Blizzard to remove real-money auction house from Diablo III
Developer acknowledges that it "ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot"
The idea of a real-money auction house in a Diablo game has been a controversial and divisive point for many gamers since it was first announced. While Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime first defended the idea, noting that it was being included "to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items," the studio has now backtracked, saying it undermines Diablo III's gameplay.
In a post on the official Battle.net website, Blizzard has officially announced its decision to remove the gold and real-money auction house system entirely. The auction house system, which saw multiple delays before finally being implemented last June, will shut down on March 18, 2014.
"When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III," said Blizzard's John Hight.
"We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players. We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible."
If Blizzard can address the issue of loot being divided in 1% maybe useful loot and 99% junk loot, then the auction house is, indeed, useless and can be removed. However, how does the program know what a player considers helpful loot in the first place? How does this affect the value of loot that it creates in the pleasure center of the brain upon dropping? It takes some time until you are a hardened pessimist about your drops. How will players react, if loot then is only another time gate which prevents them from progressing to the very end, hell monster power level 10? Remember, junk loot might have been junk loot, but it was still progress, since the auction house could convert junk into good items. If that catalyst is missing junk loot is junkier than ever.
A game such as Borderlands has shown how the absence of an auction house is not a bad thing for a loot driven game. It will be fascinating to see where Blizzard will take cues from Gearbox and where they will go another route. Not to mention seeing how the consumer reaction will be in all of this.
Eric pointed out that players required trade to go get the gear for specific builds and was right. However, if Blizzard took this process of finding the right gear and turned it into "finding the right boss" by eliminating random drops, then nobody needs the auction house, they only need to farm the right boss until the item drops. Much like Borderlands I might say (e.g. farming a Bee shield)