Former Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson admitted during a talk at GDC 2013 in San Francisco that both of Diablo 3's Auction Houses (both the real-money and the in-game gold item auction house) "really hurt the game." Wilson said that before Blizzard launched the game, the company had a few assumptions about how the Auction Houses would work: He thought they would help reduce fraud, that they'd provide a wanted service to players, that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

But he said that once the game went live, Blizzard realized it was completely wrong about those last two points. It turns out that nearly every one of the game's players (of which there are still about 1 million per day, and about 3 million per month, according to Wilson) made use of either house, and that over 50 percent of players used it regularly. That, said Wilson, made money a much higher motivator than the game's original motivation to simply kill Diablo, and "damaged item rewards" in the game.

Source:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/28/diablo-3-director-jay-wilson-auction-houses-really-hurt-game/

"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," explained Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls production director John Hight.

And with that, Blizzard will be doing away with both the gold AND real-money auction house system in Diablo 3. The shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014, so we still have a bit of ways to go.

Source:
http://www.gamezone.com/news/diablo-3-auction-house-to-be-shut-down-in-march-2014

Can we now stop moaning about an Auction House in ESO?

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

kupacmac wrote: »

Nice find Pino. Like Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 is a shining example of why global auction houses are a bad idea.

The only centralised solution that might work is a Stock Exchange.

However, I do like the Guild Stores. They just have to make them more user-friendly and more flexible for the customers, the traders and the Guild Masters.

And ZOS should certainly have a look at the guilds which are paying millions each week for a trader. They don't make any gold profit. Not one of them. But some are linked with external webshops were they sell items and gold for real money.

charisma316 wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

There are 2 threads about this very topic, on the first page of the forums. Both are currently very active.
Now that I got that out of the way. I'm sorry for what happened to you. Not every guild is the same and experiences may vary. Your assumption about all trade guilds and guild leaders being this way is not true. Again, I am sorry for what ever grief this corrupt guild may have caused you.

actually nothing happened to me i just know most of the consol guild leaders and know how they make money and i was asked to say i won a guild raffle so the guild leaders didnt have to pay out prizes they never had

Then you are in a crappy guild, I've won guild raffles in the past, and I know that some guilds do make millions in sales every week. I'm a crappy trader and I still sell somewhere around 100-150k a month.

I've been reading this forum since launch. I've seen plenty of hateful, misguided, posts like this, full of lies, false assumptions and misinformation. But this one may take the cake.

People are so quick to hate what they don't understand. So quick to lash out. So quick to make convenient assumptions to validate their hatred. It's the classic torch & pitchfork mob mentality.

Many guilds have 5, 10, or even 20 million gold in sales each week. So yes, it is not only possible, but very common to see total sales in the tens of millions for one week.

What hateful, finger-pointing people can't seem to wrap their heads around is this: 97% of that gold goes to THE PERSON THAT SOLD THE ITEM, NOT THE GUILD.

10 million in sales only generates 300k in sales tax that goes towards the guild. Now when prime kiosks are costing 700k-1.5 million per week in order to retain a location, where do you think that gold comes from? The sky? A pot at the end of the rainbow? Do you guys think a Unicorn descends from the heavens and bestows that gold to GMs?

The fact is that THE MEMBERS are the ones making all the gold, and GMs MUST find ways to convince their members that the ONLY reason they are making that much gold is because of the kiosk and if they want to CONTINUE to make that much gold in the future, they MUST donate/contribute some of that gold in order for the GM to be able to afford the kiosk.

GUILD TAXES DO NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO AFFORDING THE KIOSK, LET ALONE LINE THE POCKETS OF GMs.

I've seen our GM donate 200k+ plus each week IN ADDITION to raffle funds and taxes just so we can afford a kiosk.

I have PERSONALLY donated anywhere from 50k-200k OF MY OWN GOLD each week IN ADDITION to raffle funds and taxes JUST TO AFFORD THE KIOSK.

We do this for no other reason than we love our guild and we want happy, successful members.



I could easily join another large trading guild, make 150k-300k per week, and get very rich without a care in the world, but I don't. I choose to help run this guild. I choose to sacrifice my own wealth so that the guild can succeed. Me and the GM and a few other officers TAKE MONEY FROM OUR OWN POCKETS JUST TO MAKE THIS RIDICULOUS SYSTEM WORK.

So the notion that we are taking advantage of people and trying to scam them out of their money is so ridiculous that it's borderline criminal.

Hey @charisma316 You have no freaking idea what you are talking about. You don't have the slightest clue. You are doing nothing here but spreading lies and hate. Thanks for that.

@Alphashado,

Exactly. A guild that's making a profit of 1 million should have a revenue of about 34.000.000 gold.

And we are talking about millions of sales each week (like some are saying). So we have to multiply the 34.000.000 gold a few times.

