Diablo 3's alternative auction house, where you can pay with actual money, launched today for North American players. Someone paid $250 for a high-level weapon. No, really.

Since Blizzard gets 15% of all transactions, that means they earned roughly 38 dollars for that one item.

The RMA is still "coming soon" for other regions such as Europe and various Asian countries.

12 years ago*

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No.

12 years ago
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I would sell items for that price, because, well, EASY MONEY.

But purchase? Me? No way man.

12 years ago
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shut up

Seriously, 250$? I guess i'll start farming...

12 years ago
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I would most definitely sell an item for $250 and take $212.50 from whatever person would buy it.

12 years ago
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wow. seriously. 250$ for an item? no way.

12 years ago
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I'm not even buying Diablo 3

12 years ago
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I wouldn't pay a dollar for Diablo 3.

12 years ago
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That guy who sold it is probably pissing himself right now thinking "MONEY WELL SPENT, DIABLO 3".

12 years ago
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blizzard greedy bastards... ruining gaming spirit for that %15 profit

12 years ago
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Virtual item selling is present in absolutely ALL massive multiplayer games. All. From TF2 to WoW. Blizzard were just first to legalize it.

Smart move, and good job, Blizz.

12 years ago
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The real question isn't "should I buy this item for $250" (because the answer to that will be no in nearly every situation), it's "would you pay $5 to get a weapon that would take you hours or days to farm or afford yourself?"

12 years ago
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I wouldn't spend a cent for items to help blizzard in their quest to get richer!

12 years ago
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Blizzard's plenty rich already. Sadly, your little boycott means nothing to them.

12 years ago
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I love when kids think they're actually hurting a company's bottom line by refusing to purchase a product. Blizzard makes that kind of money in half a second; they don't give a shit.

12 years ago
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Yeah it's pretty silly when people think by not giving someone money they will have less money than they could have...

Wait... what?!

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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Even if the amount is marginal, it's still an amount...

12 years ago
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Exactly! Once you've established that people are prepared to pay money (any amount of money) for an in-game item, to avoid having to grind for hours/days, how much you can charge for it becomes intimately tied to the value people place on their time. Some people's time is more valuable than others.


I was reminded of this joke:
Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?"
Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "
Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"
Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!"
Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price"

12 years ago
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Yep. $250 seems like a lot, but it really isn't when you put it into perspective. If you're a computer engineer with an MS in the US, you make upwards of $50/hr (and this isn't a particularly posh position). If you were to play D3 to earn the same amount of gold you could just purchase, you'd be spending over 100 hours.

And based on anecdotal experience, a ton of engineers play MMOs. :P

12 years ago
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Either way, I'm pretty sure the $250 is tough to justify. The market should tank pretty quickly, and there are a lot of productive/fun uses for that much money.

12 years ago
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Also, I should mention that if you actually want money you can spend outside of Blizzard, PayPal takes 15% of what's left after Blizzard's cut.

12 years ago
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Never seen PayPal take anything close to that. Unless the payment is way under $1.

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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Are you sure that money really goes to paypal or blizzard takes another like %12 coz this is way over what paypal charges normally..

12 years ago
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The second link specifically says that PayPal takes it. Seems like an odd thing for Blizzard to lie about, especially when they are already taking an enormous cut, so I choose to take them at their word for it.

12 years ago
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Wouldn't call that enormous, Valve takes much more for user-created content in Team Fortress 2 (I remember 75% was for Valve (they could have changed that) - and that still given few guys enough money that it couldn't be sent through pay-pal...).

12 years ago
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No it doesn't. It says: "Note that sending proceeds to PayPal will be subject to an additional 15% transfer fee if the auction succeeds, calculated based on the amount being transferred. Note that additional fees from PayPal may apply."

Since it's Blizzard who's transferring the money it makes sense that the transfer charge goes to it.

12 years ago
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That paypal portion only applies if you are taking out the money from your blizzard wallet. You can leave it there, and buy say... WoW time or diablo 3 expansion, and ignore the second 15% cut.

12 years ago
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That's fine if you plan to use the RMAH to pay for WoW (I know there are some people that want to do that), but it doesn't mean much for those of us that have no interest in WoW.

12 years ago
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From the text it looks clear to me that the 15% goes to Blizzard. They also say that PayPal might take additional fees. Looks like they want the money to stay in their system.

12 years ago
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I wouldnt spend $250 on D3 itself prolly mostly because i am a cheap person.

12 years ago
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When there is a dupe, (believe me, there will be) Blizzard is gonna be screwed.

12 years ago
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I think you mean they will get loads of money

12 years ago
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I don't think you understand what he said.

12 years ago
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The game is a dumbed down diablo and I wouldn't have paid real money for items in the GOOD game, D2LoD

12 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 11 months ago.

12 years ago
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Please, I wouldn't even pay for Diablo 3

12 years ago
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^

12 years ago
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too late and i regret buying it

12 years ago
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This, I picked up the CE and regret it 100%. I'm for sure not gonna buy any items on RMAH.

12 years ago
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+1

12 years ago
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+1

12 years ago
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+infinity

12 years ago
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+infinity +1

12 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 11 months ago.

12 years ago
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I paid for it and now I can't even play it.

12 years ago
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Doesn't Blizzard only get 1 Dollar from item sales? 15% is only from commodities sales like gold, right?

12 years ago
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Correct. The links I posted above confirm it.

12 years ago
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no

i wouldnt pay for diablo 3

or any other game trololol

12 years ago
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Is that an animated jpg?

12 years ago
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Wait nevermind it's a gif with a jpg extension.

12 years ago
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i would not, but alot of people will

I myself bought a gaming pc just by selling items in Ultima Online in its glory days.

But it was an mmo, and things were different. People needed gear to pvp, and time/dedication to get the gear. To a student like me time was worth alot less then the $ of the items, but to people with good jobs it was either a few hours of overtime in the office OR 20x that in boring (to them, not everyone enjoys grinding pve) gameplay time at home.

It's understandable in MMOs, but diablo is barely a multiplayer game, with no pvp, little and repetitive pve and nothing to do with godlike gear, if not bragging on the forums that inferno is too easy.

I preordered that too, couldnt get a refund for server issues, so i WILL try to get back at least a few bucks from it by playing the RMAH game (and probably failing due to the korean zerg horde)

12 years ago
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never

12 years ago
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No but all of a sudden I want to make money off Diablo 3...Problem is I would have to buy Diablo 3....

12 years ago
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You'd earn more money working at McDonald's for minimum wage, and that's completely ignoring the costs of internet, a pc, the game, power, etc. There's a reason all the gold farmers are in third world countries where the alternative is hard labor in a factory for dollars a day.

12 years ago
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I would if I could.

12 years ago
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if it is a hat, YES, TOTALLY

12 years ago
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TF2 Unusual Hat, guy wants one for $3000 in items. Its purely cosmetic.

http://www.sourceop.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=91836&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

(sorry don't know how to make links)

12 years ago
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clicky...
WTF!?

12 years ago
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Haha check this guys tf2 backpack.
worth about $29850.91

http://backpack.tf/id/mattie

12 years ago
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Closed 12 years ago by ErrEff.