Finally! Blizzard Announces No More Auction Houses In Diablo 3!

Blizzard announced earlier this week that it will be shuttering the auction house in Diablo 3 on March 18, 2014.

Diablo 3, which was released in 2012 to record numbers, is a co-op role-playing-game where players could run around and kill various monsters in various ways; the game mechanics encouraged multiple play-throughs as players received better and better gear—and fought harder and harder monsters—as they played through each level a second or third time.

Launched with the game was a controversial in-game Auction House where players could spend real money on gear and other items—including buying in-game currency. While the Auction House has been extremely successful in World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment’s MMORPG, the WoW AH does not allow players to use real money—in fact buying gold is expressly forbidden—and other games use a downloadable content (DLC) system where players can either buy items directly or buy game currency with real currency in order to buy in-game items, an in-game hybrid had never been tried before.

Players were intrigued when it was announced. Some were openly cynical.

And indeed, the AH was a problem almost from the beginning. Being able to buy upgrades meant players could essentially skip whole levels of the killing monsters/get better loot mechanic; co-op play become unbalanced between purists and auction house twinks. Blizzard attempted various hotfixes, none really worked, and finally, Blizzard decided to yank the whole system.

In a blog post by John Hight, Diablo 3’s Game Production Designer, Hight recounted the reasons behind the decision. Saying that the AH was “initially designed and implemented…[to] provide a convenient and secure system for trades,” Hight goes on to state that the AH “essentially undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.”

While some players have greeted the news with less than sanguine reactions (one Battle.net Forum user was quoted as saying: “Good job killing the game.”)but most are relieved and heartened by Blizzard’s announcement.

Blizzard is also preparing an expansion for Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls, which is due out in 2014 and will feature an updated loot system as well as new content and classes.