3 ms·

I'm highly sceptical. Ignoring the auction house for a second, Blizzard makes money once though a large up front sale, and then has no monthly fee. The game is

I'm highly sceptical. Ignoring the auction house for a second, Blizzard makes money once though a large up front sale, and then has no monthly fee. The game is played entirely on online servers with no single player however. That means Blizzard makes the most money from a customer who plays though the game once (or not at all) and then doesn't play again. This philosophy seems to be present throughout the games design which, as far as I can tell, is tailored for minimum re-playability and maximising the fun you get on your first play through. Even the auction house itself helps this design goal when matched against their other design decisions. This kind of design isn't conducive to long term success with the auction house. I believe that the auction house is primarily designed to kill 3rd party item sales, which it absolutely does, albeit in a way I find personally distasteful. While I'm sure it will be a non-trivial revenue stream, I don't think it will be anything like what WoW subscriptions were. Disclosure: I work for a company making a competing action RPG.

div 15y ago
I am very interested in how this will all play out. Personally, I think the auction house real money economy is going to be huge. If the trading that went on in Diablo 2 is any indicator: - people in low wage countries will easily be able to live of the auction house without necessarily having to work for a gold farm. - hardcore gamers are likely to be dissatisfied with high level content so easily available, but then again, they may take to turning a profit on hard to get stuff. - casual gamers with jobs will get the maximum amount of fun out of their hour of gaming a day. For a small price at least. These are incentives for 3 different demographics, 2 of which are highly desirable for Blizzard.
vibrunazo 15y ago
The key difference between the subscription and the freemium model is the scalability with flexibility. A subscription is a fixed value the costumer pays for. If you set it to low, you're missing the opportunity to make more money from users willing to pay more. If you set it to high, you run the risk of users who would still be profitable not buy it at all. Then you could try different tiers of subscriptions. But that only bandages the problems. Then came consumable virtual items, which automatically gives you infinite tiers of pay users. You can play the game for $15 a month, you can play it for free, or you can pay $3000 a month if you're willing to. And according to Zynga's report, many does, and that's where they get most of their money from. That flexible scalability is why freemium is replacing subscriptions. And that's why I think the auction house will take over subscription. Because not only it's a freemium model, but it's a genius freemium model. It takes the best of the two main types of freemium (consumable and permanent virtual items) and put them together. It doesn't put a limit on how much a user can pay you. And it's also very attractive to users.
- Negitivefrags 15y ago
  I'm not saying that auction houses can't work in general, I'm saying that it will not work in Diablo 3 due to it's design. I'm well aware of the benefits of free-to-play, as I am a founder of a company making a free-to-play game!

div 15y ago

I am very interested in how this will all play out. Personally, I think the auction house real money economy is going to be huge. If the trading that went on in Diablo 2 is any indicator: - people in low wage countries will easily be able to live of the auction house without necessarily having to work for a gold farm. - hardcore gamers are likely to be dissatisfied with high level content so easily available, but then again, they may take to turning a profit on hard to get stuff. - casual gamers with jobs will get the maximum amount of fun out of their hour of gaming a day. For a small price at least. These are incentives for 3 different demographics, 2 of which are highly desirable for Blizzard.

vibrunazo 15y ago

The key difference between the subscription and the freemium model is the scalability with flexibility. A subscription is a fixed value the costumer pays for. If you set it to low, you're missing the opportunity to make more money from users willing to pay more. If you set it to high, you run the risk of users who would still be profitable not buy it at all. Then you could try different tiers of subscriptions. But that only bandages the problems. Then came consumable virtual items, which automatically gives you infinite tiers of pay users. You can play the game for $15 a month, you can play it for free, or you can pay $3000 a month if you're willing to. And according to Zynga's report, many does, and that's where they get most of their money from. That flexible scalability is why freemium is replacing subscriptions. And that's why I think the auction house will take over subscription. Because not only it's a freemium model, but it's a genius freemium model. It takes the best of the two main types of freemium (consumable and permanent virtual items) and put them together. It doesn't put a limit on how much a user can pay you. And it's also very attractive to users.

Negitivefrags 15y ago
I'm not saying that auction houses can't work in general, I'm saying that it will not work in Diablo 3 due to it's design. I'm well aware of the benefits of free-to-play, as I am a founder of a company making a free-to-play game!