Blizzard dropped a small bomb today that only the Gold AH will be available at launch. The Real Money Auction House will not be available at launch but be online approximately one week after that. Blizzard also put up a comprehensive Auction House guide, with all the information you ever wanted to know about the AH and how to use it.
The gold-based auction house opens its doors worldwide on May 15 with the launch of Diablo III, and we plan to bring the real-money auction house online approximately one week after that. This is a new service that includes lots of complex elements, so we are going to take a little extra time to ensure the game gets off to a good start before we flip the switch and open the real-money auction house for business.
For more information, head to the freshly minted Diablo III Auction House website, or check out the updated Auction House FAQ.
Its funny that they admit that USD, EUR and GBP have each different value, by different account cap for them, yet when it come to transaction fee 1USD=1EUR=1GBP. Europe got screwed again.
1 week delay for RMAH is fine. It give time for price to settle (gold price on RMAH would be insane first week)
I don’t know that I have proof that I called this, but I was thinking to myself that they should hold off on the AHs for a bit so its not so insane. This is a good move I think and will allow folks to wade into the pool instead of doing a cannonball in the deep end. You know I would have put up my first 1K gold for $50. Now I will just play.
Aren’t those currencies all on different servers..so It really doesn’t matter. Just means on the EU server that awesome armor piece will be $5 instead of $8 or $9.
Its true that US dollars and Euros are different servers but you run into the problem of GBP and Euros on the EU servers and you got US Canadian NZ and Australian $s on the US servers, that not mentioning the other country that use something completely different.
I am not looking forward to buying stuff on EU server given that its usually between 1.2-1.6 Euros to the GBP it means that I will be paying way over the odds in Blizbucks 🙁 something that cost 10 Euros will be costing me 12-16 Euros.
I guess I just have to use the sell stuff for bucks and use this to buy items, if I do this and cash out I will make more cash.
Not unsurprising, but still not entirely called for. I assume this has something to do with the economy, as they don’t want the first days filled with low-level items so people can get ahead extremely quickly.
This way you make your own way, where everybody starts from ground zero – real cash or not.
Actually, reading it again, they made it seem to be motivated by making sure it works than any other force. I should have realized it was a revenue driven decision. At least the side-effect of that is a good one in my opinion.
Well, so much for my week one wealth accumulation plans. I was totally geared up for selling gold (and leveling items) at ridiculous prices only to buy it back later when the market dropped.
I see zero reason for this.
Because it’s massively broken as it is in the beta?
Do you really think they want to chance millions of players using something that involves real money unless they’re absolutely certain it works?
Money is Gold in this game. Players will be risking gold in the current setup. I don’t see the difference.
because they foresee patching the game (and possibly wiping chars) during the first week ?
Wiping characters no way. Mass wiping/nerfing to items? For sure.
Wonder what the delay is.
Gives us a chance to get into the swing of things I guess. It will probably be a good while before I venture onto the RMAH anyway. Need to watch and learn for a bit first.
I’m going to fathom that the delay stems primarily from their sheer and wholly unmitigated incompetence..
Good. This will give the gold AH a chance to get established, and, perhaps, get people acclimated to using it as their “first stop” AH.
Most probably they expect lags and downtime in first week rush, so they want to avoid potential money loss in some RMAH lag, and release it when all that settle down.
NOoooooOOOooooOOO
Oh well.
This isn’t a small bomb, this is a straight up nuke. This is will mess up plans of anyone who wanted to “play the markets” in the first week. One thing I am really curius, though, a lot of people (relativly speaking) said that they were going to rush to 60 as fast possible to get a head start in RMAH in poll that ran some time ago, but with these news, that will no longer be possible. So, will they still rush to 60 now that it is (to them) pointless? I think we should have a new vote of playstyle in the first week, factoring in these news.
The longer they are lvl 60 the longer they have to farm items for big RMAH opening. So theyll rush to 60 anyway.
If I remember that poll correctly, it had nothing directly to do with the RMAH. It was just “How are you going to do your first playthrough?” with responses like “Take my time and enjoy the story”; “Focus with a single class and rush to 60”, “Try out a bunch of different classes”, etc. Perhaps we’re not thinking of the same poll.
