Diablo III Real Money Auction House Officially Launched

Today is the first day that users will be able to toss real hard-earned cash at virtual items in the game Diablo III online. This game has for some years now been teased to have a real-money auction house (in addition to its more basic virtual gold auction house), and upon the game's launch earlier this year, it's been the most widely anticipated feature not to be included with the initial build. Today when you head online to Diablo III you'll more than likely see an update to your software and a couple of new user agreements before you're allowed to play.

This update is only available today for those of you out there that physically picked up the game from the store, strangely enough. You'll have to wait three more days to get access if you downloaded the game like I did. Once you're there, you'll find that some people have already bid items up to $200 USD and more. Right now it seems like items are being set on the market at around $30 with buyouts set at $250 USD – if you're good to go with a few thousand bucks, you can trick your character out right now!

Your account is connected to your Battle.NET account, of course, where Blizzard takes a 15 percent cut when you transfer your funds out to PayPal. You'll have to use PayPal, yes, and each time you do a transaction you'll be paying $1.00 as well. These costs work on all items outside of gems, mats, recipes, and dyes, which will cost you an additional 15 percent transaction fee. Blizzard will be cashing in on this situation very, very quickly, this in stark contrast to how eBay cashed in on Diablo II and 3rd party unofficial transactions.

Let us know if you plan on picking anything up right here at the start of this virtual, and yet real, economy!