Diablo 3: Real Money Auction House FAQ

Back in August of 2011 I made some baseless speculations regarding D3's real money auction house (RMAH).  Today, Blizzard released actual information regarding how the RMAH shall work.  Here is the important information:

Real Money Auction House:

• $1.25 minimum list price.
• $250 maximum list price.
•  $1 Transaction fee for equipment.
• 15% Transaction fee for commodities.
• 15% Transfer fee to send profits to PayPal.
• Bids increase in 5% increments.
• $.10 minimum bid increment.

Those are the numbers.  While the minimum list price is not daunting, setting hard bid increments indicates that things could get fairly expensive fairly quickly.  I was hoping for a low end prices to be in the $.50 range, with penny increments for each bid.  Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that prices shall end up much higher than that.

The worst part of this, as far as I am concerned, is the transaction / transfer fee.  Blizzard takes 15% of the sale price, and then another 15% to send the profit to one's PayPal account.  Also, from what I can tell, when you list an item you has to specify whether the profit goes to your Blizzard account or PayPal account.  You cannot decide after the fact.  I suppose people could still make some money grinding very high level gear and selling it in the $100+ range, but even then you aren't going to be able to make rent money unless you have an army of asian gold farmers at your disposal.

As if that was not bad enough, Blizzard is severely limiting how one can spend one's Blizzard balance.  If you avoid that 15% cut and send the profits to your Blizzard balance, you can only spend it on these things:

World of Warcraft Character Services:

• Appearance Change
• Faction Change
• Name Change
• Race Change
• Realm Transfer

World of Warcraft Guild Services:

• Guild Faction Change
• Guild Name Change
• Guild Realm Transfe

World of Warcraft Digital Upgrades:

• WoW:  Battle Chest to WoTLK
• WoW:  Battle Chest to Cata
• WoTLK to Cata
• Diablo 2 & LoD
• Starcraft 2
• Starcraft Anthology
• Warcraft III:  Reign of Chaos & Frozen Throne

Things to note about that list:

• Cannot pay WoW Subscription Fee
• Cannot buy WoW pets / mounts
• Cannot buy Blizzard merchandise (shirts, mugs, etc.)

I had hoped that Blizzard would not be money grubbing dickholes with the RMAH.  Unfortunately, they seem to view it as a way to profit off of their fanbase.  This makes sense, when you consider how much they stand to lose from people canceling their WoW accounts, but it's still dickish on their part.

As Lando said, "This deal keeps getting worse all the time!"