Blizzard Rolls Out PayPal for Diablo 3 Auction House

[Logan Westbrook]

Blizzard Rolls Out PayPal for Diablo 3 Auction House

Buying that new axe in Diablo 3 just got a lot more convenient.

You won't need a credit card to pick up new gear on Diablo 3's [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316081658&sr=8-1] real money auction house; you'll be able to buy things with PayPal instead. Blizzard has teamed up with PayPal to make it the primary payment method for the game's real money transactions.

The news that Diablo 3 would have a real money auction house met with a mixed response, with some liking the idea, and others hating it. Speaking back in August [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/9046-Diablo-IIIs-Auction-House], Blizzard's Rob Pardo said that the studio was the auction was something that some players clearly wanted, as there had been a real money black market for items for the first two Diablo games. All that Blizzard was doing, he said, was allowing something that was going to happen anyway, but putting it under the studio's control. Blizzard's hope was that by making it a part of the game proper, it could avoid a lot of the problems it had had trying to tackle World of Warcraft's gold sellers.

PayPal - which would seem to be the third party payment handler that was hinted at back in August - will make using the Diablo 3 auction house much easier for a lot of people, especially those who don't - or can't - have a credit card. I can see Blizzard making a tidy profit off the back of this, which was probably the point in the first place.

Source: Industry Gamers [http://www.industrygamers.com/news/diablo-iii-auction-house--battlenet-get-paypal-for-payments/]









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[Hisshiss]

There's something beautiful about a business strategy that benefits every single person involved...smells like...harmony.

Edit: I very much look forward to makin duh real world moneyz with some of my excess grinding fodder .

 

[Jumwa]

I long ago realized I don't care to play in a gaming environment with people who can pay to win. I want my in-game achievements to matter, not my willingness to blow real money on useless virtual items. Certainly, people still bought gold against the ToS anyhow in MMOs, but it was cracked down on, and those people were hacked and booted from the game, punished for doing so, and it was kept at a minimum, to preserve the game experience for everyone.

And the fact that this AH is used as one of the reasons they're saddling it with a needless always-online DRM model for singleplayer makes it an instant no-buy for me regardless. The entire world doesn't have reliable internet connections, and these days I find myself amongst them.

Trust me when I say all the cracks and jabs at people complaining about "What's the big deal?" with always-online DRM get a lot less funny when you find yourself without a stable connection.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

as there had been a real money black market for items for the first two Diablo games.

Really? Diablo 1 had people buying weapons? Really? Given they could just hexedit the registry values that it saved? Really?

But wait...so you're saying the real reason for Diablo 3 Paypal to exist is to make it easier to spend money?

So you're basically re-inventing the Fruit (Slot) Machine for a new generation? (Flashy lights/graphics hiding an addictive device you pour money into) but you've even made the payout virtual?

Goddam, that takes guts.

That's before you talk about the always online, always in the casino, always able to spend more money element. Scrooge McDuck must be kicking himself he didn't think of this first.

Gambling without a payout and without needing a licence. Wow.

 

[Furism]

"Under the studio's control" and also "under the studio's broker fee." They're not doing this only to make it easier for the users, but also to make money. I don't have a problem with a studio finding new ways to make money, but they should be honest about it.

This also basically legalized virtual currency trading. Soon enough you'll see people auctioning off crap items for large amount of golds - those will be the people who bought gold and are waiting for the seller to give hand it over.

 

[Hisshiss]

as there had been a real money black market for items for the first two Diablo games.

Really? Diablo 1 had people buying weapons? Really? Given they could just hexedit the registry values that it saved? Really?

But wait...so you're saying the real reason for Diablo 3 Paypal to exist is to make it easier to spend money?

So you're basically re-inventing the Fruit (Slot) Machine for a new generation? (Flashy lights/graphics hiding an addictive device you pour money into) but you've even made the payout virtual?

Goddam, that takes guts.

That's before you talk about the always online, always in the casino, always able to spend more money element. Scrooge McDuck must be kicking himself he didn't think of this first.

Gambling without a payout and without needing a licence. Wow.

The thing about the auction house is that you could take a completely neutral or even positive thing, such as the ability to spend and collect money on it without risking your own credit card, and then spin it into so much of an evil thing that it drives your incredible moral fiber to madness.

Funny how perspective can do that. That being said, every online service that uses any kind of purchase model strives for automatic and simple methods of spending, singling out blizzard and saying its some sort of evil greed driven plot is just being unreasonably hateful.

I'm also not following your slot machine reference, you buy an item with money, you get the item, it's now your item. How is that anything like gambling?

 

[Hisshiss]

This also basically legalized virtual currency trading. Soon enough you'll see people auctioning off crap items for large amount of golds - those will be the people who bought gold and are waiting for the seller to give hand it over.

Or, you could just buy gold straight from the cash auction house the blizzard sanctioned way. Or he could just walk up and give you the gold in game. I'm not really following your logic.

 

[PingoBlack]

Gambling without a payout and without needing a licence. Wow.

How is in game AH gambling?
Are you just saying that to make your argument appear more edgy, Fox News style?

Because gambling kinda requires a game of chance. Auction House is a market place, ruled by supply and demand. At least time I checked.
On top of it all ... it is 100% optional and even 100% blocked from use on Hardcore mode, which kinda makes pay to win complete nonsense.

So yeah, saying stuff that is not true just to make your point seem more dramatic. Foxy for sure.

 

[Kahohess]

I guess, what's really disturbing, it's because it's happening in Diablo and not in WoW.

 

[PingoBlack]

I guess, what's really disturbing, it's because it's happening in Diablo and not in WoW.

RMAH is not compatible with WoW. It requires nearly all items to not be bound to characters, in WoW 90% of all stuff is bound.

