Bitcoin Forum

So Diablo 3 is implementing a real-money auction house. Someone discuss with blizzard to replace with BTC ;p

Give me a well-written proposal and I'll pass it on. In this proposal, I'd like to see sites like bit-pay and btcinch mentioned, as they are great examples of BTC to USD processing. I'd also like the ability for gamers to spend their processing power to make Bitcoins mentioned as a main reason why they should support BTC.

Do you know someone at Blizzard? Higher up or eng? I feel this will be a C-Level/board type decision, an agreement reached by both Activision and Blizzard. :P

Id like to see how they manage the bots/farmers in this game considering theyre basically making it legit to sell in game items (and they get a cut).
Will they not care since they're getting a taste of the $$ or will they get some warden2.0 going.
Bot protection in D2 is a joke..and even WoW has its fair share of Bots.
Would like to see a zero tolerance stance on this since there are microX...but I doubt that will happen  :-\

I'd imagine there will be an extreme zero-tolerance policy against third party addons.

But, from what it seems, the real money auction house in Diablo 3 (http://d3kb.com/battlenet/introducing-the-auction-house/) is pretty cool in my opinion. Great way for Activision Blizzard to capitalize on item stores, which would have existed in D3, with or without them.

Yes. I have PR contacts as well as some Battle.net engineers. I realize that I won't be able to reach the people who would make this decision directly, but I suspect that I have the best contacts out of everyone here. There's only one person outside of Blizzard that I know has more contacts than me, and I'm personal friends with them.

This would be amazing for the development of bitcoin.  What better marketplace for a virtual currency than a virtual marketplace?  Having players be able to earn a currency that could be eventually used for the purchase of real goods or services could possibly create huge interest in the game.  In my opinion this would be absolute genius if Blizzard were to adopt bitcoin.

I did put a small paper together for Riot games, who uses an in game virtual currency for micro purchases (League of Legends).  Of course I don't know anyone working there and just sent it to some black hole email address on the very minute possibility that someone should come across it.

Would it be possible to form a bitcoin "lobby" that would help inform game developers about the benefits of adopting bitcoin? This may help spread the labor out as putting together proposals can be time consuming. Outlining the the potential profits, the added interest, media buzz etc etc. I've thought for a while that an organized bitcoin advocacy group that could work with business and corporations could be a great addition to the bitcoin community.

I would be happy to contribute as editor for this proposal (professional copy writer). If someone sends me scraps and/or disorganized ramblings or bullet points, I'll turn it into something compelling. I think it's a great idea - and in fact may present interesting advantages for Blizzard, as they would be setting up a digital bargaining system instead of a monetary exchange. There are important legal/regulatory burdens which may be avoided by going the Bitcoin route.

Be patient it will come  ;)
Not right away though.

If the Blizzard fee is too high, people will just go 3rd party. Players most likely will go 3rd party just to use BTC to buy goods.

It would be interesting also to see if Valve would accept bitcoin on their Steam platform. That would be quite a feat.

It would indeed have to be quite the sale, but it would also be amazing for value - at least short term.

Why not just have a bitcoin-only Diablo III server that people could play on instead of battle.net?  Someone get to work on it and give me a 2% cut.   ;D

I've actually opened a support case asking them to consider BTC for their AH alongside other currencies. I really think that if a lot of people do it this may happen and it would be a great way to improve usability of BTC and bring it before a larger audience.

Interesting to note that the RMAH just went live in the Americas.

Bummer, I'm stuck out of town for 5 days...  I'm curious how much things will go for :)

Everything is $250.

Come back next week when everything is $2.50.

I imagine the temporary effect on difficulty of all those gamers firing up their cards to earn bitcoins to spend in game would be significant -untill they got the first electricity bill anyway  :D

Things were already selling for cash before RMAH. It's just official now. Gold looks to be around $2.50 / 100K. Secondary Market is $1 / 100K

I wonder if they even could legally, with regional pricing and all.

Blizzard aren't going to implement Bitcoin in Diablo 3. I don't understand why you guys think they will.

Sure, it'd be a cool idea, for us Bitcoin users, but the majority of the general public will just use conventional methods.

Sure, it'd be great for adoption, but Blizzard aren't going to use a currency with hardly any users in comparison to conventional means, especially one that many small-scale businesses aren't using.

Start small, then the big companies will follow. Bitcoin is still an infant.

