Jesse Willadson said:
So Diablo 3 finally has a release date. I am excited, but not because I have any real interest in playing the game. When they announced the ability to sell loot for real money I became interested in the idea of making serious money off of selling gear.
I am not expecting to work completely, theres a chance it will fail, but if I can make my rent purely through Diablo 3 I will be a happy man.
My question is, will you buy gear with real money? Do you think it will work? and what class do you think will be the most popular?
I can say I've tried the Demo but didn't play it too much due to not wanting to ruin the game for myself before it's released, especially seeing as Blizzard seems to be ignoring fan input (and by this I don't maean mine, I've just been paying attention to some of the forums and such). It is a very good game however, and I have it pre-ordered, despite not liking some of the design desicians they made which I can't go into.
To be entirely honest the whole "cash auction house" thing is a feature I doubt many people will use. Despite stories about people paying like $3,500 for a rare loot drop, I just can't see people routinely dishing out money, even a buck or two at a time, for the weapons and items in this game, especially seeing as grinding for loot is 99% of what drives it forward.
It's an interesting experiment, but I'll be surprised if it takes off, and honestly the game structure doesn't seem to really be one where people are going to be concerned over their abillity to overkill things. Perhaps it might be more tempting in the multi-player arena, but I suspect that in the end the multiplayer (PVP or co-op) aspects of the game will become shunned if it starts to take substantial investments of money.
In short, I do not think you, or other people with similar thoughts, are going to be able to turn Diablo into a full time business. With some luck, over a period of time you might make enough money to say buy another game though.