So for anyone who wasn't aware, Diablo 3's RMAH (Real Money Auction House) will have a chunk of your profits removed for Blizzard, they've finally revealed the actual fees.

Heres the breakdown:

If you're selling weapons, armor, accessories, or unique items using the in-game currency, Blizzard expects 15 percent of your profits. If you would rather receive real-world cash for the item, Blizzard will take $1.00 per transaction. With a minimum sale price of $1.25, that would net you a cool quarter. If you sell an item at the maximum value of $250, however, you get to keep $249.

When selling commodities like gems, dyes, or recipes, Blizzard takes 15 percent of the final transaction price regardless of whether you want in-game currency or real-world cash in return.

Once your transaction for real-world money is finalized, you can choose where to distribute your new funds. Electing to move the money into your Battle.net account accrues no additional fees. This balance can be applied toward other Auction House transactions or digital purchases of other Blizzard products. If you'd rather transfer the money into a PayPal account, Blizzard takes an additional 15-percent cut. That would turn your $249 into $211.65.

So it doesn't make a huge impact on your ability to make any sort of profit but it's still a pretty good chunk of money for Blizzard, especially if you decide to transfer it into anything other than your BNet account.

Source

Interesting. I've no real interest in D3, but I'll be watching this with interest... and a little trepidation.

They've basically legitimised RMT and... I dunno, perhaps I'm old fashioned but this just feels wrong.

Meanwhile at Blizzard Headquarters....

I mean really? Not even giving a fuck now Blizzard? Just saying "Fuck it, as long as we make money who cares?"

So...the reason I can't play Diablo 3 offline is so Blizzard can have the auction house, which I won't use, in order to make more money for themselves without doing any additional work.

Yeah...fuck that.

Ahhhh and Blizzard makes it's next great move in the battle to prove that they are still the undisputed champions in screwing over their fanbase. The contender, EA, is like the short scrappy fighter, landing many blows in a short period of time. Blizzard is like the heavyweight, slower to come out with such bullshit, but when they do it's a big punch. :P

Ranorak:

RJ 17:
Ahhhh and Blizzard makes it's next great move in the battle to prove that they are still the undisputed champions in screwing over their fanbase. The contender, EA, is like the short scrappy fighter, landing many blows in a short period of time. Blizzard is like the heavyweight, slower to come out with such bullshit, but when they do it's a big punch. :P

How is this feature screwing over people!?
You can buy the gear with in-game currancy.
You can still get the gear by killing the boss yourself (and with a bit of luck)

It just gives people that want the easy way out, a chance to do so. At the risk of losing money.

It's ALL OPTIONAL!

It really doesn't matter to me. For my personal situation, Blizzard has gone the way of Square-Enix: I've lost faith in them and will likely never purchase one of their games again. However...

Dirty Hipsters:
So...the reason I can't play Diablo 3 offline is so Blizzard can have the auction house, which I won't use, in order to make more money for themselves without doing any additional work.

Yeah...fuck that.

Certainly seems that he feels like he's getting screwed over.

With the added incentives for REAL MONEY, I could see people playing for hundreds of hours (most likely not having any fun, knowing grind) for all the wrong reasons. And Blizzard is going to lap all of it up.

Yeah, no. I don't need to waste that much of my life grinding away for nothing.
I did my time in Diablo 2, thanks.

Mortai Gravesend:
Well I suppose they noticed how much people like to sell their online items for money and decided that instead of just trying to stop them they'd make money off of it. Kind of sensible, I guess.

Yes, that literally was their initial intention. They just cut out the middleman. I must applaud Blizzard - that is one smart move. I don't like it but it's smart.

Mortai Gravesend:
I have to admire it in a way. The market is out there, can't stop that. So instead they use it. Not so great, but good thinking.

Yeah, the same here. Not only will D3 will be a success and be played a lot (let's face it, it's a Blizzard game - they are known for that stuff) but they also take an immediate cut of all transactions in the game. And the transactions are legalised, not that it was a problem before, it's just pretty much free money now that it's official. Furthermore, since players can now earn cash (but let's face it, they'll also spend a lot) that would also kick up the use of the market. Besides, it helps combat duping. It's a win situation for Blizz. They are evil geniuses. Well, I wouldn't call them "evil" but still something to that effect.