Do you know a guild that's selling that much? I don't. lol

symonator wrote: »

I know some guilds that make alot of gold a week.
But i have said before, the guilds that aren't are picking bad spots, overpricing goods and no-one will be paying 45k for kutas and 60k for a v13 footman legs like i have been seeing recently.

Sure, no doubt that some make gold. But do you know one that's selling for 34.000.000 gold each week?

PinoZino wrote: »

symonator wrote: »

I know some guilds that make alot of gold a week.
But i have said before, the guilds that aren't are picking bad spots, overpricing goods and no-one will be paying 45k for kutas and 60k for a v13 footman legs like i have been seeing recently.

Sure, no doubt that some make gold. But do you know one that's selling for 34.000.000 gold each week?

34m prolly not lol.
But the craglorn traders make a profit, trust me...

Alphashado wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

@Alphashado,

Exactly. A guild that's making a profit of 1 million should have a revenue of about 34.000.000 gold.

And we are talking about millions of sales each week (like some are saying). So we have to multiply the 34.000.000 gold a few times.

Do you know a guild that's selling that much? I don't. lol

You forgot to subtract kiosk fees from the profit. So in order for a guild in a good location to make 1 million profit, they would have to make 2 million from sales tax. Which would be 60 million gold in sales for the week.

Yeah.

And present times some Guild Traders cost even 2 million.

Now we're talking about some real big money: 102 million in revenue each week they need. lol

symonator wrote: »

craglorn traders on ps4 eu pay from anywhere between 800k and 2m and make there kiosk funds back along with profit, so not sure where your trader is but not in a good place.

I'm guessing you are only a member of the guild and not a GM or officer, so you probably don't understand how it works.

As mentioned above, sales tax is only 3% of total sales. So if a guild is spending 2Million gold per week on a kiosk, they would have to be netting roughly 120 million gold per week in order for the sales tax alone to cover the kiosk price.

3% of the sales goes into the guild coffers. That's it. Period.

Anything else is from donations or raffles etc.

OR the GM/officers are using their own gold. (which they earn by selling their own stuff on the store which they farmed themselves)

The ONLY money that goes directly into the guild bank is 3% sales tax.

Now if you have a screen shot of a guild netting 120 million per week in total sales, then I'll eat my shoes.

For example, our guild made 10 million in sales last week. Sounds like alot of gold right? Well only 300k of that went into the guild bank via sales tax. Now I'm not going to tell you what we paid for our kiosk, but let me assure you that it was significantly more than 300k.

MEMBERS are getting rich and making tons of profit, NOT the guild coffers, and NOT the GMs (unless they are selling items on the store like any other member)

Same song different chorus.

The system as it stands works fine.

I make about 150k a week in the 5 traders I am in. If you take the time, look for a guild and pay their 4k a week price. You WILL profit.

Forum complaining solves little to nothing.

PinoZino wrote: »

Why should you be out of touch with the community when you use fixed prices?

I'll tell you a secret. The people buy your stuff because the price is right.

Because you are telling people to sell for example an xp potion for 7k when they go for 5k max on ps4 eu.
Or you might be telling people to sell other items from launch prices and the community decides what is worth what, not some gm. Therefore you sell nothing, or sell to people who just don't know any traders prices.

I run the one of the biggest and active trading guilds on the ps4 eu servers, i can tell you now we make a profit and we don't charge anyone any tax or do raffles.
People or guilds who don't make money are doing something seriously wrong. (like price fixing) and need to start checking around for prices and making them a little more attractive.

It's no good telling me people pay if the price is right, yet are willing to fix prices which are probably above the average. Hence why you don't make money, most likely.

Not all guilds are having issues, i assure you.

RatedChaotic wrote: »

Diablo is not a mmo. Its a rpg with some mmo features. Stop comparing eso to diablo. If you think interacting with 3 other people is a massive multiplayer online game. You have some issues.

That would be even valid as stating;

Diablo starts with a 'D' and Elder Scrolls Online with an 'E'. Stop comparing ESO to Diablo.

The context is the same. It's about the concept Auction House, which you want to enter with entire Tramiel.

That's what they tried at Diablo and failed big time: they had 3 million players and lost 2 million with 'your' brilliant idea.

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

This is one of the reasons I avoid Trader Guilds and large Guilds all together. Just recently left a Guild that decided it wanted a 1k Rent weekly from members. They claimed that this 1k per week would go towards mats for Armor for members. And that members would be able to ask for a free set of armor from Guild Approved Crafters (all of which were Officers). On top of this they also ran Raffles with no interest in a Guild Store.

This all sounds fine until you start to do the math. The Guild in question had approximately 100 active Guild Members. Thats 100k a week. 400k a month. And 4.8 million a year. How often do you think a member is going to ask for armor? If they even need to ask for it since they may already be working on their own crafting.

Top that off with the average member of the Guild having zero access to the Guild Bank. So theres no means of actually knowing if the Guild Bank itself is filled to the brim with mats or if that Gold is being siphoned into the Officers pockets.

Good grief, I would leave as well.
Is this also on console?