Bitcoin Forum

So Diablo III is up and running...
...and I found my first half decent item I don't have immediate use for. I just checked the gold auction house there are 2 items which come close.
So I was about to make an auction for with a starting price similar to those.

And guess what they charge a fee of 15%. Now that's a convenient way for them to decrease the inflation of ingame gold.
Then I realized it is not that my item is so awesome it is that the auction house isn't really popular amoung the players.
I just checked Ogrr too. Not really convenient there are no interesting offers either there (at least on the Europe realm)
And before I do that I can just trade on diablo.incgamers.net for other items or ingame gold.

Using bitcoins just because isn't really an argument to use it. One thing that the ingame auction house is missing is any information on the popularity of the item, how many people already did bid there and it is impossible to tell if the item was bid at at all or if it is still at starting price.

I'm not saying that this will be the killer app for bitcoin but it is one of those things I would really want to use it on, in a consistent way. Very soon Blizzard will enable some api (guess what it's json, what we already know and love) to interface external applications in the game. We have to wait for that to come out to see what is actually possible but we already can start the planning phase for such a project.

If somebody want to team up and do it lets do some brainstorming in this thread.
As of recent issues with security issues with bitcoin services I would suggest doing this on a dedicated server or at least something where it is unlikely a break-in would occur like google app engine.

*changed topic to better represent the idea*

Bitcoin is useful for transferring in-game gold to cash. The only problem is that Bitcoin isn't implemented into the game, and paypal will be. That means that everyone will use paypal and give up another few percent on their money (After blizzard takes a governmental-sized helping of 15%). If both Bitcoin and paypal were offered then Bitcoin would triumph.

I like your market stats website idea. I wonder what Blizzard has in store with their api?

I think this is one of the greatest ideas for BitCoin ever (besides my one (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81655.0)  ;D), but you should really change the title to say "Diablo III Bitcoin Auction House" or something, so people know to click on it  :P

I think you'll find MANY of the item farmers would jump on the chance to save 15% of their profits, all the while bypassing the Blizzard-->Paypal-->Credit-Card-institution fees and hassles.

Someone's gonna make a killing on this.

Alright, I did just that now.

I don't think the fees in the RMAH are as high as in the gold auction house. But you are right, with all fees added together it will come close.
Mind you though that people often do not realize that they are paying so much to third partys it's all conveniently split amongst sellers+buyers.
If transparency were a major issue for most people the whole world would probably use bitcoin.

I have a few ideas how to do this even if the api turns out to be not much help. But it is more or less confirmed to display statistics on characters and equipment as a json file.

more later

Granted it may take a while to gain traction and take off, but given proper support, ease of use, and fluidity, I believe people will be drawn to it, especially if you have advanced item search features and a strong community. You can also just spend your BTC on items you DO need, or spend them elsewhere on other real life goods.

Converting to fiat will also be much cheaper than the fees bliz tacks on.

EDIT: I bet you 21 million BitCoins the D3 eula has a clause against using 3rd party auction houses  ::)

A couple thoughts:

1) We are discounting the fact that the EULA probably doesn't allow it, so that brings the risk of losing your account.

2) We are discounting the fact that using Diablo 3's RMAH reduces risk of getting scammed.  Is that worth 15%?  Maybe?

3) So I think any system of this nature will naturally shine by having a feedback system (just like ebay) which will track the number of transactions as well as the total value of transactions.

But yet, someone can make some decent money implementing this:

Or you can go use OGRR (see link in signature).

They just need to get the feedback system going.  Their theory is that if you only sell items, then you'll grow a large balance on their website; however, I think you'll need to add # of transactions and total value of transactions buying & selling, b/c you can be on both end of the transaction to build credibility.

At the end of the day, this is just an idea that goes nowhere until someone with the proper skills puts in the time and effort to make it a reality.

If I were a web developer and programmer, I'd do it myself  :P

No you wouldn't. You'd sit there with your mounds of programming and web developing skills and think about the effort and energy needed to work on it versus the absolute lack of guarantee of any reward along with the fallacy of "saving 15%" that would be swallowed up by wire and exchange fees getting money in and out of Bitcoin and you'd say "Fuck that, I'm gonna make a Pirate pass-through site or Bitcoinica2".

Well, I can't prove that I would, but I believe in the idea that its a perfect fit for bitcoin, and I'm really interested in the Real-Money-Auction-House. If anything it would be an exercise and a hobby project.

I would definitely we willing contribute my time and skills to collaborate on it if someone in web programming were to willing, and if we could somehow work around the eula  ???

You speak the truth. Sadly, this is true for most businesses/projects in Bitcoin  :'(

Here are some of my Ideas of how it could be done:

If there is an option to display items stats via the api this could be used to verify a transaction. So it could be possible to sell a specific item without the hassle of typing in it's stats by hand and it is certain that the item is in fact in the possession of the seller and later the buyer.
The site could act as a trusted party receiving both the payment and the fee plus some collateral. There could be some reward system which reduces the fees after each successful transaction.

If that is not possible we could pay highly reputable members to act as trusted party receiving both the item and the payment. That should also be fully EULA proof :)
If all fails we could still use a standard feedback system which isn't entirely fraud proof but hey, it works for everybody else!

