Fighting Fire with Fire - A Critique on the Closure of the Diablo 3 Gold auction house

Tools are meant to serve, and not be the center of one’s life, or in Diablo 3’s case, the center of the game. The developers of Blizzard’s popular dungeon crawler have announced that they are closing Diablo 3’s Auction Houses on March 18, 2014. Both the Diablo 3 Gold and Real Money Auction Houses will be permanently shut down due to how they conflict with the game’s core mechanic. Fraught with controversy, many consider the closing of this Diablo 3 gold trading feature as a good thing. Is this the best solution however? What will happen now that D3 gold is all but useless?

Only four years passed between, the first Diablo game and the sequel. For Diablo 3 however, 12 years had to go by before the game was released. Many attribute the delay to the developers fixing many of the issues that came up with Diablo 2. This is why the third game in the franchise feels incredibly different from its predecessors.

One of the things the third installment of the game tried to fix was how Diablo 3 gold was valued. The developers wanted D3 gold to be harder to obtain, but easier to squander. This for the most part worked. Players would hunt and kill monsters for their Diablo 3 items and gold. Everything changed however when Diablo 3 gold trading came via the Auction House.

The Real Money Auction House (RMAH) allowed players to essentially buy Diablo 3 gold. With cash, they can buy items which they can later trade Diablo 3 gold for in the regular Auction House. Players no longer had to hunt monsters to get their cheap Diablo 3 gold and items. The whole point of the game was cast aside in favor of an easier, albeit more expensive, experience.

The concept of an Auction House is not bad however. In fact, it is something the game had desperately needed. Before the Auction House, trade between players involved lots of trade channel spam, posting on trading boards or using third-party trading platforms. If you wanted to a specific piece of gear, you’d have to go to a third-party website, look up if there are any players trading that item, and then hope you don’t get scammed.

The AH saved players the hassle and offered security for Diablo 3 gold trading. In fact, the AH gave more value to D3 gold. It is the RMAH that turned things sour. And now with both Auction Houses closing, players will have to once again resort to third-party trading platforms to get their Diablo 3 gold and items.

To remedy the difficulty of getting needed items when the AH closes down, Blizzard is putting more emphasis on finding items yourself. In addition to Diablo 3 gold no longer being tradable, this move will only create more problems. In removing Diablo 3 gold trading, they have also removed the value of D3 gold. Players will also have less motivation to connect with the community since they can just farm for all the items they need.

Staying true to the game’s core mechanic should not turn players into mindless item farmers. If Blizzard must remove an Auction House, they should only remove the RMAH. After all, it’s the reason for the devaluation of gold. Trading is an integral part of the game. Limiting it or removing it entirely is as bad as ignoring the game’s core mechanic.