Diablo 3: Auction house to accept real cash

[Chiropteran]

I like this, it's a positive in so many ways. Here is my line of reasoning. Gold sellers and item sellers will exist, legal or not. Forbidding it in the terms of service simply takes away that option from legitimate players and gives an advantage to those willing to bend the rules. By making it completely legal, the playing field is equalized. Also, this makes it easy for everyone to get involved in selling gold and items. The legal issues and barrier of entry makes it hard to sell things in world of warcraft, for example, because you risk losing your account if caught.

The only ones who really lose are the professional gold farmers. With everyone in the game able to sell gold & items easily, the exchange rate will fall compared to what it is in other games where gold selling is illegal (creates an artificial shortage).

 

[Josh123]

One thing I know for sure is that I'm not as hyped about the game as I was. Anytime they take a fun game and make it into "work" is a bad thing. I can see a lot of contention amongst friends as an item that might be worth hundreds of real dollars drops and now one or the other gets screwed. The other problem is now friends might not freely give items as they now have a real worth associated to them.

Exactly.

This will officially kill any team play in the game in my opinion. People will be paying their bills with drops rather then helping out each other.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I don't know if it's really a bad thing. If you think about it, most games of similar nature have a real world worth. The main difference is to make real money you have to do it outside the game system. Blizzard is just expecting that and taking a cut for providing in house abilities plus as someone mentioned above, very possibly will sell "new" items directly from there.

The downside is, I think this will really cause many more people to farm and try to exploit the system.

Granted, you could just play the game with friends and/or by yourself and bypass all of this, but in this day and age it's unlikely.....I don't think I played D1 or D2 solo at all, only MP.

 

[SunnyD]

Now the world will never hear of another item dupe exploit again. Why? Because, the people that find it will keep it secret and use it as a printing press for money.

 

[Chiropteran]

At first though I'm really not a fan of this. Here are a couple of thoughts:

1) The vast majority of items on the AH are going to be on the Real Money one. Who doesn't want to sell their item for real money. I hope this doesn't force everyone to use real money.

2) If the market goes sour because of the influx of items from farmers, will Blizzard artificially change the market so they make more money? i.e. change drop rates, etc

3) The screenshots I'm seeing have items at like $5.00. And while this is obviously a screenshot from a limited market, is there a limit to what you can sell an item for?

One thing I know for sure is that I'm not as hyped about the game as I was. Anytime they take a fun game and make it into "work" is a bad thing. I can see a lot of contention amongst friends as an item that might be worth hundreds of real dollars drops and now one or the other gets screwed. The other problem is now friends might not freely give items as they now have a real worth associated to them.

1- if "everyone" uses real money, it's the same as nobody using real money. As long as you don't buy more from the AH than you sell, it's a zero sum game (except blizzard's 5% cut). You sell a robe of wizardly might for $5, and buy a battle-axe of warrior's doom for $5, it's effectivly no different from selling the robe for 50k gold and buying the axe for 50k gold. The only reason you would "need" money to use the AH is if you buy more than you sell. Which is how it works already in similar games.

2- It's natural for the market value of items to drop over time. Early on, the best items will be extremely rare, but 6 months after release those same items will be more common. I don't think there is anything blizzard can do to prevent this, nor should they even try. It's a natural lifecycle for this sort of market.

3- It's an auction house. The seller can set a buyout, otherwise there should be no limit to the bidding. I suppose blizzard will probably have some hard cap to prevent fraud or money laundering through the system, but it'll probably be higher than anyone would dream on spending for a virtual item.

(4)- Contention over virtual items already occur. Legit market or not, some things in World of Warcraft are worth the equivalent of $100 or more. If you and your friends can look past that and work things out, great. If not, you will screw your friend or he will screw you. Whether it's a rare item in diablo 3 with a market value of $15, or a rare BoE epic in WoW that auctions for 20k+ gold (which could be worth $15), it's the same either way although it's harder to monetize the wow gold.

 

[Chiropteran]

Exactly.

This will officially kill any team play in the game in my opinion. People will be paying their bills with drops rather then helping out each other.

If this is anything like every other crpg game in existence, the items you can only get in a group will overshadow the items you can get while soloing so much that even after dividing up the loot it's a huge gain to group and "help out" your friends.

 

[PowerYoga]

You don't need a friend to farm. I think anybody that gets so blinded by an e-item (that might be worth a few hundred dollars) that they are willing to backstab their friend has bigger issues than paying the bills.

