Diablo 3 Most Hated Feature Stuck Around Due To Its Box

(CTN News) – The launch of Diablo 3 in 2012 was a disaster due to its always-on requirements, broken servers, and real-money auction house no one wanted or liked.

We now know that Blizzard eventually got things back on track with Diablo 3 and made an awesome ARPG. Why did it take nearly two years for Blizzard to remove that real-money auction house?

I guess you can blame the boxes the game came in and their printed promises of a working auction house.

During last weekend’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo, former Blizzard and Blizzard North employees held a panel. They talked about Diablo’s history, their own connections to the games, and how they created the popular series.

Jay Wilson, former lead designer on Diablo 3, explained the auction house’s origins during the panel.

“When I was at Blizzard, the real-money auction house was for security,” Wilson said. There was no money involved. We didn’t think we’d make that much money.

Item duping, hacking, gold sellers, and all those things were the biggest problems with Diablo 2.

According to Wilson, Blizzard’s solution to avoid this problem with Diablo 3 was to control the trading market. This was also why the game requires an always-on connection.

So Blizzard’s inept attempts to control Diablo 2 problems were always online and the auction house.

The auction house in Diablo 3 was criticized and mocked for a long time after its release in 2012, becoming one of its biggest flaws. Still, removing it wasn’t easy.

There were legal concerns about cutting the auction house, which was printed on all of the game’s retail boxes. It was removed in 2014.

When we saw it was a problem, we didn’t get rid of it right away because it was advertised on the boxes. Then we finally said, ‘OK, we think it’s worth trying. If we get sued, no problem.”

When all was said and done, Wilson says Blizzard didn’t even make much money from the auction house. He point that if it made more than ten or fifteen million dollars, he’d be surprised.

Even though it sounds like a lot, the former Diablo designer believes World of Warcraft makes that kind of money every few hours.

As usual, one of the developers joked, “just blame the lawyers.” So yeah, people hated it and it didn’t make much money. It was a waste of time for everyone!

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