In any case, I suspect that the only sort of “playing the markets” in the first week would just be a case of “playing” fools who are easily separated from their money. People who want to play the auction can still play the gold auction house and then convert their gold over to the RMAH. I also think people are potentially underestimating how much time it will take for them to hit 60, and how many good drops they’ll get along the way.
Yes, the poll itself said nothing about RMAH, however, I distinctly remember that a lot of people elaborated in the comments that they were rushing due to RMAH. And there were a lot of those comments, too, so I think sizeable chunk had that plan.
I do agree about the RMAH strategy, market will be either be too unstable or too small/slow, or both, in the first week, so, not a lot of profot to be made there. Doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people wanted to do that to try to exploit early market.
I’m sure that a few opportunistic individuals had grand designs for the first week, but a few people are going to be crushed no matter what happens when changes are made. I think the vast majority of players are just interested to play the game, and working the auction house is mostly an afterthought – and, again, most serious auction activity wouldn’t have happened in the first week anyway. As such, I can’t consider this a “nuke” of a decision.
PvP not being in the game for several months, on the other hand, is likely a bigger deal to a great number more players. That’s the nuke. This is a “small bomb”. 😀
Yeah, you’re pretty much right. Guess I just thought it was a bigger of a deal when I first saw the post, because I know how long and angry some of the discussions regarding RMAH can get, but thinking it through, this doesn’t really matter, at all. All the economists and wannabe ecomonists will still have their “earn 1,000$ in a week/month/whatever” schemes that they will try using or try selling to some poor idiot, RMAH issue won’t go away, opponents will still be opposed and everybody else will still use it, etc. So, yeah, I agree, a “small bomb”.
this isn’t a small bomb, this is a firecracker. how can anybody seriously make this into some sort of issue? OH NO MY PLANS FOR MAKING A THOUSAND DOLLARS ON LAUNCH DAY ARE RUINED BLIZZARD IS SO INCOMPETENT I’M NOT BUYING THIS GAME NOW
This announcement is too long. Blizzard should remove “at launch” and it’d be perfect.
i would make it 2 week so normal ppl can get some gear to sell too not just china farmers.
….what other developewho could get away with this kind of crap?
what other developer makes games this good?
Peter Molyneux. Every game, every other feature.
Servers will be hammered like hell at launch which could potentially produce RMAH glitches I guess.
It seems like a reasonable precaution. While hopefully there won’t be too much instability or craziness right at launch, it’s always a possibility, and I’d want to delay the RMAH until I knew the game was in the clear as well.
A lot of broken hearts in here. Geez guys, it’s just a week, if you thought you would make millions in the first week of RMAH I think you are underestimating how much loot you will be getting and how willing people are to pay for level 30 gear.
This makes a whole lot of sense and removes the possibility of “servers shut down due to RMAH maintenance” for the first week.
Yeah game was predicted to be released 6 months ago, 6,5 years in development, over a year of testing and polishing and so many features (mystic, pvp, rmah) is not ready for launch. If there will be no big personal changes in Diablo 3 dev team after 15th of may I’ll be surprised.
For people that are saying its just a week, since when you belive in any time periods or deadlines that they throw at you?
Aren’t all of those things are to be free in the future? They weren’t ready, why do you feel entitled to these options.
The way I read it is that the RMAH is ready, they just want the dust to settle and the auction house to stabilize a bit before they open up the technical and risky (for players) RMAH.
What is not having the RMAH going to do for you? In the meantime if you are worried about it, sell your gear for gold, then use that gold on the RMAH later to sell or buy items. Calm down.
Prepare for a surprise.
Ohh that’s rough.
Blizzard takes 15% above the fees, Paypal takes 15-25% and an additional fee for transfering it out to your bank account and then tax on the remainder. That is a deep cut!
You grind and grind and finally find a really awesome sword.
You sell it for $1 USD. When it’s all scratched from every angle you end up with $0.12cent…oh papa’s gonna have chicken tonight!
