Diablo 3 will support PayPal

By Robert Purchese Published 15 September, 2011

Unlike Anonymous.

The Diablo 3 real-money auction house will use online payment service PayPal, Blizzard has announced.

PayPal will also soon be a Battle.net payment option in "several" regions.

Diablo 3's real-money auction house allows gamers to sell their spoils collected during play to other players. There's been hot debate about the feature, which will allow gamers with deep pockets to buy their way to power.

Diablo 3 has no solid release date, although Blizzard "is working hard to ship [Diablo 3] before the end of the year", according to company president and co-founder Mike Morhaime.

It's entirely possible, however, that Blizzard will trumpet a Diablo 3 date from the BlizzCon rooftops when the annual fanfest opens on Friday, 21st October.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 8 months ago

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  • apoc_reg #1 8 months ago

    A retail single player (from my point of view anyway) game supports paypal.... wait surely i already brought the game when i get my copy?!

    Money grabbing @#@#s. I'm sure some people will like this but I'm with Garnett Lee on this one, ruins the fun of playing and earning items if some git can just buy them because they have a better job than me!
    Edited by apoc_reg at 15/09/11 @ 09:50

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #2 8 months ago

    I think the ehole point is it uses paypal for you to trade with other players not pay the devs/pubs. I think i read somewhere that they dont even take a %. If that makes them money grabbing then im gonna go read up the definition cos clearly i have it wrong.

  • Silvergun-Blue #3 8 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    As Blizzard have already said, people will be trading items for real money anyway. It happened in Diablo 2 and it happens in most other online rpgs. They may as well make it happen in a far safer enviroment.

  • butler` #4 8 months ago

    I can't shake the feeling that systems like this make games a little bit less like games, and a little bit more like real life.

    And not in a good way.

  • darkmorgado #5 8 months ago

    @apoc

    You can't buy items. Before you go off on a rant, you might want to check the facts.

  • abigsmurf #6 8 months ago

    Makes you wonder if you could genuinely make money out of playing Diablo. Buying gold through chinese farmers for MMOs is heavily deflated due to the risk and the chinese gold farmers.

    Without that risk and the gold farmers prices will be much higher but to counter that, you've lots of people who don't care about getting top dollar for their items and just want to get whatever they can ASAP.

    Having to declare Diablo 3 based earnings on a tax return could prove interesting.

  • butler` #7 8 months ago

    @darkmorgado

    you've lost me. do you mean you can't buy items from blizzard?

  • darkmorgado #8 8 months ago

    Yeah that's what I meant, sorry. This is just player trading, which has existed since the dawn of time.

  • Buztafen #9 8 months ago

    All this is becoming to complicated for my lethargic gaming mind. I just want to kill things and find loot...:(

  • butler` #10 8 months ago

    @Silvergun-Blue

    Isn't it fair to say, however, that there's a big difference between a hardcore minority taking part in real-money trading, and an officially sanctioned, easily accessible part of the game with potentially huge uptake?

    (I'm playing devil's advocate here, as I do personally see it as the lesser of two evils.)

  • jetsetwillie #11 8 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    im a big weekend confirmed and garnet lee fan, but i think his rant on D3 was bordering on childish.

    why the fuck does what someone else does with their game influence what you do with yours.

  • Spekingur #12 8 months ago

    Saying people were doing it anyways isn't really an excuse. The percentage of people buying items through "shady places" wasn't that great compared to those who actually played. Now Blizzard is making it easier for everyone - even those who didn't know about these previous shady dealings. Blizzard is however making it sound that everyone and their dog were part of it, all they want is piece of the large-sums-of-money pie.

    Thankfully this is not an MMO. And if a friend is ready to spend lots of dollars on a virtual item, then good for him. I might think him a fool but it's his money and his choice.

  • beatwolf #13 8 months ago

    the words paypal and diablo 3 shouldn't be in the same sentence!!! But still I hope they finish this game before 2012, its been long enough...

