Blizzard has announced that the real-money and in-game gold item auction houses in Diablo 3 will be shut down on 18 March 2014.
The auction houses have been a major issue of contention among the player-base, with many suggesting that it undermined the core looting elements of the Diablo series, and introduced a pay-to-win paradigm.
Blizzard had previously admitted that the Diablo 3 auction houses hurt the game.
John Hight, production director on upcoming expansion, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, explained the move in post on the Diablo 3 blog:
When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we’ve mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.
With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we’ve decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III. We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.
We’re working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible.
I’m sure many players will be happy with the news; now how about that promised PvP arena mode, Blizzard?
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I hope Blizzard addressed the rate of set item drops with the Loot 2.0 update as players that are out to collect all the items of a set without the auction house will have somewhat of a problem. Personally even though I’ve clocked dozens of hours playing D3 I am yet to find a set item myself.
Also with the AH gone it would be nice if Blizzard can drop their insistence of having an always-online DRM requirement; though I’ve got a suspicion that this is not something that will change soon.