While Blizzard is ironing out the kinks in Diablo III, they’ve pushed the real-money auction house back yet again. This time, the developer announced that their next target date for the feature would be June 12th.
“In light of post-launch obstacles we’ve encountered, we have made the decision to move the launch of the Real Money Auction House beyond the previously estimated May time frame. As we mentioned in our original announcement, our goal has always been to ensure that everyone has the smoothest experience possible when the real-money auction house launches, and we need a bit more time to iron out the existing general stability and gameplay issues before that feature goes live.”
Blizzard has seen numerous problems with the launch of Diablo III. The always-on connectivity issues plagued the game at launch, quickly followed by account compromisations and other auction house issues that forced the company to take the gold auction house offline for a short stint.
Like Valve, Blizzard notoriously works on their own time frame when it comes to things like this. If Diablo III’s lengthy development cycle tells you anything, it’s that the company doesn’t mind making fans wait, if they feel it will be beneficial in the long run.