I would also suggest not implementing the ebay style timed auctions but a conventional strike system where the seller can decide when to close the auction or let the system do it automatically according to criteria. This could be time, number of bids, amount, the slope of bid increments or even some combination.


We are mostly involved in niche markets which are inherently tied to hobbyist projects. That isn't necessarily bad.


Well the only languages I am somewhat fluid in is C, Pascal and Basic, from school and some toying around with applied math.
I would be willing to learn myself a more suited language if that counts, I find go very interesting but haven't gotten around to get a working dev environment with it.

Bitcoin in itself is an experiment, which only started 3.5 years ago, so the fact that most of the sites and businesses around it aren't full fledged corporate projects is understandable.

The internet started as hobby project too, it was just a matter of finding good uses for it. The same goes for bitcoin.

The same does not yet go for Bitcoin, as the difference so far is that large companies become larger, and small companies became large through the internet. That has not happened much in Bitcoin yet.

Right now Bitcoin is serving a small niche market of hobbyists, but it is gaining traction every day. The network grows larger, and more people are getting involved.
It grows very similarly to most other internet projects, like a kindling in a camp fire. Some fizzle out, while others begin to catch, and at a certain point become too large to stop.

Bitcoin needs to reach that catching point, and tying it to something like D3, an internationally acclaimed online game, could be the very easily be the push it needs.

If we assume that most D3 players are computer savvy, and are interested in trading their stuff for real money, I think this BTC Auction House fits the niche market perfectly while letting them take part in something revolutionary, "This is not your grandparents' currency".

And once the kids start using them, then all hell is going to break loose.

Mt.Gox is not a company that has grown larger through Bitcoin?

And besides Mt.Gox, name a Bitcoin company that is more than 2 years old. It took longer than two years for three of the Internet's juggernauts to really grow and be profitable: Google, Yahoo, and Amazon I know just off the top of my head.

I thought about mentioning MtGox, but there are several reasons I didn't that I don't want to start  flame war about here. Suffice to say, all companies grow larger through Bitcoin but some grow artificially and remain unhealthy.

I disagree. Bitcoin so far represents a free market. There is nothing artificial about that.

I think free markets are only free when the parties involved in them understand that it's free. Right now a good majority are still clinging to their old habits of centralization, insurance, backing, reversals, trusting strangers, etc.

The parties involved are only participants. It's the market controls or lack thereof that determine whether or not the market is free. And throughout history people have struggled with the issue of appropriately placing trust.

Here is a good article on the auction house (http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Blizzard-Take-15-Cut-Diablo-3-Real-Money-Auctions-42056.html)

It looks like it is going to be their bread and butter after the initial sale of the boxed game and is there to provide a steady stream of revenue and pay for server maintenance.

The WHOLE reason they're putting up with the "Always online single player" backlash is so even the single players can access the auction house, as this would be prone to hacking if single player data was kept client side.

Also, given how fierce Activision's legal team is, you can bet they'll fight tooth and nail to take something like a Bitcoin Auction House down, should it ever begin to eat into their bottom line.

If only I had a reliable solution of input/output i.e. how you deliver in game assets to the customers and how they deliver in game assets to you!

Give me the above solution (or idea) and I am on board for this project, otherwise seems like a waste of time.

To add to this ... I think the idea is fantastic if people are already using Bitcoin and the RMAH didn't exist.  Unfortunately, neither of these are true, and thus the idea is DOA.

Users don't want to go out and purchase some weird currency prone to theft,  and install potential malware on their system, just so they can pay a stranger over the internet for items that may never be sent.

Relative to that, 15% fee seems completely fair for the 100% scam-proof, easy-to-understand method of just using the RMAH.  I think 15% is ludicrous actually... Blizzard is being ridiculously greedy.  But they'll get away with it because they know how desperately users want to be able to buy and sell items to other users, and they know users will pay it.

The BTC auction house would act as a middle man/arbiter and meeting place for sellers/buyers. Someone lists an item, funds are sent by the buyer and held by the house, once the item is confirmed as delivered in game by the buyer, funds are released to the seller. Maybe have sellers video cap the in game transaction? A rep system based on number of items and value sold/bought will help keep things honest, but isn't 100% guaranteed.



I wouldn't suggest undertaking something like this as a means of income or guaranteed profit. If you aren't into this out of curiosity alone, then this is far too risky in terms of time wasted.



It does sound grim when you put it that way.



If you think about it, the goods you are selling are nothing but digital items spawned according to their rules in their game.

It's genius how they turn their customers into cash farmers.

I play Hardcore and their is not a real money AH for hardcore players...


exactly, that's why everything (including  storing the bitcoins) would be handled by the exchange. users just have to keep his login password safe


15% kinda sucks, wtf do they do with the gold anyway  ::)

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I am a diablo3 player and a web dev.
I would be interested in working with you on this project
I have my own idea of how it should work

sending PM, lets do this thing!

Would use.

