Blizzard Battle.net Balance Launched

[Kluge]

Doesn't it violate legal tender laws to denominate AH items in USD if the USD isn't redeemable? Seems a bit misleading to imply that users are simply transferring cash instead of buying the equivalent of "Blizzard Bucks."

Are you serious? When you recharge your cellphone you put like "20 dollars" but of course you no more can redeem them....

Could be wrong - but don't they turn into "minutes"?

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[Gabi]

Here when i recharge it the voice tell me "you recharged it of X euro" (or whatelse is in english).
If i check how much is left it tell me how many € are left and so on

But of course i can't redeem those € or buy things

[BitcoinMint.US]

So maybe there's still hope for us in the US being able to cash-out to Paypal or whatever they allow.

We can hope.

[Maged]

Huh? You most definitely can "cash out". However, it's extremely limited in how you can do it. You can only cash out money that you earned from auctions, and only if you flagged that to happen at the time you made the auction.

(I'm a Blizzard MVP, so I keep track of these things...)

[Kluge]

Huh? You most definitely can "cash out". However, it's extremely limited in how you can do it. You can only cash out money that you earned from auctions, and only if you flagged that to happen at the time you made the auction.

(I'm a Blizzard MVP, so I keep track of these things...)

Derp -- pardon my FUD, was going off second post.

Relevant post from OP article:
Any amount you add to your Battle.net Balance, either through an approved payment method or by adding Diablo III auction house earnings to your Battle.net Balance, will not be refundable (except as otherwise provided by law), and you are not able to convert that Balance into cash. Battle.net Balance can only be used to buy designated Blizzard Entertainment products and services or to acquire items from Diablo III's currency-based auction house. In certain regions, Diablo III players may choose to receive cash, rather than add to their Battle.net Balance, from the sale of an item from the currency-based auction house. Those players will be able to do so via PayPal for an additional fee.

ETA: Actually... I'm still not sure how this complies with US legal tender laws. I still don't see how Blizz can tell players they have USD when they can't redeem the USD. You couldn't, for instance, go to Best Buy and use the USD in your Blizzard account to purchase a toaster, though USD is supposed to be payable for all debts. Not exactly an important issue - I'd guess Blizzard has... you know... people who know what they're talking about who've figured this is legal.

[kjlimo]

I don't see why you would want to put money into the Blizzard Account and then withdraw it.  Blizzard isn't a bank...

It seems like you can sell items on the auction and accept real currency and get paid real currency. 

I think this is pretty epic.  Diablo III will be the first game to acknowledge the sale of in game items for real world currency as an ok transaction, yes?  Most games still say it's not allowed according to the rules. 

Most games don't enforce it that much, but they technically reserve the right to ban you for selling items for real world currency...

I guess this gives Blizzard a way to tax it and be able to profit from people playing their made up game and trading made up items... I hope it means they charge me less per month to play.

I don't know how long I'll play if it has a monthly fee.  Maybe if I could pay per minute... I just don't know if I can commit to a monthly subscription and make it worth it with my work schedule these days...

[Philj]

At the time you actually sell an item you have the choice to cash out or add it to your battle.net account. If you choose to add it to your battle.net balance, then you can't cash it out without a little extra effort. If you have two accounts, you could sell an item on one, buy it with battle.net bucks from the other, then choose the cash out option.

This system is really just like in store credit. You can buy it with USD, then can only buy stuff from that retailer, but can't cash out any balance.

The most significant outcome of this  is that they will be using paypal to cash out, which is basically going against paypals rule of not buying digital in game stuff with paypal money.

[deepceleron]

Blizzard: Dollars go in, they don't come back out.

This is probably their way of getting in on the item resale market themselves. I would anticipate that soon there will be items that can only be bought, not won in the game, $5 for the shield of unholy ass-guarding. That's the best business model, receiving cash to flip a few bits in your user account. An economy where the money supply isn't magically created by a central authority; the goods can be magically created by a central authority.

[FreeMoney]

This is probably their way of getting in on the item resale market themselves. I would anticipate that soon there will be items that can only be bought, not won in the game, $5 for the shield of unholy ass-guarding.

I think that's a mistake. If the only way to get it is to pay $5 then it's a $5 item and everyone knows it. But if there is a .0001% chance it gets dropped by some tough enemy then it's an awesome rare item that you can have for $5.