 

[veri745]

What do people make of this? The bolded sections of the answer doesn't make sense to me...

Can players choose to get cash from currency-based auction house sales, instead of having the proceeds deposited into their Battle.net account?
Yes, as an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ouse-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money

 

[Wordplay]

Fees fees and more fees

How is the transaction fee determined?
A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn’t sell, it will be in the seller’s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date.

...

Can players choose to get cash from currency-based auction house sales, instead of having the proceeds deposited into their Battle.net account?
Yes, as an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

I think something like this will come to WoW eventually.

 

[PowerYoga]

Nvm, didn't read it completely.

 

[xboxist]

Based on the outrage across the intarwebs about this real money revelation, there should be PLENTY of gold-only transactions happening in this game by those very same people.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Fees fees and more fees


I think something like this will come to WoW eventually.

I think what it means is even though they are cutting out Ebay, they will still get their cut via Paypal ;P

 

[Chiropteran]

What do people make of this? The bolded sections of the answer doesn't make sense to me...

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ouse-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money

It sounds like you must link and setup your account to send to your 3rd party pay service (paypal) before you sell anything, or the money you make will just go into your battle.net account and only be usable for buying other items.

Step 1- either link your battle.net account to paypal, or not.

Step 2- sell item for real money.

Step 3- if you linked with paypal, the real money goes to your paypal account, minus some fees. if you did not, the real money goes to your battle.net account, where it can only(?) be used to spend on other auctions and can not be sent to paypal.

I see a loophole of sorts, if you have a lot of money in your battle.net account and you want to cash out, you just need a friend to assist you by creating an auction and you bid all your money on it and he cashes out for you, but you do end up paying an extra transaction fee.

Why do they make it so complicated? There are probably legal restrictions on blizzard giving real money out to people, so they make you go through extra hoops to setup your 3rd party pay site and ask for more info (ssn, confirmed address and phone number maybe) for tax reasons. But blizzard doesn't want to scare away the buyers who don't want to ever cash out, so you can participate without doing any of that- you just can't ever cash out your money. That way it can be super easy and no need for personal information that would be required if it was possible to make some income from the process.

It looks fishy at first glance but it makes a lot of sense to me after looking and thinking through it objectively.

 

[Chiropteran]

Based on the outrage across the intarwebs about this real money revelation, there should be PLENTY of gold-only transactions happening in this game by those very same people.

But there will also be a gold to real dollar market on the auction house. So you will be spending your gold that could have been turned into real money, or in effect you will be spending real money anyway! There is no escape!

</false panic>

 

[Beev]

If they use paypal I won't be using the service, otherwise... maybe...

 

[CottonRabbit]

If this is anything like every other crpg game in existence, the items you can only get in a group will overshadow the items you can get while soloing so much that even after dividing up the loot it's a huge gain to group and "help out" your friends.

Drops in D3 will be completely independent for each player. You will only see the drops that you personally get, so there shouldn't be any back stabbing unless you brag about a drop yourself.

I hope Blizz implements some strong anti-botting features. It's ridiculously easy to bot 2-D games, so they're gonna have to include captcha's for making games or something.

 

[Modelworks]

Bad idea all around. If you think games are full of gold sellers now just wait until it is accepted practice from the developer. Now instead of having the sellers that try to not get noticed you will have sellers that start whole companies to do nothing but sell and make it public, with companies fighting over who gets the most sales. I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to play a game where 1 out of 2 players is only playing to make money. It is removing the focus from the game where the players are there to have fun into a revenue stream and that will only hurt the normal players. There are better ways to deal with those playing for profit only and this isn't about that , but a way for the developer to cash in on it . Gold sellers may have been part of gaming but it wasn't something all players had to participate in, making it part of the game changes that.

 

[OCNewbie]

D3 is online only too, if anybody didn't catch that. I'm pretty sure I won't be playing this game now... bummer.

 

[KaOTiK]

I don't like it, I can deal with it maybe, but I don't like it.
What I do have a much bigger problem with is first, the always on internet connection to play the game and second no mods. I was already kinda iffy on D3 just cause of the direction it seemed to be going and with these new things, I might just skip the game all together. I enjoyed the Diablo serious but I was never a junkie logging tons of hours into the game unlike others so it wont really be a much of an issue for me to just let this one pass me by.