Blizzard is a huge company. They care about easy profits, not adopting a digital currency with a tiny market cap..

Come on, you guys seriously think they'd consider it? Not to mention that it'd cost them thousands of dollars to implement and test a Bitcoin auction house, which would mean they'd probably lose money in the long run as I don't think they'd recoup that money any time soon. (consider the amount of Diablo 3 players that use the real money auction house and have a Bitcoin wallet - not a huge market)

Do you think they'd consider using a payment processor like AlertPay/SolidTrustPay/LibertyReserve in Diablo 3? Nope, I don't. These are all quite shady payment processors in the view of a large company and they will simply group Bitcoin up with them.

There already is a huge trading platform for diablo stuff using bitcoin.
IMHO it would be a smart and profitable move from Blizzard to adopt new 'revolutionary' payment methods.
Will they consider it? That depends on who decides really, clueless employees will trash it yea... true dat.
And that's probably where our tickets/suggestions end up, with the clueless employees.
So will Blizzard consider it? I think they would if it gets to the right people.
Does it get to the right people? I don't think so.

I think that this is the right time to open a bitcoin shop to sell wow-subscription-cards.

What huge trading platform is this? Got a link?

Also, define "huge"? Because Bitcoin's userbase in itself isn't "huge" to start with. Like I said, it's still an infant really.

I don't think it'd be profitable for them for that reason. There simply aren't enough Bitcoin users for a major company like Blizz to spend lots of time and money implementing support for it. Same goes for any other 'revoluntionary' payment methods. Major companies aren't interested, unless a lot of people use it, like PayPal for example.

Small companies would be in a different position and more lenient to adopting Bitcoin (they might see it as a way to make their business stand out, whereas Blizzard doesn't need to do that).

I doubt you will get through to them, but all power to you!  I think a Diablo III money to BTC conversion site is going to be a more realistic goal.

I'm not sure, but it seems that blizzard cut 30% to move out money from their system, so I see that there is an huge space for business ;D

I'll say this again: I can make this happen. However, it'll be much harder now that the auction house is implemented. Now, we'll need to make a business case for accepting Bitcoin as a deposit method (having it be it's own currency is far too much to ask for) based on existing external demand on sites like ogrr. Sadly, I think it's too late for that now. We've proven that the business case is not there.

PayPal might be against this. Also for 20%, you don't have to deal with PayPal chargebacks which is pretty nice..... steep cost, but nice.

ogrr.com

Interesting site. Quite a decent userbase, but still, 3000 users is not huge.
Not worth all the cost of implementing Bitcoin into the AH to accomodate those people for Blizzard.

Also phishing scams tricking buyers to send BTC to the wrong address.

As Maged said, it's probably too much to ask for direct implementation into the AH, but i assume (haven't used it yet) you have to charge your account on their website using one of the current payment processors, they could add bitcoin to that and add 'euros/dollars' to your account at the current exchange rate. Thats not even hard or expensive to implement.

The only reasons i can think of that make an argument for blizzard i think is that they have less overhead costs from the payment processor (none?).
Also enables people who want to remain anonymous to use real money AH. (extra users)


btw; i thought ogrr was bigger, my mistake :) but still impressive site imho.

It would definitely be far easier to implement it as you say rather than directly into the AH, but I think you still under-estimate the amount of research, implementation and testing they'd need to do (all of which costs money). For a small website owner it's fairly trivial to implement Bit-pay or something, but Blizzard needs to test everything to make sure it's perfect and no-one is losing money and hurting their reputation, if you see what I mean.

Also yeah ogrr looks quite cool so I'll probably check it out later :)

There is a more recent discussion about this HERE (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82732.20)

Just for reference.

@norulezapply Your naysaying is really very productive. I don't just mean here, I'm sure it's working wonders in all fields of your life.


Here's something: they put in an update which crashed Wine for Wine players. Nobody on their team said a word about it but the fix came two days later. They have many competent folks there, and I don't think it would fall on deaf ears. It all depends on how many queries they get.

@Maged Make it happen, how?

@Fuzzy More recent than the 14th of June?

I can send a proposal regarding Bitcoin directly to the upper-management at Blizzard, without going through the low-level employees. The proposal would have to be pretty convincing, though, because I'd have to put my reputation with them on the line by sending it.

OK, here it goes.  sorry I never found this website back in August 2011...

