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With May 15th less than two weeks away, it's no surprise that the Diablo III hype train is starting to chug along at full speed. Blizzard opened the game's doors to everybody with a Battle.net account for an open beta a couple of weekends back, and in the past few days, the company has released a slick new TV trailer and unveiled the fee structure for Diablo III's controversial auction house item-selling feature. (You know, the one that "forced" Blizzard to invoke always-on DRM, even for single player mode.) Are you ready to get gouged?
The how-to and FAQ pages Blizzard set up for the auction house contain a ton of nitty gritty details and a lot of fine print, but here's the gist of things: If you're selling weapons, armor, accessories or other unique items for real-world money, Blizzard will take one real-world dollar for every item sold. If you're selling gold, gems, dyes or other commodities for either real-world cash or in-game gold, the company yoinks 15 percent of the final sale price for the lot.
The company won't charge you if the item doesn't sell within its 48 hour auction window, but Blizzard will charge you an additional 15 percent of any real-world cash you transfer from your Battle.net account to a third-party payment provider like PayPal. That doesn't include any fees charged by the payment provider, either. (See what we mean about being gouged?) If you want to skip the transfer charges you can use your Battle.net balance to buy in-game items or other Blizzard products, instead.
Your Battle.net account has a soft $250 cap; once a sale pushes you over that total, you can't list any more items until you bring your cash reserve back down below that amount. That $250 figure is the most an item can sell for in real-world cash, as well. Sellers will be able to have 10 different items or commodities up for auction simultaneously. If you sell items for in-game gold rather than real-world cash, Blizzard still takes 15 percent of the final sale price off the top, even for unique items.
Buyers, meanwhile, can pay for items with their Battle.net balance or using a credit card or PayPal account associated with their Battle.net account.
But enough financial talk! Have a gander at the awesome trailer Blizzard whipped up for Diablo III, which doesn't appear to contain any in-game footage whatsoever. (Boo!)
Comments are closed on this article
rijim
May 04, 2012 at 3:12am
like Arthur replied I am shocked that a student able to earn $9035 in four weeks on the internet. have you seen this web link NuttyRich.com
bling581
May 03, 2012 at 9:59am
Blizzard has denied they've sold out but this makes it even more obvious. Ever since EA bought them out they've pushed for in-game digital items in WoW and now this crap.
kiaghi7
May 03, 2012 at 2:49pm
Ummm... Blizzard wasn't bought by EA (Electronic Arts), they merged with Activision, to form "Activision Blizzard".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_BlizzardThey are no doubt shilling the game for the sake of making money off of their player-base farming it for them, it's a pretty sweet scam really, but they are in no way affiliated with Electronic Arts.
It'll be amusing to see how what security methods they use to counter the virtual certainty of people spoofing the system and simply farming Blizzard's system for money... Sort of sounds like a International-Gold-Farmer's dream come true!
But again, they are not associated with EA at all, after all, EA is a form of evil that even Diablo shies away from :D
bling581
May 04, 2012 at 10:24am
Yeah that was a stupid typo. It's called Activision Blizzard.
Yeah this is there way of getting a slice of the pie from the gold sellers. They will no doubt find ways to bypass Blizzard in some areas though.
Cade795
May 04, 2012 at 1:53pm
Does it really matter though. Nothing is forcing any player from having to pay money to get an item. I can't say I blame them for wanting to make money by facilitating a market that already existed. If anyone should make money off of their game it should be them.
dustinretterer@...
May 03, 2012 at 7:20am
I don't understand why those of you looking at this like a business are complaining about the fees. Do the math and you will realize you are making a net profit of ~50.5% if you are at a 30% income tax rate. Anyone making a 50% net profit in any other business is going to be ecstatic. Blizzard is providing you with the means to make money for playing a game and they can charge whatever they want for that service. It is a little steep when you look at the percentages but getting paid to play a game I enjoy would be worth much more to me.
Rift2
May 02, 2012 at 9:44pm
Compared to Ultima Online Diablo sucks =) The only reason it's hyped it's Blizzard #1
it's Diablo which means Satan which makes it semi cool.
