If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em: A Defense of Diablo III Auction House - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 01 August 2011 / 3,606 Views

Blizzard revealed today that the much-anticipated Diablo III will have a built-in auction house in which real money can be exchanged for in-game content you or other players have accumulated. Nearly everything will be up for grabs, including in-game gold. Already, there's been a bit of a backlash across the Internet, feeling like Blizzard is just trying to make more money and cash in on marketplace they fought so long to contain that cropped up with its other games.

I say, this is a situation of, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Let's first assume the folks at Blizzard aren't fools. They've got the single most lucrative entertainment property of all time under their belts with World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has also spawn its own massive external market for exchanging real-world money for in-game goods, particularly power-leveled characters. There are still people who make a living power-leveling characters to the cap and then selling them for real cash.

Blizzard has always said this wasn't allowed, nevertheless, it has persevered. It has gone on so long that Blizzard essentially threw their collective hands up in the air and just let it go. While it's still against their official policies, they haven't really tried to enforce those rules in a long time. Now they're looking at Diablo III , and deciding if they cannot contain the external market, they may as well BE the external market. What will this mean? Yeah, it does mean Blizzard will probably make a bit more money off the auction house, but it also means there will be an easy, integrated system for these sales and Blizzard security will be in place to protect people from potential scams of third-party sites.

Diablo III 3 Auction House

Will this completely drive away third-party auction sites for Diablo III ? Well, that depends on how good Blizzard's own auction house is. If the built-in auction house not only has the easiest in-game integration (which is most undoubtedly will), but also sports really low fees, if any, then it will be hard for third parties to gain any traction against it. Of course there are always those willing to cheat to win, so there will undoubtedly be third-party sites trying to circumvent the Blizzard security measures.

All in all, this appears to be just another example of a game developer listening to what the gamers really want and then giving it to them. Bravo, Blizzard. Bravo.

19 Comments

Brainslug (on 02 August 2011)

Seems like the biggest issue is that the folks who want to spend hundreds of hours grinding and power leveling want to maintain the 'bragging rights' of having earned it themselves -- all that blizzard would really have do to appease them is bring in trophies for accomplishments like having power leveled yourself or make items have an authenticity sticker if you earned is that it loses if it's sold or traded - that way 'bragging rights' remain intact...

Tammi (on 01 August 2011)

I don't see the point of spending real money for items that exist only in a game. Might as well throw your money out the window.

scottie Tammi (on 02 August 2011)

Well some people do. If you're going to play the game, you could earn all your gear yourself and sell stuff you don't need. Might as well have money throw itself in the window.

scottie (on 02 August 2011)

@ OP - Also, they said that there would also be an auction house that uses the in game currency, not real money. So assuming that gets enough use, people who don't want to use real money can avoid it.

Hephaestos (on 02 August 2011)

Or... they could have made all the items bind on pickup or transferable only through the in game auction house... sux for friends... though they can always be quick at the auctions...

Here they are putting a free-to-play structure in a paid game... it's just a money grab...at least there's no monthly subscription...

Vertigo-X (on 01 August 2011)

I'm inclined to agree. It's a much better solution to the rampant third party items sites than it could be.

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DrDread (on 02 August 2011)

This is great. I spend decades of my life becoming educated and holding down a good paying job so I can easily spend some money to buy items only to have some unemployed kid spend a month or two powerleveling and getting the same items for free. Frign Communists can bite me now! =)

RenderMonk (on 02 August 2011)

This is a really tough issue. On the one hand I strongly agree with "KylieDog"....that spending 100+ hours attaining the best end game stuff for yourself, really is cheapened when someone can simply browse a selection of end game characters and pay for it. I know that one could argue, just ignore them and take the pride in your own work/game....but it's true. There's always that nagging feeling of those Mother Fu@kers bought that sh!t, instead of earning it. And you can tell who bought their gear or character, cause they are always running around asking questions about the most basic of things that if you played for 100+ hours and earned it, you would know the answer to that question. While this may be a way to keep the third party from doing it, it doesn't make it right. If the third party people are wrong for doing it, then so is blizzard/activision. Plain and simple. And we all know the money grubbing track record of Blizzard/Activision. If they spent as much time solving the "gold/character selling" problem as they did in closed and open beta phases, the problem would be solved by now. Instead Big corps do what big corps do....find a way to make more money. I can't say I HATE this idea, but I certainly don't love it.

usrevenge (on 02 August 2011)

so "insert rich gamer here" will get the game, then the 2nd day have the best weapon/armor, why not sell power leveling also? better yet, can i pay blizzard to play the game for me? its stupid if you think about it.

viewtiful_jon (on 01 August 2011)

I wont use it, not unless there is a way to just buy the stuff with gold instead of cash. But its a great idea and better than helping out some cheap site that leeches of there work.