Blizzard Bags Diablo 3 Auction House
You know a company thinks their news is big when they not only post it on their website, but also email out the announcement to everyone they possibly can. The official announcement can be found here, but chances are if you care anything at all about Blizzard or Diablo you probably got an email sometime today.
To summarize, both the real money and gold-based auction houses will officially be discontinued March 18, 2014. It’s an interesting move by Blizzard given past statements regarding their support and apparent love of the auction house. The change of heart is probably related to former Diablo III lead director Jay Wilson being shifted to a different Blizzard project earlier this year.
Wilson is not the most popular person in gaming circles as many place much of the blame for Diablo 3’s inadequacies on him. He wasn’t involved in Diablo 1 or 2, he was in charge, and people didin’t like a lot of the changes he strongly supported. It stands to reason that now that he is off doing something else, the people who filled that power vacuum were more reasonable.
Back in our review we talked about the three major problems with Diablo 3: the underwhelming storyline, the terrible loot, and the auction house. Blizzard seems to be doing a lot of talk regarding remedying the terrible loot situation and now ending the auction house will definitely make the game better.
The problem is that it all seems like too little, too late. More and more Blizzard has been showing everyone how they are only interested in following the money. Just pop on over to battle.net and take a look at Blizzard’s newest addition. Right next to their three golden franchises you will find Hearthstone, which is effectively a digital only trading card game designed to get people pumping endless amounts of money to collect digital goods.
The reality for Blizzard is that World of Warcraft subscriptions continue to tank, the world of e-sports has moved on from Starcraft to MOBA games, and unlike the eternal fun that Diablo 2 provided, most Diablo 3 users got what they could out of the game and left within a few months. So Blizzard is surely trying to figure out how to increase the game’s user base and this seems like the easiest way to address the game’s biggest complaint.
It’s all such a shame because a couple years ago Blizzard seemed to be on top of the world. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty was fantastic, World of Warcraft’s Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions were great, and everyone was looking forward to Diablo 3. Sadly, it’s been a downhill slide since then.