Ranorak:

RJ 17:
Ahhhh and Blizzard makes it's next great move in the battle to prove that they are still the undisputed champions in screwing over their fanbase. The contender, EA, is like the short scrappy fighter, landing many blows in a short period of time. Blizzard is like the heavyweight, slower to come out with such bullshit, but when they do it's a big punch. :P

How is this feature screwing over people!?
You can buy the gear with in-game currancy.
You can still get the gear by killing the boss yourself (and with a bit of luck)

It just gives people that want the easy way out, a chance to do so. At the risk of losing money.

It's ALL OPTIONAL!

The problem is there are no good options.

1) Spend extra money on items to be able to keep pace with other players. In doing so destroy one of the most appealing aspects of the game (looking for loot) and have the feeling of being gouged. Additionally make the game incredibly easy.
2) Refuse to spend the money and play multiplayer. Have absolutely no opportunity to affect the game in any way as other players deal 20x as much damage as you and have 20x as many hit points.
3) Play single player only. Put up with lag, the inability to pause or mod the game for absolutely no benefit. Occasionally need to grind the everliving fuck out of the game to proceed.

I intend to use the ingame auction house and undercut everything. That way blizzard gets their money and whoever wants the item gets it. If i can make some money, great, if not, No worries. I won't charge an exorbitant amount for a few pixels and some stats

Thats quite some heavy price tags they have going on there.

Yeah, I will stick to PoE. Dear publishers, please decide whether you want to sell your game at full price OR use microtransactions. Both is not ok.

DoPo:

Mortai Gravesend:
I have to admire it in a way. The market is out there, can't stop that. So instead they use it. Not so great, but good thinking.

Yeah, the same here. Not only will D3 will be a success and be played a lot (let's face it, it's a Blizzard game - they are known for that stuff) but they also take an immediate cut of all transactions in the game. And the transactions are legalised, not that it was a problem before, it's just pretty much free money now that it's official. Furthermore, since players can now earn cash (but let's face it, they'll also spend a lot) that would also kick up the use of the market. Besides, it helps combat duping. It's a win situation for Blizz. They are evil geniuses. Well, I wouldn't call them "evil" but still something to that effect.

Oh, they are evil. But still geniuses.

Thats the difference between Blizzard and EA. EA stumbles through the gaming world, fucking up and every corner, thus being called a curse. Blizzard wickedly lurks in the shadows doing the really bad stuff.

They do say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he does not exist.

Blizzard makes another Diablo game, and takes the opportunity to design all sorts of evil stuff into the game? It's like... so meta, man.

My only real problem with this whole scenario is that the currently listed rates seems to be totaly borked for internationals like myself, allow me to explain in america the transfer fee is one dollar, in england its one pound.

One British pound is about the equivilant of 1.6 US dollars, so basicly anyone buying or selling items in the UK is paying blizzard 60% more in fees than someone in the US, this seems totaly unjustified.

Add to this the fact that you cannot use the real money auction house outside your own region, as it is locked to your battlenet account. Im sure im not the only person in a country outside the US who will end up paying more 'blizzard tax' just to use this service.

Bottom line blizz needs to unify the cost based on exchange rates so that everyone is taxed equally, leaving it in its current state is basicly a form of favoritism/discrimination depending on where you live, your region of the world should not effect the amount of money you have to give blizzard on every transfer, that is to me unacceptable.

It was my understanding this game is mostly singeplayer right? If so, I don't see much problem with this since buying stuff doesn't give you a competitive advantage against players who don't (like in an F2P MMO).

Nimcha:
It was my understanding this game is mostly singeplayer right? If so, I don't see much problem with this since buying stuff doesn't give you a competitive advantage against players who don't (like in an F2P MMO).

Well, judging from the past (I haven't bothered checking out any D3 information), I can assume that you would need the best items you can get to make your character as effective as possible. In D2 the character builds were very dependent on equipment. Some more, some less, it ranges from around "I need this stuff to pack a significant punch" through "I need this for my build to be effective" to "I cannot play without these trinkets". There are builds based around unique items. As in, they function only barely without them. And an ineffective build is 1. not fun 2. maybe impossible to play (at higher levels).

In Oblivion you need some character optimisation to be effective (less so in higher levels). In Diablo, you need character optimisation to be effective at all.

I think it's probably more than people were expecting, people will still just trade outside the auction house for the chance to make more profit. The only people who end up suffering for it will be people who actually wanted to just have a nice LAN game to play.

