Auction House closed by Gamers

Some time back i wrote about the troubles Blizzard were having with their virtual auction house tied in to their hit game Diablo 3. Back then the issue they were having was with prices sky-rocketing, players paying real-world money only to be drastically disappointing by the exchange rate in virtual gold, and suspicions brewing about evil, gold controlling oligopolies controlling the entire auction house (read the entire post here).

Now it seems the last straw finally broke the camels backs, and the auction house is being shut down. In a official statement, released on Blizzards Diablo 3 blog John Hight had this to say:

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.

Everything is going to be shut down by March 18, 2014. While I think it is true that the auction house has taken away a lot from the core mechanic of the game, it cannot be understated that it was also a test product for Blizzard. With this I don't in any way mean that it wasn't finished, rather that Blizzard had an idea and wanted to test it out. 

The auction house has not broken in its system, but perhaps in the way it was implemented. It was way to easy for the market run amok, and a real hyper-inflation was created, something that naturally caused a huge backlash against the auction house and against Blizzard. I think Blizzard knows this, and will take this information back and reflect upon it for further releases down the line. However, I am confident this is not the last time we see the auction house. 

The main point of this story however is that Blizzard truly listened to the outcries of the community and corrected what many Diablo-players apparently saw as a fault in the game. Blizzard implemented something, the users tested it an didn't want it, and Blizzard subsequently rolled it back. Not many companies have the willingness to admit fault in this way, and Blizzard should have a great deal of credit for really listening to its gamers!