Blizzard: Auction Houses harm Diablo 3

[Artsy Xeemy]

Auction houses, which allow trading of virtual items also for real money, have always been seen as controversial among gamers of action-RPG "Diablo 3". Many people have already complained prior to the publication of plans for mentioned exchange market and its implementation into the game, that the actual potential is being pushed into the background and that extreme advantages can be obtained through financial resources. Furthermore, Blizzard was accused to be disloyal towards its own old principles - especially the approach against commercial providers and offers of ingame items or currencies in the MMORPG "World of Warcraft" were topics to begin with. Developer and publisher did not agree with the community - on the contrary, they defended their matchmaking system and referred to its features, which assign enemies and gamers, who have similarly strong equipment.

In an interview with Joystiq within the Game Developers Conference 2013 (GDC), Joy Wilson, who once has been the "Diablo 3" Game Director, admitted that some of above mentioned negative aspects might be true. In his opinion, auction houses didn't do the game a favor, but rather are harmful for game development. He himself thought at first, that they would help to decrease fraud within the game. On top of this he didn't expect, that their service would be used that much.

Wilson additionally discloses thoughts of removing the auction houses again, which doesn't seem to be that easy, as Blizzard doesn't really know, how many gamers ultimately vote for or against this system. He didn't want to give details or problem-solving approaches so far.

What do you think of this topic - do you see auction houses as blessing or curse? Let us get to know your opinion.

 Spoiler

Original source: Blizzard: Auktionshäuser schaden Diablo 3

[vladbb]

blessing ofc. you can make a lot of money

[Haze*]

I mean seriously, you grind a hella nice item, there's someone willing to pay 1000€ for it, what's so wrong in that? With the auction house people got the official middleman for it, it's safer for everyone. With or without the auction house, real money item sales will be there anyway.

What's so bad about it? You either farm yourself these items for free, or you pay for them - either way, to get the best equipment and pwn you have to sacrifice one thing anyway - whether it's money or time. Someone has to be really sad or jealous to vote against the AH.

[Black_Sentinel]

Would be nice, no scams

Sent from my Windows Phone 8S by HTC using Board Express

[JohnHeatz]

Originally Posted by Haze*

I mean seriously, you grind a hella nice item, there's someone willing to pay 1000€ for it, what's so wrong in that? With the auction house people got the official middleman for it, it's safer for everyone. With or without the auction house, real money item sales will be there anyway.

What's so bad about it? You either farm yourself these items for free, or you pay for them - either way, to get the best equipment and pwn you have to sacrifice one thing anyway - whether it's money or time. Someone has to be really sad or jealous to vote against the AH.

Micro-transactions kill games. Companies start offering items that can be farmable in-game for real money -that won't kill the game, yet can discourage players- yet, over time, companies get to sell items that can't be farmable in-game, and make the game Pay-2-win, that, kills the game.

[Haze*]

Originally Posted by JohnHeatz

Micro-transactions kill games. Companies start offering items that can be farmable in-game for real money -that won't kill the game, yet can discourage players- yet, over time, companies get to sell items that can't be farmable in-game, and make the game Pay-2-win, that, kills the game.

This is funny. Do you actually know how the D3 RMAH works? It's not Blizzard selling items, it's players selling their items. You can either put your item on the AH for the ingame gold or real currency.

The name explains the system itself. Auction house, not an item mall, duh.

[JohnHeatz]

I'm not a player of the game at all, my mistake; in that case, actually, I must take out my comment, as this way I would totally agree with your comment

[jonny666]

Auction houses kills the vibe of any game...unless your main goal is profit, or instant gratification.

Items becomes to easily available and it takes away the uniqueness of finding good gear cos its right there in your face all the time.

[spazysmalls]

shaiya has been doing this ever since its been up for about 10 years now and the game hasn't died only reason why a few players keep leaving is because they just make the items too dang expensive im talking like 1000$ for a great set of gears and the those gears do not drop in game so thats why they leave this in game auction house would do no harm

[JohnHeatz]

Originally Posted by spazysmalls

shaiya has been doing this ever since its been up for about 10 years now and the game hasn't died only reason why a few players keep leaving is because they just make the items too dang expensive im talking like 1000$ for a great set of gears and the those gears do not drop in game so thats why they leave this in game auction house would do no harm

In Shaiya the Auction Board works only with in-game currency, not with real life money though

[hirakawa]

Auction houses are a double edged sword yeah they can make earning money in game (or real money in this case) but at the same player can get too greedy as Spazy mentions with Shaiya

Originally Posted by spazysmalls

shaiya has been doing this ever since its been up for about 10 years now and the game hasn't died only reason why a few players keep leaving is because they just make the items too dang expensive im talking like 1000$ for a great set of gears and the those gears do not drop in game so thats why they leave this in game auction house would do no harm

Back when I first started playing there was an item named "Resurrection stone" which allowed the end-game "Difficulty" as I shall put it (Though there isn't much change in game-play) which when you died allowed you to revive either in the nearest town-like area if you were roaming the world or outside the dungeon if you were inside one they cost about 90 cents to buy since they were obtainable via the item mall system, but for players who couldn't get points to buy it they were looking at about 500,000 - 1 million coins to get it. Skipping a few years when the Auction house was added in these items due to over obsession with greed their price nearly tippled making them at about 3-6 million depending on how greedy a player was. Now days a player has to cough up nearly 10 times their cost (Between 50-75 million) which has made the free-to-play side of the die as you now need to have cash points to buy anything or spend several years farming the coin to buy them (Though at that point the price would only have gotten higher and stupidly out of control).

Though (Getting back to Diablo 3 and Blizzard) I've been told that Blizzard takes a cut (About 10-25% as I was told) and that's a cut from the "Placement", the selling and the transferring of the profits. So if you sold an item or $1000 you are loosing 250 for the placement then 25% from whats left for selling it and 25% from whats left for transferring the money to your paypal/bank (So that's ((1000-25%) -25%) -25% = $421.87) Which is quite a lot of money. Though I am not sure what the actual cut % is Blizzard takes from you for all three steps but either way it's quite big (Or small if it's a lower %).

[StormTempest]

Originally Posted by jonny666

Auction houses kills the vibe of any game...unless your main goal is profit, or instant gratification.

Items becomes to easily available and it takes away the uniqueness of finding good gear cos its right there in your face all the time.

not too easily avalaible, because not everybody are willing to pay money for them....





Regards. StormTempest