Bliizard Diablo 3 real money auction house will use Paypal.

Some fans have been concerned whether the real money auction house might delay our favorite demon-slaying sequel, Diablo III, since specifics on the auction house, as we were told, were still under development when the feature was announced. The feature is a rather bold move never before seen in games, at least in the way it comes with Diablo III. Fans were concerned with this move, since Blizzard hasn't offered such services in the past.

Now we know at least one further detail -- which might alleviate at least some concerns -- as Blizzard has announced their partnership with the popular online payments service, PayPal.

Official Blizzard Quote:

We're pleased to announce that in most regions, PayPal will be our payment-service partner for the Diablo III auction house, allowing players who trade with real-world currency the ability to cash out the spoils of their battle-torn adventures via a PayPal account.

PayPal will also soon be added in several regions as a payment option on Battle.net, providing another convenient and secure payment method for digital purchases of Blizzard products and services.

We’ll share region-related specifics, as well as further details on everything mentioned above, in the near future. Stay tuned!

Read the original post.

What we can expect from this partnership? Of course, this is still purely speculation, as details await unveiling, but I doubt it's unreasonable to expect a seamless integration between Diablo III real money auction house and PayPal. Transferring money to the auction house and out of it will probably be as seamless as using eBay.

This makes close to perfect sense in retrospect, since the details Blizzard has given us regarding the real money auction house and its functionality with cashing out using a third party payment transfer service sounded a lot like how PayPal functions in the first place. Now we need not speculate any longer, since most of the world will be using PayPal in conjunction with Diablo III's auction house. PayPal will also be available to purchase other Blizzard-related items and services, probably things such as digital copies of their games and World of Warcraft game time.


As some of you might know, PayPal is wholly owned by the internet's most popular auction house service, eBay. I doubt I'm the only one asking, whether eBay will be offering help for Blizzard in building their auction house, as eBay has had a well-functioning and safe auction house running for years. This could well mean what Blizzard means when they talk about their partnership with PayPal: their parent company and they themselves would have a lot of expertise in the field Blizzard is trying to enter into.


I'm sure that the real money auction house will still continue to divide the fan-base, but I'm certain that this announcement is a relief to most and a surprise to few.