Diablo III's much maligned and doomed to die auction houses will be shutting down at long last tomorrow, June 24.
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Though all sales for both the gold and real money auction houses ceased back in March, tomorrow marks the last day players can pick up any and all items they may still have sitting in them. All unclaimed treasure "will be consumed by Treasure Goblins, never to be seen again."
The auction house, one of the staples of the World of Warcraft economy, was an ill fit for the loot heavy style of Diablo III and caused much stress to the players and developers from almost the beginning back in 2012. Whereas in World of Warcraft, players could go and have gone years without buying items and have still experienced the end game content, Diablo III players were being shuffled into a 'pay-to-win' scenario that is currently running rampant over mobile platforms. And since 'winning' Diablo roughly translates to 'getting the phattest lootz', as with many things in our society, those who could pay more, could play more.
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The houses were shut down with the release of Reaper of Souls back in March, which reinvented the game and finally made it the true Diablo II successor we had wanted for over ten years. Blizzard agreed, and used the expansion, and the upcoming console versions, as the perfect opportunity to phase out the auction house.
"We saw the expansion as an opportunity to make some changes," Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime told Polygon in 2013 . "We all sat down, we talked a lot with the developers, especially the game director Josh Mosquiera, and just tried to look at 'If we could do anything we wanted, what is the right thing to do for the game?'
"We all agreed that the game would be better without the auction houses." he added.
While Blizzard doubtless saw a cut in their yearly revenue (which stands at just over $3 billion), I for one believe that the company a) will be fine and b) doesn't profit from money, but rather time spent playing their games. We have all auctioned our time away and Blizzard has picked it up for pennies.
I know I've given them at least six months of my life, and you can't put a price tag on that.
