Changes

The Diablo 3 Auction House, both Real Money and Gold, is set to shut down on March 18, 2014. This news came via a surprise announcement on September 17, 2013.<ref>[http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/10974978/diablo%C2%AE-iii-auction-house-update-9-17-2013Diablo 3 Auction House to Close]- Blizzard Entertainment, 17/09/13</ref>

 The developers chose to discontinue the principle means of trading and gear acquisition in Diablo 3 since they felt it was detracting from the overall game fun of finding new items from killing monsters. This sudden change was (at least initially) quite popular with the Diablo community, with over 73% of voters approving of the decision in a popular vote on Diablo.IncgamersIncGamers.comCom. <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-3-auction-house-closingAH Closing Community Poll]- IncGamers, 17/09/13</ref>  The problem Blizzard spoke of just prior to the closure announcement has not been addressed publicly although when the statmement below was made in August of 2013 the suspicion is that the decision to close the Auction House had already been made and Loot 2.0 was set to replace the need for one entirely. <ref>[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/more-details-on-shared-paragon-and-other-ros-news In Defence of the Auction House] - Blizzard Entertainment, 22/08/13</ref>  <blue>Grimiku: Removing the Auction House would fix the problem it created, but that would also create new problems, like chat spam (WTS/WTB [item link]) all day long. That’s definitely not ideal, either. One of the ideas driving Loot 2.0 is that players should not feel that they need to use the Auction House. We don’t mind if players use it, but targeted drops, reduced trash items, better stat ranges, new Legendary effects, and the Mystic should help players feel empowered by the item hunt, and not forced to use the Auction House.</blue>