Blizzard Entertainment announced the upcoming, undated, Diablo III Beta Test and a new auction house system, to be debuted at game launch, that may revolutionize ideas like "gaming for a living" and "getting more value out of your game."The beta test release date is still in the air, but it will feature everything that has been announced to date, except the auction systems: all 5 character classes, barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk, and demon hunter; artisans and followers; runestones, charms, and gems; etc.
The great reveal is the creation of two parallel auction houses: one involving in-game currency, gold; and another involving real-money. The auction house systems will not be included in the beta test, but it will certainly be a part of the game at launch. They will allow players to post nearly every item found in the game, including gold and previously purchased items, for exchange. Auction houses are no revolution, WoW already features one that is great, but Diablo III's new twist to the mix will definitely change everything. Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo admitted with a nervous chuckle "We've found that no one's actually done this before. So it has been a long road to getting to where we are today, where we can actually announce we're doing this." This system is revolutionary, it allows players to exchange loot items and in-game currency for real dollars (yens, euros, or what have you) without leaving the game domain; but don't worry features like selling items to NPC vendors and character-to-character trading will still be present for your convenience.The real-money auction house will work as eBay; Blizzard will charge a fixed fee out of each transaction at posting and after the sale is completed. Money accumulated by the player will be placed into their battle.net account and can be used towards other Blizzard products and services or taken out by paying a percentage-based withdrawal fee. Although no details in the numbers or financial institution providers have been announced I am certain Blizzard will amaze us as always.
Blizzard emphasized that they will not be posting any items for sale on either auction system; auctions will only include items posted by other players at the price they desire. Although Blizzard does not want to interfere with the free market of the auctions they reassured that if security is in jeopardy they will act immediately in order to accommodate the system. They justify the creation of this system mainly because they wish to provide customers with better protection that other third-party trading sites lack. But we all know they also want to keep customers from using eBay in order to get that money for themselves. Furthermore, Blizzard is making it very easy to post items for auction and transfer loot between characters. They have a new shared stash system, which any character in your account can access, and sellers can post items for auction from any character or from their shared stash without much complication.
Lastly, the bad news (albeit they may not be news to everyone). Diablo III will be unavailable to play with internet connection; this rule applies even if you wish to play "offline," by yourself. In addition, there will be no bots or mods allowed in the game as Blizzard's servers will be monitoring such activities and disrupting players connection accordingly. Blizzard states that these measures are in place to keep the fluidity between the online and offline planes and accounts security. Blizzard claims that if offline play is allowed they would not be able to track the use of cheats and item mods on
offline characters that will provide unfair advantage in online gameplay
and auction trading. In this case Blizzard would have to require players to build characters from scratch for both offline and online play instead of the seamless "transfer" they plan to have in place. In my opinion, these announcements are great, even the "bad news." Open beta tests tend to be a good sign of well planned developing phases, at least when referring to AAA games. It will also create hype that will build up momentum for increasing sales. The "bad news" can also have an upside if handled correctly. The internet connection requirement may drive players to create a sense of community bigger than expected, as it happened with WoW. The prohibition of mods and bots will not be beneficial unless addons are allowed. I think that, at least, Blizzard should manage addons as in WoW; this will bring a lot of player involvement, increase the degree of convenience for all players, and take advantage of consumer labor to improve the game.
The auction systems seem to have great potential, but they may bring issues as well. On the upside, there is plenty of monetary benefits for both consumer and Blizzard. The biggest opportunity for Blizzard is the complete replacement of monthly subscription fees for auction fees. This stunt will attract more players, perhaps more than WoW, because the cost to play is greatly minimized while the possibility of raising money is extremely appealing. This also means that Blizzard will have a bigger incentive for renovation and upkeep of the game; players will notice that benefit too. It is not like Blizzard wasted subscriptions fee money in WoW, in fact it was well invested towards their consumers. It is about Blizzard putting their trust on gamers involvement (and greed). Even if Blizzard decides to charge subscription fees the game will still be successful. The safest strategy for them, however, would be to first charge monthly fees to test the auction's activities and revenue; then evaluate and perhaps switch to no monthly subscription. If this is done they would have to provide bonuses for their previously subscribed players. On the dark side, this new feature will provoke a lot of controversial debates to come afloat. Will the real-money auction house support Chinese worker exploit? Will children under 18 be allowed to sell in the real-money auction? Is the systems susceptible to monopoly? Are rare drop rates appropriate to maintain a free market economy? Questions like these must be addressed and fixed quickly in order to ensure the stability of the game. In the end, Diablo III seems to have greater potential than I previously expected (and my expectations were high). This game might make every gamers dream a reality, play games for a living. It also brings a whole new factor to more value for your buck; you can possibly make enough money to reimburse yourself the game's cost while funding further expansions and corporate services. I see a future where other games attempt to copy this new idea consistently. I think this may even become such a popular feature in certain games that it will be added as if it was a multiplayer mode for shooters. Either way, only time will tell whether this is a big success or just a headache for Blizzard.
Sources:
Blizzard: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/index.html#summary
Game Trailers: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/new-features-diablo-iii/718443
Joystiq: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/01/diablo-3-to-feature-player-to-player-real-money-auction-house-fo/#continued
Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Diablo-3-Rob-Pardo-Auction-House-DRM-Battle.net,13154.html
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