 

[Modelworks]

I like this, it's a positive in so many ways. Here is my line of reasoning. Gold sellers and item sellers will exist, legal or not. Forbidding it in the terms of service simply takes away that option from legitimate players and gives an advantage to those willing to bend the rules. By making it completely legal, the playing field is equalized.

Not equal at all, now there is no risk at all to the corporate gold sellers. Before they could at least lose the cost of an account when the game goes retail. With this policy they have no risk at all.

Also, this makes it easy for everyone to get involved in selling gold and items. The legal issues and barrier of entry makes it hard to sell things in world of warcraft, for example, because you risk losing your account if caught.

Who wants everyone involved in selling gold ? These are games not careers. It is moving the focus of the game into a dark area, where everything in the game will be equated to real world dollars. If you think people can be jerks in game now, wait till things equal real money.

The only ones who really lose are the professional gold farmers. With everyone in the game able to sell gold & items easily, the exchange rate will fall compared to what it is in other games where gold selling is illegal (creates an artificial shortage).

They lose nothing. They can have more accounts than ever with zero risk which means they can have more people mining gold. So what if the rates fall, they can still sell more gold than any normal player. The one who loses is the player who no matter how hard they play will have their hard work in game devalued to nothing. The only one that benefits from this is the publisher who gets a cut of the sales. I hope they got their lawyers ready to go too, because I can already see numerous lawsuits coming from everything from lost income to violating state gambling laws.

 

[Lotheron]

Bad idea all around. If you think games are full of gold sellers now just wait until it is accepted practice from the developer. Now instead of having the sellers that try to not get noticed you will have sellers that start whole companies to do nothing but sell and make it public, with companies fighting over who gets the most sales. I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to play a game where 1 out of 2 players is only playing to make money. It is removing the focus from the game where the players are there to have fun into a revenue stream and that will only hurt the normal players. There are better ways to deal with those playing for profit only and this isn't about that , but a way for the developer to cash in on it . Gold sellers may have been part of gaming but it wasn't something all players had to participate in, making it part of the game changes that.

This.

We all know people buy and sell items in Blizzard games, but it wasn't in your face and if you chose to ignore it, it didn't really affect your game much.

I'm not completely against the idea, I just worry that it's going to vastly change the game to a point where its a monetary competition compared to the friendly game that it was.

It could go either way honestly. One good thing that comes out of it, is that releasing new items now has a monetary plus for Blizzard so we might see a bit more long term support from them.

Although, I hope this doesn't bode well for games in general. What's next, a nominal charge for each game of Starcraft?

 

[Beev]

They lose nothing.

They lose a LOT of business... Players who can buy from another player will likely do that instead, and individual players can keep better track of their smaller inventory, thus ensuring prices lower by a penny. This absolutely hurts gold farming companies, at least regarding D3.

 

[Modelworks]

They lose a LOT of business... Players who can buy from another player will likely do that instead, and individual players can keep better track of their smaller inventory, thus ensuring prices lower by a penny. This absolutely hurts gold farming companies, at least regarding D3.

Individual players will not be able to compete for price. The gold farmers are like walmart coming into a small town . You can pay higher prices from the small business but most people will go to walmart. The gold farmers will make less per sale but all that means is they increase volume to make up for it, and with no risk, that is easy to do.

 

[Anubis]

D3 is online only too, if anybody didn't catch that. I'm pretty sure I won't be playing this game now... bummer.

TBH i cant see them doing this after the shitstorm SC2 caused with the same news. Im sure it will ship with some sort of offline mode like SC2 has

 

[Chiropteran]

Individual players will not be able to compete for price. The gold farmers are like walmart coming into a small town . You can pay higher prices from the small business but most people will go to walmart. The gold farmers will make less per sale but all that means is they increase volume to make up for it, and with no risk, that is easy to do.

"Sir, we are taking a loss on every sale."

"No problem, we can make it up in volume!"


Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If the value of gold or items drops by much, it'll be a net loss to run a gold farming company.


My bet is that gold farmers won't be able to compete. If bitcoin mining has taught me anything, it's that people who don't pay electricity are more than willing to work at a huge loss overall if it means they personally gain a little cash. I am guessing that the bottom line cost of items is going to be set by the 14-25 year old live at home kids who do nothing but game for 8+ hours a day. For a company trying to make a profit selling gold, $2 for 10 hours of work probably wouldn't even cover electricity costs. But for a non-life kid living at home, being paid $14/week to play a game he already wants to play? Sounds like free money!