They did say PayPal will be available as new WoW payment method though.

 

[babinro]

I love the fact that I 'might' actually earn some money back by playing this game. I doubt I'll chance across any of the ultra rare items people will actually pay money for as I'm not a grinder, but we'll see.

 

[Frostbite3789]

as there had been a real money black market for items for the first two Diablo games.

Really? Diablo 1 had people buying weapons? Really? Given they could just hexedit the registry values that it saved? Really?

But wait...so you're saying the real reason for Diablo 3 Paypal to exist is to make it easier to spend money?

So you're basically re-inventing the Fruit (Slot) Machine for a new generation? (Flashy lights/graphics hiding an addictive device you pour money into) but you've even made the payout virtual?

Goddam, that takes guts.

That's before you talk about the always online, always in the casino, always able to spend more money element. Scrooge McDuck must be kicking himself he didn't think of this first.

Gambling without a payout and without needing a licence. Wow.

It's a good way to keep an addict, addicted, and siphon more money from them. Require them to always be connected to the ability to spend the money while they play the game.

They can't just go offline to avoid it if they want to continue to enjoy Diablo III. That temptation will always be present if they want to play.

Funny how perspective can do that.

Funny how you bring up perspective, but somehow think people can't have different perspectives than you on the same issue.

 

[Kahohess]

RMAH is not compatible with WoW. It requires nearly all items to not be bound to characters, in WoW 90% of all stuff is bound

I don't get it, maybe you're right but i've played WoW long enought to belive it could have worked, at least for golds.

 

[SonofSeth]

RMAH is not compatible with WoW. It requires nearly all items to not be bound to characters, in WoW 90% of all stuff is bound

I don't get it, maybe you're right but i've played WoW long enought to belive it could have worked, at least for golds.

I see something like this happening when WoW finally goes free to play, some kind of RMAH, but limited to gold, mounts and pets, or something like that. Who knows, it's still probably years away, and Diablo 3 RMAH is a huge beta test for the whole concept.

 

[Levethian]

Excellent news. Convenient.

Trading was so time-consuming in Diablo 2 -_-

 

[PingoBlack]

RMAH is not compatible with WoW. It requires nearly all items to not be bound to characters, in WoW 90% of all stuff is bound

I don't get it, maybe you're right but i've played WoW long enought to belive it could have worked, at least for golds.

It would work for in game gold yes, but it would not be a general solution.

Idea for D3 RMAH is different. As game has no subscription, item system has to be adapted for RMAH to actually have as large a market as possible. So nearly no item in whole D3, other than heroic mode drops, is bound. You can sell the used shirt from your own body that you used for months after an upgrade drops (eww, stinky used armor in RMAH). Add to that randomly generated gear instead of specifically designed item sets in WoW, and it starts to come together. Also, gold in Diablo is not as valuable as in WoW in relative terms, Diablo players always claimed in game gold is as good as used toilet paper with no NPC market.

That's why Blizzard themselves said the RMAH system cannot be adapted to WoW due to soulbound drops.

 

[adrian_exec]

I don't get one thing, by using Paypal won't that allow players to cash out their money?

It's also possible to keep all the funds you earn selling items in your Blizzard e-balance. You can use that credit to buy more items, purchase games or merchandise from the Blizzard store or add subscription time to your World of Warcraft account. What you can't do is cash out your Blizzard e-balance. Once your funds are in there you can only spend them on virtual items or Blizzard products.

So could someone please explain this to me? Whats stopping us from paying our rents by just playing Diablo 3? I thought Blizzard doesn't want that.

 

[Ravison]

RMAH is not compatible with WoW. It requires nearly all items to not be bound to characters, in WoW 90% of all stuff is bound

I don't get it, maybe you're right but i've played WoW long enought to belive it could have worked, at least for golds.

I see something like this happening when WoW finally goes free to play, some kind of RMAH, but limited to gold, mounts and pets, or something like that. Who knows, it's still probably years away, and Diablo 3 RMAH is a huge beta test for the whole concept.

You do know that they actually are selling mounts and pets already in WoW. They keep saying that they don't plan on selling anything that makes an effect on performance in WoW (i.e. gold).

 

[LastDarkness]

If you played alot of online games and especialy Diablo 1 and 2 you can get a much better perspective on how much of a good thing this actualy is.

I find ignorance is the prime cause of most people not liking a system like this, usualy because they dont understand how it works and jump to knee jerk reactions.

Always on DRM is actualy just your characters are saved server side for example. Otherwise you would have rampant hacking like in the origenal Diablo trivialising the game and making online play a joke.

Officialy Sanctioned Auction houses pre-empt the black market sales of items and currency that already goes on in many games and the source of great deals of spam and pointless time spent baning and monitouring accounts that can be recreated within minutes.
This puts the power into the players hands, and because of differant fees also controls the quality of items. You wont see hundrends of trash items listed in the AH if it costs say a dollor for each listing to Blizzard.

Also along these lines theres seperate auction houses, for normal and hardcore play which are then seperated between real cash and in game currency auction houses. The way its set up you dont even need to invest any money into the system yourself if you dont want too because you get several "free listings" annualy. This means you can post up say a epic peice of armor on the auction for free and get real money as payment for it from another player into your account.

Another thing in reguards to the "Pay to Win" crowd, for pvp the way the matchmaking system is setup you will likly never see those characters in your games, EVER. It only matches you with other equivilently geared players.

This very much reminds me of the zealot views of pornogrophy. Many people campaign against and bring it into further publicity, when they are incabable of doing the simplest response of "If you dont like it, dont buy it" of course such logical points of view are useless when the cause of such views are the fact it exists in the first place is the problem in such peoples minds.