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Diablo III auction house fee schedule detailed

Diablo III auction house fee schedule detailed

Diablo 3 Auction House

Blizzard is always looking at the Benjamins, and Diablo III could be their next cash cow.  They are instituting a new set of rules for how transactions take place in the auction houses in Diablo III.  On any type of transaction there will be a fixed fee, removed from the profits generated on a successful sale or simply a percentage—this applies to in game currency and real world money.

Weapons, armor, accessories, and other unique items fall under these rules:

  • Transaction Fee (Gold Auction House): 15% of final sale price
  • Transaction Fee (Real-Money Auction House): $1.00 USD per item / $1.00 AUD per item
  • Transfer Fee (when sending proceeds to PayPal or other authorized payment-service provider): 15% of amount being transferred

Gems, materials, dyes, pages, recipes, and other non-unique items fall under these rules:

  • Transaction Fee (Gold Auction House): 15% of final sale price
  • Transaction Fee (Real-Money Auction House): 15% of final sale price
  • Transfer Fee (when sending proceeds to PayPal or other authorized payment-service provider): 15% of amount being transferred

No matter how this cake is cut, there will be less for the users and more for Blizzard.  This could simply turn into a way to try and control flow of money in the auction house, but the laughable part of this model is how Blizzard has set it up to take 15% twice from a player on a single complete transaction.

Comments

  1. Canti
    Canti Buy a game and give them more money by playing it. It's finally happened.
  2. RootWyrm
    RootWyrm Don't forget there's also an absolute hard cap of $250 that you're allowed to have in your Blizzard account, period. You cannot have more than $250. You cannot list an item for more than $250. What happens if you're at $235 and something sells for $30? Hey look.. Blizzard just skimmed $15.

    But let's do the math: max of $250 and you HAVE to empty the account either by spending it or transferring it. So, let's take an example item - a pile of cloth that goes for $100. "$" denotes Blizzard Bucks (the cash they're 'holding' for you.)

    Item Sells for: $100
    Blizzard Transaction Fee: $15
    You Get: "$"85
    You Transfer Funds to PayPal (the ONLY authorized provider)!
    You Have: "$"85
    Blizzard Takes: $12.75
    PayPal Receives: $72.25
    PayPal Takes 3%: $2.17
    You Actually Get: $70.08 for a $100 sale.

    Blizzard can net a total of $27.75 - nearly half the purchase price of the game - for a single transaction. And that's almost pure profit. Want to transfer out $250 because you hit cap? That one transaction nets Blizzard $37.50 and you'll only see ~$210 of it.

    Not innovative, not inventive; just blatant, outright profiteering.
  3. MAGIC
    MAGIC
    Don't forget there's also an absolute hard cap of $250 that you're allowed to have in your Blizzard account, period. You cannot have more than $250. You cannot list an item for more than $250. What happens if you're at $235 and something sells for $30? Hey look.. Blizzard just skimmed $15.

    But let's do the math: max of $250 and you HAVE to empty the account either by spending it or transferring it. So, let's take an example item - a pile of cloth that goes for $100. "$" denotes Blizzard Bucks (the cash they're 'holding' for you.)

    Item Sells for: $100
    Blizzard Transaction Fee: $15
    You Get: "$"85
    You Transfer Funds to PayPal (the ONLY authorized provider)!
    You Have: "$"85
    Blizzard Takes: $12.75
    PayPal Receives: $72.25
    PayPal Takes 3%: $2.17
    You Actually Get: $70.08 for a $100 sale.

    Blizzard can net a total of $27.75 - nearly half the purchase price of the game - for a single transaction. And that's almost pure profit. Want to transfer out $250 because you hit cap? That one transaction nets Blizzard $37.50 and you'll only see ~$210 of it.

    Not innovative, not inventive; just blatant, outright profiteering.
    This aint UNICEF...
  4. BobbyDigi
    BobbyDigi Is there trading in the game? Can you give someone something as apposed to selling it to them?

    If there is a free in game way to transfer items, the community will find a way to bypass the auctions all together.

    -Digi
  5. Canti
    Canti
    stuff
    What you are calling "nearly half" of the purchase price is just barely over one fourth. Yes, it's a bit excessive don't exaggerate.