  • gremly #14 8 months ago

    ...I thought PayPal's policy did not support the trading of in-game items? Or is there some loophole because you are charging a "Wallet" to buy in game items... Meh

  • LFace #15 8 months ago

    Wonder if you need to create a standard paypal account to use this or will it be through the game and nothing at all to do with regular paypal accounts. I ponder mainly because Paypal are a bunch of money thieving twats that block accounts whenever they feel and dont unlock accounts for upwards of a month or two leaving your own money unavailable until they can be arsed to give it back.

    Had plenty of run-ins with them and refuse to give them my bank details on a new account. And the less said about their barely legible overseas customer "service" the better.

  • Toothball #16 8 months ago

    People have been buying their way through online games for years via eBay. Besides, isn't this still a single player game? If someone wants to spend all their money for no real advantage over those who don't want to pay real money, why not just let them?

  • Radish #17 8 months ago

    I think the reason why Paypal don't usually support buying items is because it's usually done without the developers permission, whereas this definitely will be.

    @apoc No, from what I gather there is no monthly fee, once you've bought the game that's it - you don't have to pay any additional costs, unless you want to buy virtual items from other players (not blizzard themselves). They do take a cut, but I can't remember what amount was mentioned, if any even was. Instead of moaning about "gits" being able to buy good items because they have more money than you, why not be one of those people selling it to them?

    I'm intrigued to see how much money I can make from this. Have discussed farming with a couple of friends (assuming harder areas drop more/better loot) and splitting the cash we make.

  • 32768Colours #18 8 months ago

    Isn't the point of a looting game to venture out into the game world and find loot?

    How would you find a sense of achievement from buying other people's success? Or am I missing the point here (which is not uncommon!)

  • Hivess #19 8 months ago

    In Diablo 2 people were buying items as well, what's the problem? :p

  • geeza2020 #20 8 months ago

    Blizzard love making money, I am shocked.

  • darkmorgado #21 8 months ago

    Iirc, they are putting a cap on how many items you can sell each month, to prevent people making a living off it and to discourage farming.

  • apoc_reg #22 8 months ago

    @Silvergun-Blue

    Why does that make it ok?!

  • Inmediasress #23 8 months ago

    What people always fail to notice is that this decision of theirs (real money auction) is moraly bankrupt to say the least.
    This just means that Blizzards supports and encourages gold farming/itemfarming for money, be it at home or from sweat shops in china, if they get their cut from it.
    Sooner or later somebody will probably sue them for this.

    For me this isn't about the money but simply put principle.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 15/09/11 @ 11:54

  • Laminator #24 8 months ago

    Blizzard is basically saying if you can't beat em join em. Instead of making an effort to stop RMT they are just giving in and cashing in. I used to be a great fan of theirs until they lost all integrity after the Activision deal. I still have a WoW sub because my friends and family play but as soon as something better comes along they will never get another penny from me and I don't care how much 'fun' I will be missing out on in D3 I cannot justify supporting this step towards turning games into marketplaces where the richest gamers win.

  • deano2099 #25 8 months ago

    @apoc because once you're done with your single-player game, you can sell all your gear on the auction house then cash-out via PayPal?

  • RustyBullet #26 8 months ago

    Trade of items on Diablo has allways been massive its part of the game and this will be a welcome addition. Can not wait for this game, can not wait.

  • Silvergun-Blue #27 8 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    I think the better question is "why is it not ok?"

    If you don't like the idea of buying gear from others, be it with real money or the in game gold then simply don't do it. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the fun comes from finding the items, and I would never use the real money auction house myself.

    But it's just plain childish to say "I don't do it so nobody else should get to" as jetsetwillie said "why the fuck does what someone else does with their game influence what you do with yours".

  • Boki #28 8 months ago

    I was under the impression that blizzard takes a small % after every transaction and the money will be added to your battlenet account but you can't actually withdraw it because of legislations in some countries and because blizzard isn't a bank.
    At best you can pay your WoW subscription with it or buy diablo items.

  • levitate #29 8 months ago

    It looks to be a beautiful game 'n' all but I think I'm gonna bail on this. I don't like it when it becomes too much about who has the biggest RL wallet to spend on pixels instead of toiletry and food.