Say goodbye to controversy: Diablo 3 to shut down all auction houses in 2014

Back when Blizzard finally released Diablo 3, the game’s real money auction house launched soon after. Those who always dreamed of making money while gaming had dollar bills fill their eyes, and got to grinding. Of course, the real money auction house gave the players incentive to destroy the game’s economy due to the promise of making cash by playing video games. Well, Blizzard just announced that in March 2014 — about two years after the game launched on the PC and about half a year after the game launched on consoles — the real money and in-game gold auction house will be shutting down for good.

Blizzard’s reasoning is defensible: the auction house undermined the core gameplay of Diablo 3 and the series proper — “kill monsters to get cool loot,” as the blog post puts it. The auction house can make it so you don’t have to kill anything, and can simply play the market with your current funds and items. This, of course, is inherent to almost any game with an auction house, particularly MMOs.

Cynical gamers may assume that Blizzard’s reasoning is directly tied to the real money auction house, but the closure of the in-game gold auction house does support Blizzard’s announced intentions rather than some ulterior motive.

The shutdown is the first step toward making way for the 2014 Diablo 3 expansion, Reaper of Souls, which will also see a revamp of the loot system. The closure will take place on March 18, 2014, so you’ll have enough time to settle whatever you need settled, or make a mad dash at playing the market and getting some loot before you’ll have to play the drop odds to get desired loot once again.