Blizzard Management,

You've aligned your RMAH with paypal.  Paypal has had years of controversy in the online gaming community.  Many users experience fraud, chargebacks, scams and frozen accounts when dancing around the broad terms & conditions that centralized payment processors adhere to.

Bitcoin brings the security of cash to online transactions.  Deposits to your system would be completely irreversible; and withdrawals/transfers of funds would come with nearly zero transaction fees (less than a penny or even no fee).

Bitcoin is made for small transactions which is likely what the average user will be depositing or withdrawing.  Traditional payment processors (VISA/Paypal, etc.) typically have a minimum flat fee plus a percentage transaction that cut into your profit margin.

While bitcoin will not replace traditional methods, it is a great idea to include this revolutionary technology into your state of the art game design.

I can get you in contact with industry experts who can help Blizzard capitalize the opportunities that Bitcoin can bring to your business. 

Sincerely yours,
XYZ

I hope this is helpful.  I haven't completely looked at the RMAH to determine whether it is so strongly tied to Paypal.  Please someone enhance from my starting point if it needs refinement.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like me to discuss this with Blizzard Management.  I'd love the opportunity and work in the professional services industry.  Hopefully, I'd be able to have an intelligent conversation with management.

I'm currently at the Fellowship Admissions Course (for the Society of Actuaries) receiving my final credentials as an actuary, woot!

As I mentioned before, now that the game and the RMAH is out, it's too late to just send a simple email. They will need to see actual numbers that show that there is a significant interest in purchasing D3 items/gold with Bitcoins. We really missed our chance, here.

ok,  do you have any figures on the number of players of Diablo III?

I haven't seen more than 25-30k people online at any given point of time, but I could believe there are 100-200k "users."

There is ogrr.com (as website based on bitcoins) that has a small community of people playing Diablo III trading for items with bitcoins.

There is the marketplace section of this website where items are being listed & sold for bitcoins daily.

How many people is enough?  What type of magical information are you looking for to "wow" them?

heh, that's funny to think we're trying to WOW the people who made WoW...

Once there are thousands of people getting chargebacks because of paypal things might be different :)

3.5 million sales on the first day alone.

I believe that 500 trades/day that use bitcoin might be enough to bring this forward to them.

It's not naysaying, it's called being realistic, which is working wonderfully in all fields of my life so far, thank you.

If you guys write the proposal and it gets accepted by Blizzard then that's great and I take back my thoughts and previous opinions. I'd love for something like that to happen. But, just being realistic, it probably won't, yet.

Maged: so let's try drafting a proposal here, at the very least it'd be useful as an exercise I think.

<salutation>
I'd like to recommend adding Bitcoin to the Auction House.

Bitcoin is without a doubt in my mind the future of all currency. The unit of account is not issued by any central authority, but moreover exists as the solution to a complicated hashing problem, which makes it immune to any outside intervention of any kind. Because of its unique cryptographic properties, Bitcoin is the hardest currency there is, being of absolute hardness: all transactions are final and irreversible. That's right, Bitcoin has a 0% chargeback rate, and always has, for all merchants.

There exists a significant and active market; daily exchange volume is in the 1 to 10 million range on USD alone, and there's probably about 100,000 people owning at least some coins. More importantly, these owners are typically better educated and more affluent than average IT techs and finance people, and they love it with a passion. There's no doubt in my mind that some people will buy a subscription simply to support Blizzard for dealing in BTC. In any event the likely goodwill benefits from this measure probably surpass any advertising or PR campaign available.
</salutation>

At this point I think they are looking for a large market, as well as implementation details. For instance, how are things currently handled on the auction house, is it by email or account number? Or by player name? I doubt they will want to switch over to a bunch of unintelligible addresses, because that would confuse the users. Come up with a detailed plan on how to properly implement it, and try sticking as close as possible to what they have created so they don't have to change much. Player experience is going to be of prime importance to them, regardless of how cool this bitcoin thing is.

Bitpay or one of the other merchant sites is no different than paypal imo

Easy. Cost benefit analysis, how much is saved over using bitcoin versus the percentages paid to Paypal and credit processors. Even better, tell them they can KEEP THE PERCENTAGE themselves since users are already used to their tier structure.

Have to wonder how much profit is eaten up by 'transaction' costs. It adds up, I'm sure.

hm. the best way would probably be to get in touch with someone at Blizzard that actually has a say when taking decisions.