Awesome. So now I can make a side-job of dicking around in Diablo 3. Hurrah for capitalism!

Seishisha:
One British pound is about the equivilant of 1.6 US dollars, so basicly anyone buying or selling items in the UK is paying blizzard 60% more in fees than someone in the US, this seems totaly unjustified.

And I'd bet they're paying at least HALF that in increased taxes.

I don't see how nobody is able to read here that it says that you can actually earn money by playing the game.

Or its late and I just read that wrong.

Rack:

Ranorak:

RJ 17:
Ahhhh and Blizzard makes it's next great move in the battle to prove that they are still the undisputed champions in screwing over their fanbase. The contender, EA, is like the short scrappy fighter, landing many blows in a short period of time. Blizzard is like the heavyweight, slower to come out with such bullshit, but when they do it's a big punch. :P

How is this feature screwing over people!?
You can buy the gear with in-game currancy.
You can still get the gear by killing the boss yourself (and with a bit of luck)

It just gives people that want the easy way out, a chance to do so. At the risk of losing money.

It's ALL OPTIONAL!

3) Play single player only. Put up with lag, the inability to pause or mod the game for absolutely no benefit. Occasionally need to grind the everliving fuck out of the game to proceed.

if your playing alone(using the beta as proof here) you can pause, and i had next to no lag even while running a stream and downloading a FTP game on steam.

Kahunaburger:
Blizzard makes another Diablo game, and takes the opportunity to design all sorts of evil stuff into the game? It's like... so meta, man.

like how in Civil War Marvel's editors saying "tony is right" meanwhile all the writers and fans are backin' the captain.

Ranorak:

RJ 17:
Ahhhh and Blizzard makes it's next great move in the battle to prove that they are still the undisputed champions in screwing over their fanbase. The contender, EA, is like the short scrappy fighter, landing many blows in a short period of time. Blizzard is like the heavyweight, slower to come out with such bullshit, but when they do it's a big punch. :P

How is this feature screwing over people!?
You can buy the gear with in-game currancy.
You can still get the gear by killing the boss yourself (and with a bit of luck)

It just gives people that want the easy way out, a chance to do so. At the risk of losing money.

It's ALL OPTIONAL!

Its screwing people over because blizzard would be taking a pretty decent chunk of someone elses work. While doing no extra work themselves themselves. All they are doing is streamlining a process that had been done 3rd party successfully for years.

And so what if its optional? So, because something is optional.......you can't complain about it? I'll wager if I asked you 20 questions, I could prove you are a hypocrite.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

While it seems like a good business decision given the huge volume of $ that will change hands in the RMAH, I am more fearful about how the rest of the industry is going to copy this and inevitably turn it into a disaster.

I mean, we've been living with WoW clones for the last decade... I really hope this isn't the next big thing.

Less juicing the customers for every cent they have and more making games that are innovative and worth the price. I haven't seen enough of D3 to determine if it is going to be guilty of the former, or if it will fall under the latter.

Dirty Hipsters:
So...the reason I can't play Diablo 3 offline is so Blizzard can have the auction house, which I won't use, in order to make more money for themselves without doing any additional work.

Yeah...fuck that.

I think you hit the nail on the head, good sir. I was thinking the same thing. Didn't have a whole lot of interest in Diablo 3 in the first place, but this certainly didn't add any appeal.

M-E-D The Poet:
I don't see how nobody is able to read here that it says that you can actually earn money by playing the game.

Or its late and I just read that wrong.

Have you seen the economy of games that have this sort of economy? Its not pretty.
The game usually settles down to a dollar being more or less four hours of in-game work, and the only people who benefit of being able to trade at all are the people who are willing to shell out real money.
Anyone who manages to turn any sort of profit through the game are playing to the point where its nothing but a below minimum wage job. Its not even like Second Life where you are either making art or interacting with real people.

Let's not kid ourselves about the "its optional" thing. Because even if you try to ignore the RMAH, most people are probably still going to be nagged by thinking about what to do with their equipment because wasting money hurts, especially for those who just dropped $60 or however much it is on the game. And when does worrying about money ever make a dark fantasy adventure better?

Saviordd1:
Meanwhile at Blizzard Headquarters....

I mean really? Not even giving a fuck now Blizzard? Just saying "Fuck it, as long as we make money who cares?"

At least it's better than outlawing trading virtual goods for real money anyway.