Diablo III's real-money auction house
From Invertopedia, the encyclopedia of how things fail
Diablo III's real-money auction house let players sell the items they found to other players for real money, with Blizzard taking a fee on each sale[3]. It opened in North America on June 12, 2012[2], weeks after the game's record launch[1]. Within a year the game's former lead designer said it "really hurt the game"[7], and Blizzard shut it, along with the gold auction house, on March 18, 2014[4][5], saying it "undermines Diablo's core game play."[4]
Contents
The bet
Diablo II had been plagued by item duping, hacks and gold sellers. Blizzard's answer was to run the trading market itself. "The trading market's in the game: we control it, so the hackers don't," Jay Wilson, the game's lead designer, said later[6]. John Hight, its project director, said the driving goal "was to provide a convenient and secure system for trade"[4].
Blizzard also assumed that only a small share of players would use the auction houses and that item prices would limit how much was listed and sold[8]. Each real-money sale paid Blizzard $1 for gear or 15 percent for commodities, and moving the money out to PayPal cost another 15 percent[3].
What happened
| May 1, 2012 | Blizzard details the fees: a flat $1 per gear sale, 15 percent on commodities, 15 percent more to cash out, at a maximum sale price of $250.[3] |
|---|---|
| May 15, 2012 | Diablo III launches and sells more than 3.5 million copies in 24 hours. Servers crash on launch day.[1] |
| Jun 12, 2012 | The real-money auction house goes live in North America, with proceeds paid out to PayPal or a Battle.net balance.[2] |
| Mar 2013 | At GDC, Wilson says the auction houses "really hurt the game" and that Blizzard would turn them off if it could.[7][8] |
| May 2013 | Blizzard says it is donating money raised by a duplication bug to charity.[4] |
| Sep 17, 2013 | Hight announces that both auction houses will close, because the system "ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play."[4] |
| Mar 18, 2014 | The gold and real-money auction houses shut down. Open auctions settle and unsold items go back to sellers.[5] |
| Jun 24, 2014 | Last day to claim leftover gold and items.[5] |
| Oct 2022 | Wilson says the auction house made "a little bit of money," and that Blizzard waited to remove it because "it was advertised on the boxes."[6] |
The kill shot
The best gear was in the shop, so playing the game became the slow way to get it.
Diablo is a game about killing monsters to find loot. Once every item could be bought, finding one stopped mattering. Wilson said nearly everyone in the community used one of the auction houses, more than half of them regularly, and that the ease of amassing gold from trading dimmed the game's main motivation of killing Diablo[7]. Blizzard designer Travis Day wrote that the team was trying to "refocus players away from farming the auction house and onto farming monsters."[7]
Hight's verdict, when Blizzard pulled it, was that despite the benefits and the many players who used it, "it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play."[4]
Red flags ignored
- Everyone used it. Blizzard expected a small share of players to use the auction houses. Nearly all of them did, more than half regularly.[7][8]
- The house took a cut. Blizzard earned a fee on every real-money sale, so the store it ran had a reason to keep players shopping.[3]
- Designers worked against their own feature. The team was openly trying to pull players away from the auction house and back to fighting monsters.[7]
- It was on the box. Blizzard delayed removing it because it had been advertised on the retail packaging.[6]
The cost
Not much money, by Blizzard's standards. Wilson later said the auction house made "a little bit of money, nothing compared to WoW," and that he would be surprised if it made more than $10 million or $15 million[6]. The real cost was to the game: about 3 million monthly players at the time[7], many of them buying their gear instead of finding it, for the 21 months it stayed open[2][5].
The inversion
Don't sell the thing your users came to earn. If the reward is the point of the game, keep it inside the game, and don't take a cut of the shortcut around it.
What survived
The game. Blizzard tied the closure to a new item system, Loot 2.0, which Hight said "will result in a much more rewarding game"[4]. Players kept the gold and items left in the auction house, which went back to them through a Completed tab[5].
The lesson. Wilson told a 2022 panel that the auction house was built for security, not money, and was "not very popular"[6].
References
- ^ “Diablo III breaks PC-game launch record”. CBS News (Chenda Ngak), May 23, 2012. The May 15 launch, more than 3.5 million copies sold in 24 hours, launch-day server crashes.
- ^ “Diablo III pulls trigger on NA real-money auction house”. Engadget (Justin Olivetti), June 12, 2012. The real-money auction house going live in North America; PayPal and Battle.net balance payouts.
- ^ “Blizzard Details Diablo III Auction House Fees”. Game Informer (Matt Bertz), May 1, 2012. The $1 and 15 percent fees, the 15 percent PayPal cash-out cut, the $250 maximum sale.
- ^ “Blizzard to shut down Diablo 3 auction house”. Game Developer (Kris Ligman), September 17, 2013. John Hight's closure announcement and quotes, the March 18, 2014 date, the duplication bug donation, Loot 2.0.
- ^ “Blizzard Closes Diablo III Auction House”. Game Informer (Matt Helgeson), March 18, 2014. Both auction houses closed March 18, 2014; auctions settled; items and gold claimable until June 24, 2014.
- ^ “Diablo 3 took so long to get rid of its auction house because 'it was on the box'”. PC Gamer (Rich Stanton), October 24, 2022. Wilson on security as the reason, the $10 million to $15 million estimate, "not very popular," and the legal delay over the box.
- ^ “GDC 2013: Diablo 3 auction house "really hurt the game," says Jay Wilson”. PC Gamer (Omri Petitte), March 29, 2013. Wilson's GDC remarks, usage figures, 3 million monthly players, "turn off [the auction houses] if we could," Travis Day's quote.
- ^ “GDC 13: Diablo III auction houses hurt game, admits director”. MCV/Develop, March 29, 2013. Blizzard's original assumptions: fewer users, prices limiting listings, curbing fraud; nearly all players used them.