Blizzard’s Jay Wilson thinks the auction house hurt Diablo III

Jay Wilson was the lead director on Diablo III, a position he recently left for greener pastures within the company. However, Wilson recently explained the reasons he believes that Diablo III angered many fans of the franchise.

In a GDC presentation, Wilson explained that the auction house “really hurt” Diablo III. He explained that Blizzard’s intention of the real money auction house was to deter fraudulent activity in the game, hoping to avoid some of the gold sellers and other perils that come along with the World of Warcraft franchise. Wilson said the team thought only a small percentage of players would use the auction house, but as it turns out, that was not the case.

As a result, it lessened the impact of the actual looting mechanics in Diablo III, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of some. “We would turn it off if we could”, said Wilson. But he says its not as easy as flipping a switch. There are a lot players that are still playing Diablo III and utilize this mechanic as its become such a large part of the game.

Blizzard’s far from done with Diablo III though. The Diablo III dev blog has already outlined plans to combat some of these auction house effects, and the game will see updates via patches to make finding rare loot fun again in the game.