Unofficial marketplace for Diablo products

Blizzard had a problem. In previous Diablo titles, players' ability to trade items had created the possibility of a black market for loot. The players who were looking for the top gear were willing to pay D2R ladder items, but this also left the door open to unscrupulous third-party companies and price-slashing. Blizzard saw the perils of an unregulated, unofficial marketplace for Diablo products, and believed they could improve the experience by having a legitimate, well-regulated one. 

"The auction house was born of the need to legitimateize trading on third party sites to ensure that traders stay playing to carry out their business instead of going to third party websites, and in the process, cut down on fraud and scams, spamming and also the profits from hacking the game, making dupes and so on. ," former game director Jay Wilson said in an interview with DiabloII. net after leaving the company. 

"The problem is, of course, it over-legitimized trading. It made it too easy. I think we all know that by now, as well as the consequences. We were concerned about the consequences before the time, but we thought the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages. [World of Warcraft's auction house] seemed as a solid example of this. We clearly were not. "

The problem was traced to two areas. The auction house was a real money element, which allowed players to purchase loot in real-money buy d2r items. This aspect led Blizzard to criticism for engineering poor-quality loot drop drops to enhance trading.