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General: Blizzard Grabs for Cash
Drew
Member Posts: 434
The story of the week for the last seven days comes by way of the news coming out of Blizzard regarding the Real-World Money Auction House that's going to be making its way into Diablo 3 when the highly anticipated title hits the shelves. What repercussions will the MMO industry see from Blizzard's decision to go this route? That's what we take a look at this week in our Story of the Week
As we reported and pontificated on already, Blizzard announced this week that Diablo 3 will launch with a real-money auction house where players can hawk their goods for real world money. Let’s put aside the fact that the game will also force users to be connected to Battle.net to play (even solo), and instead focus on the very big story that Diablo 3 will allow item-farmers to sell their rares and valuables for cold hard cash. In the words of Ron Burgundy, it’s “kind of a big deal.”
Read more of The Story of the Week: Blizzard Grabs for Cash.
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Comments
I have mixed feelings about this. Ultimately, I think it will succeed though.
bots and exploiters paradise
What's to stop people in the videogame 'black market' from setting up a Craigslist-style item-selling site to bypass the fees sanctioned by the in-game AH? This is just my opinion, but I don't think Blizzard has all their bases covered when it comes to trying to curb outside sales of items. People, invariably, will work to find their way to cheaper venues. If someone offers a model that functions well enough that others can replicate, I think Blizzard will have their hands full trying to shut it down.
THis is a money grab...
They could have easily just added a auction style system using in game currency.
Which would have been amazing... instead they go the greedy route as if Diablo 3 isnt going to sell 5 million copies the first year.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I quit Lineage 2 for the very same reason. Farmers simply camped and owned places where best items (and most expensive) dropped so they could sell them on Ebay.
What will prevent farmers now to camp places like that to collect all the best items and sell them regulary (this time) on market. And believe me, there is no guild that can fight off these farmers as I'm talking about 100+ organised people who work for their *BOSS* in some shady place.
People will buy the game. Firstly because it Blizzard and secondly because its probably good.
But once realising they cant get items they want simply because of farmers, unless they say hello to the little thing called Mastercard or Visa. Rage quit is inevitable.
Blizzard, wake up! You are going the wrong way! Billions aren't good enough for you? You want trillions?
it's not a grab for cash. it's an Blizzard's attempt to control the market that is built on their own effort. as i really can't see a way to remove item economy from Diablo, it's just a path of lesser evil.
personally, i'm more annoyed by "online play only", but then again i don't have to play itl, so... meh. to be honest, unless gameplay is changed to something else than point-and-click, i don't really want to play it, either.
I'm very curious how this is going to play out. If it goes well we will see a huge shift in the market. If it doesn't, the Throne of Gaming might by up for grabs by another company.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I posted this elsewhere, but the same holds true after reading Joystiq.
The irony here is that "Gold Sellers" were once the bane of a gaming worlds’ economy and virtual-goods pursuit. Studios gave the impression of coming out in-force to squash them as often as possible.
However, now Blizzard has turned everyone into gold sellers; now with Diablo III.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/05/the-lawbringer-qanda-on-diablos-real-money-auction-house/
Blizzard, er *cough cough* (Activision) can kiss my left nut!
FFS there is like ten or more threads about it already....
if this system is a la guild wars .what is avail in ah can be had relativly easy through grinding it will be ok .but if the item is almost impossible to get ,player will just leave the game cause it will be another version of the already crowded style p2w
Has everyone forgotten about SoE's own attempt at this with the Bazaar/Vox servers on EQ2?
Here is a quick look at some of the stuff forsale using SoE's livegamer sales site.
Server
Avg Market Rate
Best Rate
Search Best Rates By Amount
Specify Amount
The Bazaar
$0.33
per 10 Plat
$0.23
per 10 Plat
5 10 20 30 50 75 100
Vox
$0.50
per 10 Plat
$0.25
per 10 Plat
5 10 20 30 50 75 100
Browse Platinum Listings: All Vox The Bazaar
Hot Listings - Buy Characters
Lvl
Name
Class
Race
Artisan ()
Bid()
Buy Now!
Time Left
Server
90
Renaultx
Paladin
$80.25 (2)
$200.00
1d 2h 32m
The Bazaar
54
Thaeran
Warden
$10.25 (2)
$50.00
1d 2h 1m
The Bazaar
90
Brainwaves
Conjuror
$10.00 (1)
$88.00
2d 16h 4m
The Bazaar
90
Excom
Inquisitor
$55.00 (1)
$200.00
1d 2h 34m
The Bazaar
See More Characters: All Vox The Bazaar
Hot Listings - Buy Items
Name
Min Lvl
Slot
Bid()
Buy Now!
