Is the real money Diablo III auction house a good idea? The GamePro Staff weighs in on a controversial move by Blizzard.
On Monday, Blizzard announced that they are planning on introducing a Diablo III auction house that will use real money. There were a range of reactions around the office, of which you can find a few below. The general concensus? No one is really sure how Blizzard is going to make this thing work (except Chris--of course).
- Julian Rignall
- Editor in Chief
It's going to be a good thing... and a really bad thing. On the positive side, it's going to save consumers lots of potential tears. People who want to buy their way through the game - and that is a lot of people - can now avoid dubious, keylogger-infested Farm sites, or dodgy Craigslist people. And those who might want to put themselves through college by playing Diablo 3 can now do that. The downside, though, is that now that there's real money to be made, it's going to attract the worst kind of people who won't give a crap about anyone else when it comes to making money, which could result in all sorts of weird price-fixing, auction-house-camping, experience-ruining shenanigans.
- Jason Wilson
- Managing Editor
I'm worried about the Auction House. I'm a single-player Diablo player, so I've never been interested in trading items and other things you can do with other players. I know cheating is a big concern with Blizzard games, and I see so many ways to "game" the system of this auction house: bots, creating temp accounts to sell items that are advertised as legendary and are just trash, or people purposefully attempting to sabotage the economy (yes, I have even thought it would be fun to grind up powerful items and give them away for free in the auction house just to see how Blizzard would respond). The auction house strikes me as a way for Blizzard to make more money off Diablo III, not something players actually want.
- Kat Bailey
- Associate Editor
I don't hold the creation of a real money auction house against Blizzard. The pressure is on to monetize online play in any way possible, and this is probably the most painless way for Blizzard to do it. I would be quite a bit more annoyed if they went the micro transaction route or--god forbid--introduced subscriptions.
But on the other hands, Blizzard is basically legalizing the videogame equivalent of the drug trade. There's an argument to made that people are always going to sell weapons on the Internet, so it might as well be taxes and regulated; but I also believe that the Internet will always find a way to abuse the system. If it's not some highly-sophisticated bot farming epic loot, it'll be some sort of cabal getting so big that it ends up dominating the marketplace. To say nothing of the fact that the auction house will be a ripe target for hackers.
I hate being cynical, but I fully expect unscrupulous players to find a way to ruin the system in relatively short order. The Internet is remarkably good at that.
- Chris Holt
- Associate Editor
With this news, I have now discovered my new calling in life: to become a Diablo III loot merchant. I know, you think of me as an intrepid reporter. But I've always felt a calling for gold and adventure, and since I'm 60 years late for the Gold Rush, this will have to do. Since Diablo will reward me for selling my equipment to other players, I see no reason to continue my pitiable existence as a semi-serious journalist. Goodbye GamePro, adventure awaits. There's gold in that thar dungeon crawler.
Source: Daily News from GamePro.com
Thursday, August 4, 2011