  6. shwaip
    shwaip
    Is there trading in the game? Can you give someone something as apposed to selling it to them?

    If there is a free in game way to transfer items, the community will find a way to bypass the auctions all together.

    -Digi
    there's an auction house and a real-money auction house (as well as straight trading).

    If someone doesn't want to buy things using $, they don't have to.
  7. shwaip
    shwaip
    stuff
    What you are calling "nearly half" of the purchase price is just barely over one fourth. Yes, it's a bit excessive don't exaggerate.

    well 1/4 is nearly 1/2. And by that logic, 1/2 is nearly 1, so they're basically taking all your money.
  8. MAGIC
    MAGIC You can make actual money for playing a VID-E-O-GAME. Who cares what percentage is taken? $70.08 > $0.00, stop whining.
  9. RootWyrm
    RootWyrm
    What you are calling "nearly half" of the purchase price is just barely over one fourth. Yes, it's a bit excessive don't exaggerate.
    Er, did you not do the math here? I said "half the purchase price of the game."
    Diablo III Retail Box Standard: $59.99
    27.50 / 59.99 = 45.84R% of game purchase price. Or, nearly half, as I said. Lrn2math.
    Unless you bought CE (sold out, but was $99.99.)

    If there is a free in game way to transfer items, the community will find a way to bypass the auctions all together.
    Yes and no. You can use the game currency AH (which Blizzard takes a 15% cut of your game currency on for all sales) and you can buy gold at "current market price ... as established by the player community" from the RMAH. However, same as the existing ToS, bypassing the RMAH can get your account banned - exchanging real world money for in game items via third party sites is expressly prohibited, same as everyone and everywhere else.
  10. shwaip
    shwaip Also unique items (which will be what goes for the higher prices) have a fixed $1 blizzard transaction fee.

    so it's really (100 - 1) * .85 * .97 = ~$81 you get from selling your phat, phat lewts.

    edited out comment about 1/2 of price.

    edit: also are we sure that PP is going to take a 3% cut?
  11. Thrax
    Thrax Profiteering my hairy balls.

    You couldn't legally make any money off of your shit before. Now you can. It's ∞% more money.

    image
  12. Canti
    Canti
    Lrn2math.
    Lrn2english is the real issue as I didn't notice the "of the game" part of your comment. I can't into English and I'll admit that but don't try me in math bro.

  13. BobbyDigi
    BobbyDigi
    exchanging real world money for in game items via third party sites is expressly prohibited, same as everyone and everywhere else.
    You had me until that last point... unless you don't consider Valve as part of your 'everyone' and TF2 not part of your 'everywhere'

    IRL Money (through Paypal and other services) for in game items happen every day in the Mannconomy (TF2's in game economy). Valve will not support such transactions but when asked specifically about it, their stance is they don't officially stand against it.

    It boils down to 1 specific questions: Can I send you an item with no charge in game or IRL?

    If the answer is no, my point is moot. If the answer is yes, then this whole auction thing is going to tank.

    -Digi
  14. Thrax
    Thrax Yes, you can continue to freely trade items in Diablo. However, that is not the entirety of the Diablo economy.

    Diablo has long been fueled by a black market economy wherein players sell hundreds or thousands of ultra-rare items for real cash every month. Or they sell them for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of in-game gold. This simply legitimizes a practice that Blizzard can't kill, and gives them a cut off the top.

    This the legalized weed of the diabloverse.
  15. RootWyrm
    RootWyrm
    Yes, you can continue to freely trade items in Diablo. However, that is not the entirety of the Diablo economy.

    Diablo has long been fueled by a black market economy wherein players sell hundreds or thousands of ultra-rare items for real cash every month. Or they sell them for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of in-game gold. This simply legitimizes a practice that Blizzard can't kill, and gives them a cut off the top.

    This the legalized weed of the diabloverse.
    ^^^ Yup, this.
    There are literally hundreds of sites selling D2 and even D1 items to this day. I've seen swords going well over $500, which still do. Early on, people were selling their D3 beta keys for hundreds of dollars. To a lot of people, Diablo is teh SRSBZNS. Much like UO, people have actually relied on the black market RMT to make a fairly successful living. This isn't tapping a tiny little revenue stream or adding value; it's entirely possible that just the profits from the RMT fees will eclipse the revenue from WoW subscriptions. (Just 100K users cashing out $250 generates $3.75M. That's equivalent to about 250,000 WoW subscriptions.)