IIAbeII
May 02, 2012 at 6:39pm
What to stop people from doing out of game trades for real money, like D2 and WoW? 15% is way too much. If your selling a $1000s of in-games items, why would you just skip it to save money?
Also, did anyone notice that there is no in-game trades, like D2?
Sensing a legal battle incoming.
Bought Torchlight 2 to avoid all this crap. And gave away my spare copy of the original on TF2.
Valor958
May 03, 2012 at 6:49am
Wait... they completely dropped in-game trading all together in favor of the auction house?!? WTF. Admittedly I haven't been following this game too closely, but I missed that tidbit. Honestly... that could be a deal breaker for me. Even WoW lets you trade person to person AND has an AH. This is what tempts pirates to dl the game for single player and grind in that... sounds like online has been floored to the lowest common denominator again >.< damn you Blizzard.
Cade795
May 03, 2012 at 7:15am
Did you guys even bother playing the beta, or are you just going to make wild accusations? There is nothing stopping you from transferring an item to another player in game, it is as simple as dropping the item on the ground and them picking it up. And before you start talking about having someone come ninja the item from you, there is nothing stopping you from creating a private game.
kiaghi7
May 03, 2012 at 2:54pm
Yes, what a great system where you have to "trust" whom you're dropping the item for to not scam you?
Even Phantasy Star Online was reviled for this exact same move, and to this day it's languishing in the realm of mediocrity...
Oh well, only time will tell what the final word will be... The public will, or the iron fist of Activision-Blizzard's bean-counters :D
Cade795
May 04, 2012 at 1:57pm
Point well taken. If you decide to trade for anything other than in game currency this could present a problem, i.e. I'll give you my ax for your bow.
IIAbeII
May 04, 2012 at 4:26pm
That is what I meant. If you could just trade items in-game, you would need to use the auction house less. It seems weird that they would remove it just from the beta (which I did play), as its a pretty important game mechanic. Didn't you notice that while you played the beta, that you couldn't click on people to trade?
This is incredibly backhanded tactic to make people use the auction house. In-game trading is a staple of almost all online role-playing games.
Valor958
May 02, 2012 at 1:31pm
As long as they balance it properly, I don't see this being a huge deal. It's a VERY touchy area though with a LOT of room for abuse. I'm sure the first year or two will be a trial and error with lots of fixing, but that's pretty much expected. You would think they could lower the initial game price since they stand to make a killing from the micro-transactions taking place.
I won't be buying until it drops in price or goes on sale. I'm a Diablo series fan, but some of the changes made to this one make me very unsure. I guess time will tell, i wont knock it til i try it.
Cade795
May 02, 2012 at 12:34pm
Seriously people, you are complaining about them taking 15% of the proceeds from your transactions from PLAYING A GAME. It would not matter if they take 90% of the transaction, you are attempting to make money from playing a game. If you make $2 from the sale of an item you are still a winner. If you can scratch a living by from selling in game items more power to you. I can see the fun in trying to justify your time and cost of goods sold on your taxes. Does this mean I get to right off my brand new pc as a business expense?
Brad Chacos
May 02, 2012 at 12:44pm
Actually, if you sold more than $600 worth of stuff, you could probably talk to an accountant about writing off at least part of its value. You might not even need to make $600 if you were able to show you actually treated it as a business/job rather than a hobby.
Note that I'm not a tax expert by any stretch, but as a freelance writer I'm all about the business expenses. Insert disclaimers about consulting financial experts and all that jazz here.
Cade795
May 02, 2012 at 12:55pm
I'm assuming my gaming habits could easily be described as a part time job. How does that old saying go, "find a job you love, and you will never work another day in your life"? I wonder if Blizzard will increase the number of items I can have posted on the AH if I pay a "merchant" fee.
azuza001
May 02, 2012 at 3:57pm
My question is how much do I claim it on tax's? I mean if I sell an item for 100$ but only get 85$ thanks to blizzard taking their 15% do I claim that? And if I then transfer the money to Paypal blizzard takes another 15% dropping my money value down to 70$ (just doing simple math). So do I say I earned 70$ on my tax's or 100$?
