nothing about d2's economy, but laziness got the best of me. 

Sony Online Entertainment already did this with Everquest 2 and The Bazaar server. Nothing new under the sun here. 

Additionally, Blizzard has always been able to ban whoever they wan at will. That's also not new.

Hello Pay to Play....Micro payments?  Blizzard has become such a hooker, she just wants our money.

So..pretty much because Dialbo 3 is B2P they had to find a way to get constant revenue from it even without a subscription, gg blizzard. Definitly wont be touching this game with a ten foot pole now, yes there was item selling in the old diablo, but the difference was it was a bannable offence, and I had hopes that blizzard would take the right precautions to keep it to a minimum, instead they are just letting anyone who wants to pay to win without any repercussions. So tell me again what the purpose of playing this game again is? It used to be to run through all the acts and try to find good loot and hang out with your guild and stuff trying to find good stuff, now you can just buy good stuff off of the AH....meaning you basicly have nothing to do in game but grind levels and if you feel like it trying to find gear, sounds pointless to me

I'm not sure but I think blizzard might be selling gold to websites in wow, I saw a guy the other day that had been there in ironforge for 2 weeks spamming a website, 2 weeks now

Well its the same thing with hackers, blizzard has stopped even trying to stop hackers, and I'm even a little convinced they do it themselves to make people buy authenticators.

OK, I've ALWAYS been a p2p person and never liked the freemeium model much; let me just get that out of the way.

People want to criticize CCP, the Triple A's that went freemium, blah blah about making a cash grab?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Have you read the whole articels?  "I hope we break even"  WTFFFFF

This is the biggest, greediest cash grabs I have ever seen.

"we're doing it for the players because they wanted it!!"

Please... PLEASE

Obama and the Congress may think we're stupid but come on.

I wish all of you would stop posting before reading other posts.  Especially if you are going to complain, because it obviously means you do not understand how this works or why it's a good thing.  Why bliz is doing it, is frankly irrelevant.

Mostly I'm just posting again to say props for the fifth element reference, forgot to do that last time.  I love that scene.

"that's a very nice hat"

I agree this is a good idea. The pirates and gold farmers will spam every board with misleading and crap responses but the truth is blizzard is not selling the items players are, and most players will not be charging hundreds or thousands of dollars like the gold farmers.

   The article is missleading as Blizzard states they will be charging a flat rate not a "percentage" as the article states. further more Blizzard states players will get free listings weekly so once again its not a Blizzard money grad.

 Beware the koolaid the uninformed or downright lying some would have you drink. The pirates and gold farmers have alot at stake here and will post anything to try and get these measures to fail

Two things to remember here:

1) the real money market for D2 items is HUGE.  I mean HUGE!  It's all over ebay and b.net is spammed constantly with things for sale.  It is part of the game and it makes it easier for hackers to screw with your account and the game itself.

2) this is not an mmo and there is NO monthly sub.  One of the reasons I think so many people are willing to shell out cash for D2 items is the fact that there is no sub.  Why not spend some cash on items? 

Well, why shouldn't Blizzard regulate it and make some money off it since they aren't charging you to play?  It's win-win.  Less piracy and bugginess to the game, cleaner trading, and the money Blizz makes on the transactions will go toward improving the game and making additional content!

And who do you think will set the market price ?  And who will have the most items to sell....why the gold farmers oc.

The only thing this does now is farmers don't have to set up there own off-site to sell goods. 

I would not be surprised if bliz starts taking a % off each sale in the future.

Yeah color me a sceptic.

"and the money Blizz makes on the transactions will go toward improving the game and making additional content!"

If you think this will happen you are completely crazy.   I havent seen any extra stuff going into WoW since they started RMTs.  i see more and more recrcyled content though.

This isnt about 'controlling' the item market.

This is Blizzard getting even with Sony for showing them the wonders of TCG with rare in game loot profits, now they got shown this process

I don't mind the auction system for real money or anything like that. What outrages me is the requirement of staying connected to Battle.net while playing. This is a single-player game, Blizzard. Repeat after me. 

