Diablo 3's Auction House is closing in March
"It ultimately undermines Diablo's core gameplay."
Diablo 3's much derided Auction House - a system that enables players to purchase loot with either real world currency or in-game gold - will cease to exist after 18th March 2014.
It appears that Blizzard had a change of heart since we spoke to the developer at Gamescom last month, when it suggested the Action House wasn't going anywhere. "It became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the Auction House system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core gameplay: kill monsters to get cool loot," explained Diablo 3's upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion production director John Hight on the game's official blog. "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 3."
One of the reasons Blizzard is phasing the Auction House out is to pave the way for the Reaper of Souls expansion next year, which will introduce "Loot 2.0" in which item drops will be, "less, better, and more epic" according to game director Josh Mosqueira.
It was presumed that Blizzard wasn't the biggest fan of its own system when it decided not to include the Auction House in the recently released PS3 and Xbox 360 version of the game, which Oli quite liked.