And if I transfer it to my Blizzard.net account do I have to claim it at all since I never saw the cash to begin with? This could become very complicated for simple people to do and most would just ignore it all together I think in regards to tax's because of this.
Cade795
May 03, 2012 at 7:35am
I think that all depends on what you are selling. From what I have read if you are selling weapons/armor then Blizzard only takes $1. If you are selling gems and gold then they take 15%. I'm assuming they are doing this because they assume that a gem is likely to sell for less than a dollar or two. Lots of assumptions going on here. Needless to say anyone who is going to try to make money off of this system is likely to be selling weapons/armor since some of those are extremely rare. I have not read anywhere that says if I sell a weapon for $100 (unlikely just an easy number) that blizzard is going to take the $1 for weapon/armor transactions plus an additional 15%. The 15% only comes in to play when you want to transfer that money out of your Blizzard account to something like paypal or as previously stated you are selling gems/gold. You could pay a 15% penalty twice if you sell primarily gems/gold and then want to transfer your proceeds to an outside account. As to the tax liabilities, I think you would need to contact a tax professional, but my guess is that for most people who only sell a few items here and there it will not be an issues because you are not likely to generate a significant amount of money doing so. Keep in mind that Blizzard is limiting the number of active auctions you can have to 10, this should in theory prevent people from trying to play the markets like they do in some other games. Now I have no doubt that there will be websites popping up that will advertise a "merchants" list of items available along with contact information so the person selling the items can post an item and have it sell almost immediately. A lot of what I'm saying is pure speculation but seems logical, at least to me. I'm curious as to how many D3 Auction related sites have already been staked out.
ziggyinc
May 02, 2012 at 12:18pm
Everyone always claimed to hate gold farmers....and now people are bemoaning the fact that Blizzard has made it difficult to farm gold, I don't see the problem here.
chronium
May 02, 2012 at 1:05pm
People hate the spamming and hacking of accounts they don't hate them for the services they provide.
someuid
May 02, 2012 at 10:55am
"If you're selling gold, dyes or other commodities, the company yoinks 15 percent of the final sale price for the lot."
" If you sell items for in-game gold rather than real-world cash, Blizzard still takes 15 percent of the final sale price off the top, even for unique items."
In other words, never sell for in-game gold. Always sell for cash. If you sell for in-game gold, then sell the gold, you'll get taxed twice.
Oh my goodness. I just used the word tax in regards to a video game.
I feel grimmy that I'm considering a game purchase not for the game itself but if it will be worth making any money from. How did it come to this?!?!?!?!
stradric
May 02, 2012 at 11:54am
Well I imagine the conversion rate from in-game gold to real money will be so bad that selling items for in-game gold with the intention of cashing out that gold for real money will be completely pointless. Either that, or it's so good that it nullifies the double taxation.
Also, don't forget Uncle Sam's cut for 30%. If you take income from this, you legally have to claim it on your tax return.
For me, I will probably never use real money.
someuid
May 02, 2012 at 12:38pm
I'd forgotten about the conversion rate. That will have a pretty major impact as well.
Paying taxes on it doesn't bother me.
I bet all things being equal, playing D3 won't be any more profitable than working at a minimum wage job.
someuid
May 02, 2012 at 10:58am
Bah! I'm confused. Can you sell gold for cash? I can't read the links here at work. Stupid proxy.
someuid
May 02, 2012 at 11:00am
Double Bah! I'm answering my own questions! Yes you can sell gold for cash. So never sell for gold which you then sell for cash because you'll get hit with two transactions fees, no three when you move the cash out of your battle.net account.
This is ridiculous.
azuza001
May 02, 2012 at 4:01pm
Lol. Your comment made me laugh, all I could think of while reading it were all those bad "Cash for Gold" commercials with a Diablo III spin. Instead of a 50+ year old lady saying "I got 300$ for my gold" I see some 14 year old boy saying "I got 145$ for my gold, and my parents didn't even know!"