Of course, they don't care, They're happy to sacrifice the game to their ambitions of turning Battle.net into Facebook. 

Since Blizzard is located in California wonder if they will have to chage sales tax all the items sold?

Blizzard will also be hiring accounts I bet to send out all those 1099 forms they will have to issue. LOL

Gold farmers the world over are rubbingtheir hands gleefully at this announcement. Now they can farm virtual items to auction off for real money direct instead of items to convert to virtual currency and then selling the virtual currency for real world money.

But at least Blizzard now get their cut... lol

Hmm, I bet Blizzard will watch this player market closely, see what sells and then make their own items to sell based off the metrics they will for sure gather. It's not a far off thought.

As far as needed to be connected to the net to play the game, I'm hoping that this will cut down on hackers , sounds like some assests may be server side with this kind of implmentation, not a bad thing if it helps lessen, or even better eliminate what we saw in D1/D2 :cheats, hacks..whatever.

@xcharbyx

I can't wait to jump in and start doing just that! Who needs a part-time job when you have D3? You know what? I'll have even more money for alcohol if I just don't use any condoms! ;]

the only thing that worry's me is this quote from Blizzards own FAQ:

"Will Blizzard sell anything directly through the auction house?

We don't have any plans at this time to post items for sale in the auction house."

The AT THIS TIME kinda worry's me alot.

When I was playing wow, ppl joked that biggest gold seller is blizzard. Jokes are now becoming reality.

Hasn't everyone forgot that this is a single player game with a multipler component? You don't HAVE to purchase anything. You don't have HAVE to see another human being ever. You can just play with your friends and get all the loot you want.

This isn't an MMO at all, you aren't going to see some one just walk up and start stealing your kills and talking about how much bigger their wallet is.

oh yes and wight till the tax man gets a whif of this and wants his cut as well.

Blizzard just gave the ok to RMT.   In what universe is that a good thing?

In what universe does it not exist anyways?

This is sad news for anyone that was remotely interested in PVP in d3.

I will never understand what drives people to purchase crap from a cash shop in a game like this.

Is'nt playing the game and finding the loot so our character's can progress, the entertainment value of why we purchased the game to begin with?

People who do these things IMHO are ruining gaming. The gaming companies are starting to put as much resources in the cash shop crap as they are putting into the games them selves

I assume players can still trade items outside of the auction houses. I don't see this curbintg gold sellers at all. I never played the first games in multiplayer, and don't expect I will with this game. It really doesn't affect me at all in terms of my cash.

For all the people against this, you must obviously have a better alternative to solve RMT issues.  I would love to hear them.

Options:

1.  Bind on equip/pickup.  Hell no, not in D3.

2.  Do nothing.  Allow RMT to continue as is with illegal companies making the profits that go towards phishing sites, scams, and spambots.  No thanks.

The players have spoken and created this abomination called RMT.  RMT has only become a billion dollar industry because of players, not Blizzard.  You can cover your eyes and point the blame finger wherever you want, but at some point you might want to return to reality and realize that RMT is a party of online gaming whether you like it or not.  It's about time a company has been smart enough to regulate it.  

I love how people assume that this will ruin the game.  It wont.  This is no different than what D2 already had.  Just because D2 didn't have the trading infastructure build into the game itself didn't mean that it didn't occur.  The only different is that instead of the profits going to some shady operation in China thats funding phishing sites and spambots, the profits will now be going to Blizzard who can invest that money on future improvements to the game.

In this situation everyone wins, including the players.  The only people who are against this irrational purists who aren't willing to accept the change, but the online gaming world is changing whether you want it to or not.  Either jump on and embrace the ride, or watch from the sidelines pouting.  I don't care what you choose.  Either way, I will be having fun.

I simply don't like to have to deal with real money in my games, i just don't like it. And i played some p2p; used cash shop and all, but i just don't like it. I'll just avoid all the games that have direct link to real money. Is RMT good or bad, i just don't care after all.

It remind me those themepark (the real one) where you have to cash  every time you try a new stand, or those public toilet you need to put few coin everytime you have to piss, thanks i'll go outside and its cleaner. It just go on my nerves if i have to deal with real money every time i want a new sword or outfit in my rpg, its silly to me. I'll let this to people that think this is normal and should be accepted, i personally won't, not in my games thanks guys.

