Diablo 3 Will Have Real Money Player-To-Player Auctions.

Citing the fact that there are still third-parties selling Diablo 2 items for cash, Blizzard has revealed that they’re going to cut the middle man and let players buy items off one another in auction houses in D3. For real hard cheddar. It was announced at a press gathering last week, and  Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo took a good amount of time to defend the decision.

Joystiq:

“Ultimately, players want it,” says Pardo.  Diablo 2  items are still being sold, unofficially, by third-party companies for cash, and a number of  Diablo 2  players have always asked Blizzard to provide them with a secure and easy way to sell and buy items for real money.

“If Blizzard doesn’t do this system, I’m not so naive to think that it’s not going to happen,” Pardo continues. “In the past we’ve really taken this hardline stance of, we will just try to stamp it down in every place that we can. And we could take that approach. But I actually think that with  Diablo, it actually will end up being a good thing, at least something that players will be excited about. It really is something that a lot of players are already looking to do.”

There are other reasons for Blizzard to enable such a feature.  Diablo 3, says Pardo, doesn’t work the same way that a game like  World of Warcraft  does.  World of Warcraft‘s loot is deterministic, dependent mostly on skill, progression, and time spent playing.  Diablo‘s loot, on the other hand, is random — while some items are tied to some areas, there’s still a random chance that a player will either get a piece of gear that fits their character or playstyle, or that they’ll get a drop that won’t. The game is still fully playable without ever entering the auction house (though it’s notable that, like  Starcraft 2, Diablo 3  will require an active Internet connection to Battle.net to play), but this market will help players find and trade that gear.

“There are some people out there that don’t have the ability to put a time investment into the game, so they do want to use real-world money to kind of advance their character,” says Pardo. “And the other side of it is that there are people who have a lot of time and don’t benefit from it, because they’ll be able to generate items, and get better items or cash it out.”

Thoughts? Seems inevitable to me, even if the reluctant gamer in the back of my mind is scowling. The gamer in the front of my mind? Afraid at how much money I could spend  using this fucking service.