As would half our dev team ;)

Oh, I misunderstood.  I thought the service was simply for letting users post and bid on things and handle the cash themselves.  If you're talking about a service, with customer support, then you'll have to take some profit in order to sustain non-trivial costs of maintenance and handling user issues/complaints, etc.  And you risk violating Blizzard EULAs unless you plan to be completely detached from the game and only handle the money side.  But then that means you have no way to verify whether the seller actually transferred the items to the buyer.  Have fun arbitrating disputes...

In the end, Blizzard is being greedy, but I don't think there's a legit way for competition to step in, even if they could get away with it legally.

On the other hand, if we're talking Diablo II and all sales are between strangers trusting each other over the internet, then Bitcoin fills the niche pretty well.  But I think Blizzard has firmly undercut any potential competition on this one...

actually we are now talking about doing a simple exchange D3gold / BTC
I think this would be much easier to do well, and would be more piratical for users. ( no need for strangers trusting each other over the internet  :P )

they would send BTC to the exchange to buy D3Gold
or
they would send D3Gold to the exchange to buy BTC

this would be a free market like all other bitcoin exchanges.

You're going to need Diablo III accounts to handle the transfers of the D3 gold.  That puts you at risk of getting banned, getting stuff confiscated, etc.

You might consider just holding the BTC and letting the players do the money transfer. That's a lot less risk for you.  But I don't know the details of transferring gold in D3...

right, i need to find out how game gold sellers are doing it.

http://www.offgamers.com/diablo/d3/diablo-3-gold-us/all-server-normal-mode-c-4143-5166-5226-5227.ogm?gclid=CMi4s8zOl7ACFQlN4AodPzEG1w
why is it hes not getting banned?

While this is not an auction house, you can purchase D3 gold with bitcoin here https://ferroh.com/d3


If I understood correctly, you are suggesting that we set up an ebay like service for D3 items (where users can sell directly to one another)?

It might work for hardcore, where there is no RMAH.

I now wasted enough time with the game (not as much as with this forum yet  :o ) to know how it can be done and how the AH system works in game. I still see alot of potential for this.

Technically and practically, yes in every regard.

Lawsuit proof, probably not at least not the fully automated, completely fraud proof part.

I've had this idea for a while and spoke with a few in the community about it (Matthew Wright can confirm).

The two main advantages of using a website instead of RMAH is:
1. Price can be MUCH lower
2. FEATURES, such as more advanced searching/filtering, historical data, etc.

I've been reluctant to invest too much time into it, because D3 economy is totally fucked, and Blizzard is taking steps to further fuck it up with each patch.
If any developers would like to work together, let me know.

Biggest issue is still delivery imho.

Either the exchange holds items/gold in escrow --> easy to ban from Blizzard side.

Right from the beginning of the EULA:
After you've been banned, you'd have to go to court - good luck with that!

Otherwise, delivery would have to be done by the people advertising --> scams, scams everywhere! It might be possible to have someone from the exchange as a 3rd person in the game (A sells item X to B --> A gives item X to escrower, escrower releases BTC to A and hands item X to B ingame) but then it doesn't scale or requires bots, which is something that Blizzard might be even more allergic to than selling gold/items outside of the game.

You could offer a service to fund anyone's BattleNet balance with your PayPal account paid with BTC though, which would be something similar to an exchange operation.


Something else that might work would be to use the official (gold) Auction House to transfer gold. There are high fees, but in the end ingame all you do is trading. It might still be bannable, but harder to detect maybe. It'd work like this (if you want to have gold):
* Get a unique item (blue or higher, random cheap one from running Act 1 on Normal difficulty for 2 minutes)
* Put it up in the auction house for a buyout of the amount of gold you want to have
* Post the exact values of this auction + item to the web site
* As soon as the auction is verified as being truly unique (no other auction with an item that has the exact same item values and buyout), it is bought by the counter party who sold the gold

The 15% fees are happening there again though...

Yes Sukrim that are exactly the issues we would be facing.

However since trading items for bitcoins might not be selling them in some interpretation because it is not recognized legal tender. Oh the irony... ;)

There is a fairly easy way to automate the process without hacking the game, well almost, I would choose a microcontroller acting as a USB mouse/keyboard. This way Blizz can patch process monitoring in their software all they want.
It will most likely be get the account banned if Blizzard gets wind of it but I doubt there would be a lawsuit.

But yes using real person escrower would work and was also what I had in mind. This can scale very well if you enable people to earn their share acting as escrow if they have high reputation.

What I've been thinking might be the best way is to make the site very similar to bitmit/ebay, except with the ability for sellers to say "I'm online." That way, no escrows are needed because transactions are completed within 5 minutes. Auctions of this nature would then be more desirable for the majority of items being sold.

I own the domain btc2diablo.com if anyone's interested in acquiring it.

For some reason I am not that interested in DiabloIII anymore, the game was a little disappointing, I don't really play it any more.

Other than that: Domain squatting sucks.

GTFO

you probably know already: https://ogrr.com/

Please don't encourage the guy.

I was trying to discourage him actually

oh I see.

Eh, bite me. I bought it from the original registrant, who was selling Diablo II items there for BTC. I determined later that my time was better spent on other projects.

No you didn't. But my time is better spent elsewhere too.