I'm still baffled about all this whining over the matter. Like it or not gold sellers made a lot! of money, diablo 2 gear still sells for 100's on third party sites... there is no stopping it without taking over and controlling it, as for the hypocrite cries... you are also being a hypocrite or at the very least niave... if you think 50% of any guild you were a part of didn't help fund gold sellers. They wouldn't do it if they were bringing in a lot of cash, just think about how many accounts they need to buy.

Garrett you were saying that this is an attempt to squash gold sellers, and I thought the same thing at first. I just wrote an article about this yesterday and realised by the end of it this:

Gold sellers and farmers have resorted these days to hacking accounts in order to obtain items and gold, on top of already farming.

Gold sellers won't stop, they now will just have a legitimate place to sell their goods, and there is no doubt a lot of this will come from hacked accounts. If it wasn't a Blizzard game, sellers probably wouldn't even bother. There is still a lot of money to be made here however.

So I guess we get a legitimate market, where you are garunteed never to be ripped off aslong as you buy from within the games AH, but at the cost that you might be buying goods stolen from other players (or maybe even your own if your unlucky enough)

But in saying this, everything comes at a price. This could be a great way to fund some of my MMO Subscriptions, but I don't see it doing any more than that.

What exactly is preventing farmers from selling their stuff or gold without using Blizzards system ?

Well it is just another way of Blizzard saying "if you can't beat them, join them". Shouldnt be hard for anyone who has plays Blizzard games, to see the so called war against gold farmers stopped years ago.

And I was so looking forward to Diablo3...

There will be so many sellers and so little buyers that the price of Real life cash will be very very low.

And i dunno but buying gear for cash will be a great tool for rich kids to buy the best armor ingame and ruin your day in pvp.

Realy have mixed feeling about it :P

I only see one thing most of players become gold farmers,  they will not realy  be intrested in  the game anymore.

Normal gamers now  become with this system suddenly money players they gonne farm items to sell people will not play pure for fun of it or relaxing game session, no its becomming business/work not a game where you find people who relax after wrok in real life and have fun.

No many this game become real life and work and try earn money. Its sickening but SAD truth:(

In away gold farmers have WON and legit players have LOST:(

Originally posted by AKASlaphappy

You know if you look at the FAQ Blizzard states that they will get a cut from people putting items on the AH, with a note that we plan to waive the listing portion of the fee for a limited number of transactions per account. They also are going to get a cut when you sale the item and when you transferee the money to be used they get a cut.

 

So if the people on this site and around the web that are saying this is the best thing since slice bread use it daily, Blizzard could make thousands to millions yearly off this. Think about it if 10,000 items are added to the AH daily around the world, Blizzard makes money. If 5,000 items around the world get sold daily Blizzard makes money. If 2,500 people around the world daily transfer money to paypal Blizzard makes money. This alone if you people put your money were your mouth is could change the whole single player gaming industry. And from the perspective of a Business owner I would be watching and cheering you people on to use it. Just think since the single player gaming industry started they made money off of producing content, with this one decision by gamers it could all change.

 

Just imagine 10 years from now all gaming developers and publishers becoming digital EBays. After all if Blizzard succeeds at what they are trying to do here, they could easily make more money off of the real money auction house then from making and selling Diablo 3. Since with that auction house they would have a continues revenue stream that they take small percentage off of, but do not have to spend any money to make anything they earn. This is a Business owners ultimate fantasy come to life and people around the net are cheering for it. I can just imaging ever developer sitting up and taking notice when Blizzard announces record profits for Diablo 3 because of their new digital Ebay.

 

With this new industry comes the potential for record profit margins! The gaming industry could switch to making fewer games and each one would have their own ebay. So going from making hundreds of games each year worldwide to single digits. In turn reducing their overhead by firing about 75% of the people employed (of course all those people potential could lose their house and end up claiming bankruptcy) in the gaming industry, and cutting back on the size of their facilities. Making is so they have less overhead and with a constant revenue stream setting all time records in profit margins for ever company in gaming.  