Time Left
Server
Specialist's Elixir of Thorns
82
Charm
$2.00 (0)
$2.00
1d 3h 35m
Vox
Now this is only live on 2 servers, it did cause a bit of fuss when it went live but it never got pushed out to the other servers.
This is worse than a Korean "F2P"..it is our very own pay to win,cold,straight out..
And because it is Blizzard,people will still buy it..just have a look at the comments here.."im not sure about it"..if people dont get it,they deserve it coming to them..those that do,dont buy the game,at all,only meaningful way of expressing your disapproval. Trying to imagine my son/daughter asking me if its alright to connect my account to this 'game',cause they 'need' it to play..and people are still "not sure"..human nature at its finest ;p
In the past I would refuse to believe that when people would tell me that Blizz are not against bots and gold trolls. Now I believe with all my heart that they made a deal with the devil lol no pun intended. Now they are EMBRACING botting and gold trolls. I think Blizz and Activision just crossed a path and are now going to be responsible to children all across the world in saying GREED is good.
I just loss some respect for Blizz I have left WoW and now I will refuse to play Diablo 3.
Chinese farmers will be the only people to profit from this(aside from Blizzard).
I'm sure some people are thinking they will hawk their wares. No you won't, because the Chinese farmers who have an army that farm crap 24/7 will drive prices so low you won't be willing to grind for a few dollars an hour.
One of the worst ideas ever.
this idea is targetted at gambler!it is that simple!compulsive buy is big business
This will make Blizzard a cr@p ton of money... and others will follow suit.
i thought part of the fun of diablo 2 was slaughtering stuff to find that perfect item of loot amidst all the carnage (the perfect one to go and use your socket on, or your item enchant on)
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
How many articles are you going to post about the same thing?
How many opportunities are you going to give clueless people to post their opinions on this?
Please for the love of god stop.
I was going to give this game a try.
With what I read now about how they plan to run the game it is a PASS for me.
Nothing I hate more then a game loaded with item farmers camping spawn points ... loot farmers camping high price items to resell .. Gold farmers camping anything to sell so they can sell game currency for Real.
I will not ever play this game ... even if it were F2P .. Due to this Decision the Game company has made.
I predict a fail here and fast.
Look to the stars to know HE is with us. HE hung them as markers, of times and of seasons.
god I'm sick of replying to people but here goes.
part of the frustration of diablo 2 was never finding the right item because you get to a point there you either need a very hard to get unique to improve, or the random stats that would be an improvement have very low odds of being just right. Not everyone wants to farm the same boss run after run after run.
whether you trade someone for an item, or buy it outright (if the game even allows it which I'm skeptical, it may turn out everything good is soulbound), you likely aren't going to find everything you end up wearing.
A lot of uninformed people posting here
1. Diablo2 had an ingame currency that nobody wanted. You could offer your entire ´bank´to a player to buy a single item, and they would laugh at you. It isn´t a MMORPG, so the ingame currency was useless as a tool
2. Diablo2 Anyone who played seriously already did off-site auctions for real money. There were a couple that were reliable, but mostly it was hit or miss. If you had a high powered item you didn´t need, you had three choices. Vendor it for ingame currency you don´t need for anything... Sell it to a player for ingame currency you don´t need or finally, go to some off-the-wall website prone to hacking and try to sell it for real life money
3 Diablo2 An ingame AH using ingame currency is worthless. As stated, ingame currency has NO value.. everyone is rich already and there is nothing you can buy with it.
4. This is EBAY with an ingame UI. Blizzard is taking a small cut, paypal will take a small cut, but the money is going to other players. Blizzard is NOT selling high level items for real money
5. Where is the outrage about other companies? Does everyone know that Funcom recently launched a new ´hardcore´ pvp server, and at the same time offered high end epic gear available for purchase with real money? I find it funny that Blizzard is allowing a system where players can buy and sale items to each other safely ingame and people have a fit and articles get written.. but other games offer pay2win pvp items and it never gets mentioned.
Oh yeah.. this is mmorg.com
This is a dumb idea.They should come up with idea to stop items selling not add to it.
This only help the gold seller, they have the most golds/items, most hacks/bots and can do it 24/7.
Nest thing you know blizzard going to sell gold for real money.
By the way whats going to make blizzard not sell ITEMS themselves?
I can see it now 40% item for cash are from gold farmer/seller 50% from bliz and 10% are real players lol