I wonder if this will be viable for farming-companies, maybe it’s too deep of a cut and we’ll have to put up with tons of spam and goldselling sites again. Time will tell.
Actually it’s not that bad. The total transaction fee + cashing out fee on commodities, such as gold, leaves you with 72.25 cents for a sale of 1 dollar.
Umm its -1 currency units for Selling fee and an extra 15% admin fee for transferring to paypal/whoever so if you sell something for 1$ you get a big fat zero. <- Unless they changed it.
@ direfire paypal fees are about 3% not 15% lol
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to#fees
Read the information. There’s a 15% fee for changing your currency to PayPal. It’s another 3% if you decide to have PayPal send you (real) money.
Wow, 15% fee to cash out a RMAH transaction. That’s more than the paypal and auction fees combined for an ebay sale. I bet Paypal gets less than half of that 15%. If you sell gold and cash it out, Blizz probably gets around 23%. That’s a serious cash cow.
No, you got it wrong. Blizzard and paypal doesn’t split on the 15%. They each take a huge cut.
Here’s the thing:
First Blizzard:
Transaction Fee (Real-Money Auction House): $1.00 USD per item / $1.00 AUD per item
Transaction Fee (Real-Money Auction House): 15% of final sale price
Transfer Fee (when sending proceeds to PayPal or other authorized payment-service provider): 15% of amount being transferred.
Then Paypal:
Here’s from my account:
Amount received:
$100.00 USD
Fee amount:
-$4.20 USD
Net amount:
$95.80 USD
The fees vary depending on a lot of factors but in general lets say 5%
An additional 5% when you transfer from Paypal to your bank account.
Then the tax man:
This vary on region of course but 30% where I live.
So in conclusion,
You sell an item for $10 bucks.
-$1 dollar hard cut from Blizz ($9 remaining)
-$1.5 dollar for 15% cut from Blizz ($8.5 remaining)
-15% transfer fee from Blizz ($7.2 remaining)
-5% transaction fee from Paypal ($6.8 remaining)
-5% bank transfer fee from Paypal ($6.5 remaining)
-30% Tax deduction ($4.5 remaining)
For the RMAH, Blizzard takes either 1$ per item sale, or 15% per commodity sale – not both.
No, Blizzard also charges a 15% fee to transfer it to paypal. You then need to pay the paypal fees as well. At least that’s my understanding from the updated RMAH FAQ. Although this 15% transfer fee is relative to how much is being transferred (so the calculation is after the 1$ item fee) and not on the original auction amount. Then after the transfer fee is deducted, paypal will take a 30cent + 3% cut or whatever of what is left (and not from the total from before) once you want to turn that money into a check.
I’m not wanting to start an argument, but, I think your calculations are pessimistic:
“-$1.5 dollar for 15% cut from Blizz ($8.5 remaining)” – Incorrect (as far as I understand), they only charge 15% transaction fee for gold AH.
“-30% Tax deduction ($4.5 remaining)” – Are you really going to claim this on your income taxes? Even if you do, I doubt anyone else will. Paypal will not report it to the IRS unless you make like $20K.
The 15% transfer fee does seem high, but, essentially you are paying the ability to sell your item in a secure environment. I doubt you will find a similar service that is cheaper and equally efficient/secure/buyer-friendly/etc. It seems to me that being able to make a 60-70% profit on a virtual Item I collect while playing a video game I really enjoy is a pretty good deal. If you are not playing the game for fun but for money it will never be worth it.
Makes sense to be honest. Who in their right mind would by anything with real cash in the 1st week anyway? Prices will need to settle down and get realistic before it makes any sense to use it.
Aren’t all of those things are to be free in the future? They weren’t ready, why do you feel entitled to these options.
The way I read it is that the RMAH is ready, they just want the dust to settle and the auction house to stabilize a bit before they open up the technical and risky (for players) RMAH.
What is not having the RMAH going to do for you? In the meantime if you are worried about it, sell your gear for gold, then use that gold on the RMAH later to sell or buy items. Calm down.
I would bet they figured it would take someone maybe less than a week to find the good stuff so people will sell those for good money. They don’t want the crappy items on the RMAH because they won’t make enough money off of it.