    That's also what makes the $250 hard cap particularly ugly. Yeah, RMT is bad (and arguably stupid in most cases.) But flipping to encouraging it aggressively and setting it up this way ensures that anyone who seriously engages in the RMAH - and there will be a LOT of them - will generate massive profits for Activision-Blizzard very quickly. Combining storage limits and cash limits forces these people to "cash out" to PayPal (I anticipated the 3% service fee, but not set in stone yet, BTW.) If they only do it weekly, that's $150 per RMAH player per month with the player only receiving $211.65 for an item and $180.63 for a commodity for a total monthly profit of (say 3 items and 1 commodity cashout) $815.58. If they should luck into an extremely rare item which is likely to sell high, add another forced cashout in there (at lower profit obviously) because of the $250 hard cap. The item also is forced to be sold below it's true valuation - which will likely lead to blended transactions and fraudulent sales. (Arrange the sale for $500; $250 via RMAH, $250 black market method. Item gets listed after seller gets first $250, purchaser immediately buys on RMAH for $250. For fraudulent, change that $250 to $2.50 with $496.50 being sent via Paypal. Or similar.)

    Plainly put; this is not geared toward players, nor is it particularly kind or generous to players or farmers. Casual players who elect to use the RMAH will see significantly lower profits (see the linked table) while serious farmers will basically turn into giant cash cows or be forced to keep using the same black market.
  16. pigflipper
    pigflipper

    This the legalized weed of the diabloverse.
    I think this might be the most accurate and profound statement of this thread, or any thread on this subject.
  17. shwaip
    shwaip

    Plainly put; this is not geared toward players, nor is it particularly kind or generous to players or farmers. Casual players who elect to use the RMAH will see significantly lower profits (see the linked table) while serious farmers will basically turn into giant cash cows or be forced to keep using the same black market.
    Casual players rarely, if ever sold their gear for money in D2. The people who sold gear were always botters/dupers/hackers/etc. This is giving casual players the chance to get some money for their gear, rather than just more D3 currency.
  18. MiracleManS
    MiracleManS

    Casual players rarely, if ever sold their gear for money in D2. The people who sold gear were always botters/dupers/hackers/etc. This is giving casual players the chance to get some money for their gear, rather than just more D3 currency.
    Not only that, but it's giving them the ability in a safe and secure setting. The various black market D2 places make bootlegging look safe in comparison.
  19. doozer
    doozer Lets think logically about this for half a second.

    Lets assume that 10%(That's a pretty liberal estimate in my opinion) of the games total population are hardcore farmers and plan on trying to make a legitimate amount of cash each month/week/day. Whatever.

    They are the only ones hurt by Blizzard setting any type of profit ceiling before you have to withdraw your balance. All this ruckus is because of their previous rampant growth due to lack of any system in the previous Diablo installments.

    90% of the games population is now able to realize REAL monetary profits by [i]playing a video game[/i].

    End of story.
  20. doozer
    doozer And to expand on what Thrax said...

    they've made us all dealers and the big dogs get taxed MORE. WHAT A FUCKING CONCEPT.
  21. Cliff_Forster
    Cliff_Forster We could all skip Diablo III and just play another game. Just sayin.
  22. MAGIC
    MAGIC
    Yes, you can continue to freely trade items in Diablo. However, that is not the entirety of the Diablo economy.

    Diablo has long been fueled by a black market economy wherein players sell hundreds or thousands of ultra-rare items for real cash every month. Or they sell them for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of in-game gold. This simply legitimizes a practice that Blizzard can't kill, and gives them a cut off the top.

    This the legalized weed of the diabloverse.
    ^^^ Yup, this.
    There are literally hundreds of sites selling D2 and even D1 items to this day. I've seen swords going well over $500, which still do. Early on, people were selling their D3 beta keys for hundreds of dollars. To a lot of people, Diablo is teh SRSBZNS. Much like UO, people have actually relied on the black market RMT to make a fairly successful living. This isn't tapping a tiny little revenue stream or adding value; it's entirely possible that just the profits from the RMT fees will eclipse the revenue from WoW subscriptions. (Just 100K users cashing out $250 generates $3.75M. That's equivalent to about 250,000 WoW subscriptions.)

