Making real money playing Diablo III

Blizzard is planning on implementing an auction house within its heavily anticipated game Diablo III, that will transact in real currency, the game developer said.

What this essentially means is that while playing, if gamers slay a monster and pick a super-rare item, they will be able to sell it off and make real money. That’s right, it is now possible for anyone to make money while playing a videogame.

The Diablo III Auction House will be implemented via Blizzard’s Battle.net service allowing in-game loot earned while playing the game to be put up for sale for real money. The player selling the item will set their own price, which other players will bid for. Initially, the Auction Houses will be divided into regions and players will be limited to transacting only within their region. Blizzard may alter that as the system matures.

The system is Blizzard’s way of circumventing the black markets that grew around the original Diablo/Diablo II and World of Warcraft, it’s mega-popular MMO title, which has regularly seen innocent players getting scammed out of money or in-game items. It will also serve as an additional revenue stream for the developer, as the Auction House will charge a fixed listing fee for items. Blizzard says the listing fee will prevent the Auction House from being spammed with junk.

Any profits made in the Diablo III Auction House will be filtered to a Blizzard account, where it can be used to purchase other Blizzard products, or moved to an an external account. There will, however be an additional percentage fee for moving money outside of Blizzard’s system.

Blizzard has confirmed that they will not be posting any items within the Auction House and any items available for auction would have been earned by players only. The system is intended to be player-run, with Blizzard’s involvement meant to ensure fair trade and as a guard against fraud.

To ensure security, Diablo III will require a constant online connection regardless of whether players are playing solo or co-op.

Those wanting to make use of the Auction House, but unwilling to use real currency, will be happy to know that non-currency auctions will also be catered for.

Diablo III’s release date is still undetermined.