Blizzard’s Jay Wilson has previously stated Diablo III’s development team implemented the Auction House into the game in order to streamline the trading process, and because players like to trade for real money. However, Blizzard will also make money off any real-world transactions in the game, and the decision to take part of the proceeds was made by the designers themselves – not the business end of the company.
Speaking with Gamasutra, Wilson said the service would not have been implemented if the development team felt the service would add real value to the consumer.
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to make money,” he said. “I think it’s a bad thing to want to make money off things that are not a good service or product for your customer, and that’s our inherent belief, is that it’s okay to make money on a service we provide for our customers that we think is a good service worth paying for.
“Do we want to make money off it? Of course we do, because we want to continue to make games, and we want to be successful. But we also think it’s a good service. We think it’s a thing players want, and want to do, and they want to be able to do it securely and easily, and they want to be able to make some cash off of it if they want. They want to be able to recycle that back into getting more items.”
Wilson went on to reiterate since the Auction House is built directly into the game, it provides a more secure environment for real-money trading which limits potential scamming.
Diablo III launched worldwide today, and you can get caught up on all the launch day news through our Diablo III hub.
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