    That's also what makes the $250 hard cap particularly ugly. Yeah, RMT is bad (and arguably stupid in most cases.) But flipping to encouraging it aggressively and setting it up this way ensures that anyone who seriously engages in the RMAH - and there will be a LOT of them - will generate massive profits for Activision-Blizzard very quickly. Combining storage limits and cash limits forces these people to "cash out" to PayPal (I anticipated the 3% service fee, but not set in stone yet, BTW.) If they only do it weekly, that's $150 per RMAH player per month with the player only receiving $211.65 for an item and $180.63 for a commodity for a total monthly profit of (say 3 items and 1 commodity cashout) $815.58. If they should luck into an extremely rare item which is likely to sell high, add another forced cashout in there (at lower profit obviously) because of the $250 hard cap. The item also is forced to be sold below it's true valuation - which will likely lead to blended transactions and fraudulent sales. (Arrange the sale for $500; $250 via RMAH, $250 black market method. Item gets listed after seller gets first $250, purchaser immediately buys on RMAH for $250. For fraudulent, change that $250 to $2.50 with $496.50 being sent via Paypal. Or similar.)

    Plainly put; this is not geared toward players, nor is it particularly kind or generous to players or farmers. Casual players who elect to use the RMAH will see significantly lower profits (see the linked table) while serious farmers will basically turn into giant cash cows or be forced to keep using the same black market.

    You're still missing the point. Bliz is offering a safe legal environment to sell digital items. I think folks like you nerdraging over this are more concerned with your ability profit than Bliz is.

    Caps and fees are in place for a very specific reason... to deter the game from becoming about farming for shit to put on the AH.
  23. Snarkasm
    Snarkasm
    We could all skip Diablo III and just play another game. Just sayin.
    Your rational discourse has no place here, sir.
  24. midga
    midga As long as this never makes it into WoW, I don't care. I don't even play anymore, but I'd still be disappointed.
  25. MiracleManS
    MiracleManS
    As long as this never makes it into WoW, I don't care. I don't even play anymore, but I'd still be disappointed.
    If it's successful in curtailing the black market money trade, I don't see how they wouldn't consider it in attempts to curtail gold selling. They've essentially started giving ways to buy gold with the resellable BOE mounts.

  26. midga
    midga I just don't like the idea of people putting things up for $ only. With gold, I could at least have the hope of eventually racking up enough to buy that really rare and expensive useless pet without having to dig into my irl pockets.
  27. MiracleManS
    MiracleManS
    I just don't like the idea of people putting things up for $ only. With gold, I could at least have the hope of eventually racking up enough to buy that really rare and expensive useless pet without having to dig into my irl pockets.
    I'm sure there will be a balance. They'd still cap things if they put it in WoW, just like they are here.
  28. midga
    midga I realize, and it probably wouldn't be that bad either. I just like having at least the illusion that everyone worked hard for the neat crap they've got.
  29. shwaip
    shwaip
    I just don't like the idea of people putting things up for $ only. With gold, I could at least have the hope of eventually racking up enough to buy that really rare and expensive useless pet without having to dig into my irl pockets.
    Because $ transactions are capped (at $250), you may find that the uber items actually go for gold (because that won't be capped, i think). You'll sell your xyz of fuck yeah for $700 worth of gold, whereas you could only get $250 from the RMAH.

    Or you'll just have to sell gold to accumulate $250 of blizzbucks to buy the abc of holy shit from some dude.
  30. kharza with the earnings of of the auction house in USD won't you have to report this as income to the IRS as well?
  31. PirateNinja
    PirateNinja It's an interesting thought about the taxes. Wherever the real money is being held, Blizzard would be in control of it I imagine unless this is somehow done directly through something like PayPal from player to player. But then how would Blizzard take their cut?

    Assuming Blizzard has some sort of control on this money, you would need to cash out of the auction house to get your money. At that point Blizzard may ask for your social in case you make over $600 in a year and they need to pay you out as a 1099. Who knows though, it will be fun to see how it works out.

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