Diablo 3’s most hated feature is stuck for a ridiculous reason

Diablo 32012 launch It was a disaster thanks to its always online requirements, downed servers, and a real money auction house that no one liked or wanted. Today, a decade later, we finally know it Blizzard put things back on track Diablo 3 And that ended up creating a great ARPG. But why did Blizzard take nearly two years to clear the pesky real money auction house? Well, you can obviously blame the boxes the game was shipped in and their printed promises to a working auction house.

As I spotted it computer gamessome former Blizzard and Blizzard North employees held a panel this past weekend at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. through that paintingthe group of former Blizz developers talked about the history of Diablo and their gaming relationships, and their shared stories about making the franchise popular. During the painting, the former chief designer in Diablo 3Jay Wilson, for the controversial auction house, explaining its origins and more.

Wilson said, “When I was at Blizzard, the reason for doing the real money auction was security. It wasn’t the money. We didn’t think we’d make that much money from it. The biggest problem with Diablo 2 It was a scam and a scam for hackers and all the gold sellers and all that stuff.”

So, as Wilson explained, Blizzard’s solution to avoid this problem with Diablo 3 It was to dominate the trading market. This was also apparently the reason behind the game’s move to require a permanent internet connection over the Internet. The moment you introduce a client offline, the hackers “understand” you, says Wilson. So always online and auction house Blizzard’s bad attempts to control problems from Diablo 2.

But very quickly after its release in 2012, Diablo 3The auction house has become “one of the game’s biggest flaws, endlessly derided and criticized by the community”. However, removing it was not easy, and not because of a technical headache. While that, Delayed removal in 2014. Because the auction house had a promised feature of the game printed on all retail boxes, there were some legal concerns about it being cut.

“The reason we didn’t get rid of it right away when we saw it was a problem is because we didn’t think we could legally because it was advertised on the boxes,” Wilson said. “So it took us a long time to try and solve all the legal issues before we finally said ‘OK, we think it’s worth a try, if we get a lawsuit, OK. “

Funnily enough, when all was said and done, Wilson says the auction house didn’t even make Blizzard all that much money, pointing out that if it made more than 10 or 15 million dollars he’d be “surprised.” And while that might sound like a lot, the former Diablo 3 Designer view it world of cans That kind of money every few hours or so. Another developer on the panel joked, as usual, “You always only blame the lawyers.” So yeah, people hated it and it didn’t make much money. A complete waste of time for everyone involved!