Diablo III’s auction house will be shut down on March 18th 2014, according to a recent blog post on Diablo III’s official site.
The news was broken by Blizzards’ John Hight, who wrote to say the closure is because the auction house ‘undermines’ the games core gameplay: kill monsters to get cool loot. This is also because he felt it might not fit in with the changes coming to the upcoming expansion pack Reaper of Souls.
Hight explains in his post: “When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades.” Adding: “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.”
He went on to say: “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.”
Details of how the closure is going to occur are still being worked on, but the shutdown will occur on March 18th 2014.
Hight, along with Josh Mosqueira released this video giving more information on the closure:
The auction house has had its fair share of problems since its release, one of which included a gold glitch that allows player to use the auction house to duplicate gold. How do you feel about this closure? Is it good for the game or will it be missed?
[Source: Diablo III Official Site]
