Blizzard’s Jay Wilson has said Diablo III’s development team implemented the Auction house into the game because players like to trade for real money, and now they won’t have to do it. The Auction House was introduced as a means of combating third-party trading of items. The developers were left with the choice of removing trading, or integrating it into the game economy, thus reducing the incentive to use third parties. According to Jay Wilson however, after release, it was clear that the Auction House had made getting items too easy. Within two months of the game's launch, he had come to regret implementing the Auction House.

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Diablo 3 Shuts Down Its Reviled Auction House, to the Merriment of Players Worldwide The gold and real money auction house is widely considered the worst feature of Diablo 3. Diablo 3 news – Blizzard entertainment will include real money auction house in its long anticipated Diablo III. Diablo 3 players will be able to buy and sell loot they find within Diablo III. Diablo III is all set for a May 15 launch and analysts project that Diablo 3 is expected to ship at 3.5 million units only in 2012. But Diablo III's main problem was not exclusive to the real-money sector of the market. Rather, most of the game's woes center on the existence of the auction house in the first place, whether for.

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Real Money Trading or RMT, refers to the practice of spending real money for digital goods such as game items, characters, gold, or other such features or services.

Diablo III officially supports and allows RMT through the in-game Auction House.

2RMT in Diablo 3
3Korean Games Rating Board

Background[edit | edit source]

RMT has a long and fairly sordid history, and has been illegal, or strongly discouraged by most Western game developers, especially in MMORPGs. (Where RMT is most common, since the games have virtual economies in which gold and other resources have real value.)

Blizzard On Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House For Sale

Prior to Diablo III, Blizzard did not permit any form of RMT in their games, and the company has engaged in long-running and generally-successful efforts to stop character leveling services and gold farmers/sellers in World of Warcraft. This isn't to say that players can't legally buy extra features and services in WoW; Blizzard began selling special mounts and other features for real money, and also enabled realm transfers and character faction transfers in 2008.

RMT in Diablo 3[edit | edit source]

To the shock of most observers[1], in July 2011 Blizzard announced that the Diablo III Auction House will have a real money aspect to it. The real money is only usable for item (and eventually character) sales for softcore (non-hardcore) characters, and it operates in tandem with the in-game gold trading auction house. Players may list items on either service. Blizzard charges a flat fee for each item listed (to discourage players from flooding the market with junk items), then takes another fee from successful sales. Proceeds can be spent on Blizzard merchandise and games, or withdrawn in actual currency, after another fee is paid to Blizzard and the financial partner.

See the RMT section of the Auction House article for more details.

No Hardcore RMT[edit | edit source]

Since the first announcement of the Real Money Auction House, Blizzard has been adamant that Hardcore characters will not have access to it. Hardcore characters can use the Gold Auction House, but there is no real money element to Hardcore item trading. From the original Auction House FAQ:

Can Hardcore-mode characters use the currency-based auction house?
No. Hardcore characters will only have the option to buy and sell items together with other Hardcore characters via a separate 'Hardcore-only' gold-based auction house; they will not be able to use the currency-based auction house. Hardcore mode is designed as an optional experience for players who enjoy the sense of constant peril that comes with the possibility of permanent death for a character. All of a Hardcore character’s items are forever lost upon that character’s death, so to avoid the risk of a player spending real money on items that could then be permanently lost when the character dies, we decided restrict the use of the currency-based auction house in Hardcore mode.

This seems to contradict one of Blizzard's main reasons/excuses for adding the RMAH -- that players were selling items for gold anyway (in Diablo 2) and having to use shady third party sites to do so. That players will use third party sites, or perhaps even ebay, to sell items in Hardcore is clear, and Blizzard has not yet addressed this contradiction.

One explanation offered by fans is that Blizzard is worried about the legal issues of permanently lost items. The question is, if Blizzard enabled currency trading in Hardcore, took their cut of the sale, and players then lost (forever) the items or characters so purchased due to a Battle.net realm failure or other technical issue, could players sue Blizzard for the loss of their investment? Sue to regain the transaction fee?

Blizzard has never commented on this issue, but as legal issues pertaining to the the ownership of virtual items remain in an evolutionary state, it's not unreasonable to think this factored into Blizzard's no-RMT in Hardcore policy.

RMT Fees in Diablo 3[edit | edit source]

The RMAH fees were initially set at $.15 for an item listing and $.65 for an item sale, with a minimum price of $1. This was adjusted in Beta Patch 13 when several major changes were implemented.

The gold auction house is once again available for testing
The listing fee for all auctions has been removed
The transaction fee for auctions in the currency-based auction house has been increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks
The minimum listing price for an item in the currency-based auction house has been increased to 1.50 Beta Bucks
Players may now only have 10 active auctions per auction house
Tooltips have been added which will allow players to compare items on the auction house to the items they're currently wearing

The Fees are Too Damn High![edit | edit source]

Bashiok argued back against criticism of the RMAH fees in a forum post in late December, 2011.[2]

The listing and transaction fees, which are flat fees, are being kept as low as we possibly can keep them. Right now in beta it’s 0.80 ‘Beta Bucks’ total if you list and sell an item, and it’s possible it’ll be around that in USD for North America at launch. We still don’t know yet, though, but we’re trying to keep it as low as possible. And of course keep in mind that we still intend to offer a number of free listings per week. If someone wants to just use their free listings every week, they’re more than welcome to. We anticipate a lot of people will go this route as it’s a no-risk situation and no fees are taken if the item doesn’t sell.

As some fans pointed out, the 'low as possible' figure is whatever Blizzard sets it to. After all, they're handling the entire transaction -- there are no outside fees -- so they could set the price to zero, if they wished. Obviously they need to cover their costs for hosting Battle.net and developing the software in the first place, and moderation and support, but that would surely cost a lot less than eighty cents per sale.

There are other factors, of course. Since there's no subscription fee for Diablo III, Blizzard is using the RMAH to generate income off of Diablo III long term, or at least clear enough to cover the hosting costs. Also, if auctions were all free, players would post ever