De båda auktionshusen har alltid varit ett hett diskussionsämne bland de mest inbitna Diablo-fansen. Men vad tycker egentligen Blizzard om saken? Finns det ett behov av ett auktionshus eller har det fått utstå oförtjänt mycket kritik från spelarna? Blizzards vice VD, Rob Pardo, ger oss sin syn på saken.

Q: Now that we’re a few months away from the release of Diablo 3, can you tell us how the real money auction house worked out for Blizzard? Are you happy with the feature and how it was received by players? Would you consider adding the same feature to new games, or even existing games?

A: I would say that internally the way we look at the feature right now is mixed. I think it was really a big experiment and it is something that I think has done really well in some ways and in some ways has really changed the game a lot. I think it gets to be a very complex answer, because there is the component that is the real money auction house and there is the part that is the auction house.

When you see a lot of complaints on the forums, they are talking about how it has gotten so easy to skip to the best items in the game and how it devalues your progression or advancement. A lot of that would happen with any sort of auction house, even if you are paying gold you have that same sort of feeling. You have to separate that from the real money component of it, which also has its own unique issues.

Anyone that plays the game now looks at items with a dollar sign attached. With all of the different games out there that have microtransactions that is more acceptable, but in some peoples’ minds it has damaged the purity of the game. One of the main reasons why we did it is that we knew there was going to be a lot of third party auction sites out there. We felt like it is already going to exist so we would rather give players a more safe and secure way of doing that. I think in that way it has been successful. We are really talking a lot internally though about the right way to evolve or iterate on the auction house.

Tycker du att de båda auktionshusen har påverkat spelupplevelsen i Diablo 3, eller anser du att det är upp till var och en att avgöra om man vill använda dem?