If money AH never made it live I would be very happy.
The backside of that is spam and sellers.
At least this is a great theoretical plan to reduce that.
I would also prefer no rmah + no spam.
No idea atm, how this fees work and how many cuts dwon from blii and paypal…totaly conusing for me 🙁
The best money would have been made at the first week. What next? Only Barbarian class available at launch?
Well there goes my plan to hit the RMAH up on day one and deck my character out in superior whites. GG BLIZZ
Reviews 😉
Kind of a lot of whining over a one week delay. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Big client/server programs are a beast to develop & debug. Trying to ensure there are no loopholes for hackers/crooks is even worse. It makes sense to ensure the basic stuff is working and stable before bringing in the real money stuff.
Looks like I’ll be stocking up on gold and everything else I can get my hands on for the first week.
RMAH goes live then sell sell sell.
Just 1 week, I’m okey with it.
this 15% transfer charge is absolutely outrageous! 5% is considered to be on the high side for e-commerce transaction fees…
This will cause one of two things, either the really good items will be on 3rd party auction sites or people will be selling battle.net accounts with huge battle.net balance in them.
Somewhere, in Activisions deepest halls, Bobby is beating a Jay Wilson doll
this $250 maximum listing price will also force the best items to be listed on 3rd party sites…
You think high end items will go for that much? I could not justify spending $5 on an item. I can’t imagine spending $300. And I have a decent job.
Are you sure its a max listing price? Because from my understanding your battle.net account can hold $250 max. But you can still sell items for higher prices and decide to move the money made directly to your paypay account. Also, I believe that you cannot transfer battle.net cash directly to Paypay. I think you can only buy Bliz items or RMAH items with that.
According to this
The maximum price an item can be sold for is 250$. But the maximum price of an item in the GAH is 100 billion, so maybe the really high-end items will end up being sold for (a lot of) gold.
Its the cap as you can’t use money not in your battle.net account to buy stuff, so where’s the extra money going to come from?
If an item is worth more than 250 units the only way to do it is to sell it for gold at the current gold:bucks conversion rate then sell the gold on the RMAH.
This is a good move on Blizzard’s part, but a week is probably not as long as it should be. If there is a bug or exploit that leads to some players having more or better items than intended and they sell those on the RMAH, Blizzard would have a hard time taking those items away. I think the reason for this 1 week safety period is for them to catch any of those potential “oh shit” moments before they can become financial problems as well.
This plays RM trading right into the laps of 3rd party trading sites
There can only be 1 outcome with these RMAH transaction fees: a happy Bobby!
PS: Where is Bobby’s eyes?
Sidebets on over/under 1 week?
Dicking around with people’s money is a good way to get them pissed. If they feel that the systems need a week to settle in before releasing the cheater-AH, then it is what it is. One week isn’t a big deal.
I gotta say, after reading both the guide page and the FAQ, I don’t see this doing much if anything to cut down on third party sites either.
For one thing, only a handful of countries are allowed to cash out of the RMAH. Sellers in those regions will need someplace else to sell.
For another thing, as has already been mentioned, the fees… both Blizz’s and Paypal’s. Whether that’s really going to come to 55% as suggested above I’m not sure (don’t have enough Paypal experience), but surely a third party site can undercut it, whatever it is.
Sooo, I suspect that everybody who is aware of and unafraid of third party sites… will still be using them. The RMAH may get a few timid or naive individuals who feel safer in a “legit” transaction, but I don’t see them siphoning off any of the serious item sellers from the black market.
Actually all the countries that have access to the RMAH will be able to cash out with Paypal. The reason is, all the countries in ‘Americas’ have access to the USD RMAH, and all the countries in ‘Europe’ have access to the EUR RMAH. Those two auction houses have the cashing-out option.
The big exception is China, which doesn’t have RMAH access. Basically, the real competition will be between the Indian farmers who can sell their loot legitimately on the USD RMAH, and the Chinese farmers who will probably be running third-party sites.
looks like ill be turning to 3rd party sites if i ever get an item worth over 60$