 

So please people that support this put your money were your mouth is and make Blizzard tons and tons of money from the AH. This will be kind of exciting like watching gamers play Russian roulette with the gaming industry. Because in the end who knows what effects this could have in the long run, when companies see they can make money without producing new content. It could be way beyond my vision to see or any gamer out there. But it is exciting we could end up in a hell we help create or it could end up great for the gaming industry. The only thing I know is that it will be fun to watch what the other companies do when Blizzard is rolling in hundred dollar bills from the AH money stream.

 

So please support what your mouth is saying with your money, in a sick and twisted way I really look forward to seeing what happens!

 

I know some of you might think that I might be blowing the amount of money Blizzard can make out of proportion. But to that I would say which one is better a penny a day doubled for a year, or a million dollars. If you said the better deal was the penny doubled per day you are right, and that is what we are handing to Blizzard with our Blessings.

 

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/#auction:auction-faq

I see the gaming world is going to $)%)($  well it was going to happen sooner or later so might aswell happen sooner then later hehe.

I personally would rather have the company itself regulate an aspect of the game (usually an underground one like in D2) than a third party.  I see less account hacking from going to those third party sites and getting keyloggers.  If I were them I would require an input of an auth code every time you are going to sell an item just to make sure.

This pretty much killed all interest I had in Diablo 3, along with Blizzard NOT allowing modding or LAN support.

What was once a great company who cared more about the player's needs then themselves have turned into the money-hoarding economy they call Blizzard "Entertainment" -.-

It really isn't that bad in the case of D3 which isn't a full mmorpg anyway. I don't particularly care if the next guy is playing his instance of the game with bought, top gear, rather than farming his ass off himself (which I kind of prefer myself in Hack & Slashers).

Also Blizzard won't be selling items but they create an extensive marketplace (a rl cash one, AS WELL as an ingame currency one), which will interest a lot of people who like trading as a gameplay aspect. *looks at EVE*

As a westerner I don't expect to make any mentionable amounts of money on it though. I expect that the competition and undercutting will be fierce and keep prices at a minimum.

RMAH = no hassle, no 3rd party, safe and secure

As long as blizzard enforces on bots/duper

good!

Casual: Buys off RMAH

Hardcore: profits

SUPERB!  I see no issue at all.

Dont wanna use real money... use Gold then...

Why is everyone crying their eyes out over this and refusing to play the game?

If you don't want to buy end-game items; don't.

If you want to ruin your gameplay experience right off the bat; buy items.

That's the only difference. Blizzard now made it possible for lazy players (And bad players) to feel good about themselves and players to get a bit of cash when they quit the game or perhaps somehow have a small money-making hobby.

Who cares if they get a cut? (Even if it's a 3 time charge...kinda annoying though) They're offering a protected, regulated environment instead of the chaotic and potentially dangerous illegal farming/selling/scamming we have all seen in every MMO.

The cut that Blizzard gets will however only inflate prices. It'll be our jobs to do a little math and get the most profit without overcharging and never selling. Think of it like the IRL stock market but for funsies and practice. Who knows? Maybe after a few weeks of farming you'll have a few hundred bucks in virtual goodies?

In conclusionl; stop crying over a cash system and enjoy the game without it. It's an option for all the loser rich kids.

Its one of reasons why i dont buy D3 but it stacks up with all the other bad decisions blizzard made with D3 and it will only go worse in future soon games are work and for greedy bastards i dont wanne be part off. Im gamer and i game for fun relaxation most of you out there and companys like blizzard take away the fun and innocens of the  games to play. But this will not last look same as capitalism it will go down with big bang.

You know, this Auction House idea really doesn't bother me that much, for the single player game at least. In the end, I'd just choose not to buy anything.

However, the always online requirement will prevent me from ever buying this game. Check on every boot - annoying, but fine. Force online all the time, even when playing single player - I'm never gonna buy into that.

How about give us the option to ignore all players who pay2win, so we never have to play games with them or know these pathetic excuses for human beings exist.  Isolate us from them.