Diablo III Auction Houses Shuttering Doors Entirely

This week the folks behind Diablo III's development and upkeep have announced that they'll be cutting their ill-fated auction house from the equation entirely. As Blizzard suggests, both the Gold and the Real Money auction houses will be cut from the game from top to bottom in the month of March, 2014, after a rather rocky road from the launch of the point we're at now where it's been decided that this mechanic eats away at the core of the game. This move will be pushed alongside the "Loot 2.0" system appearing with the Reaper of Souls expansion of the game.

Reaper of Souls is still scheduled for a general 2014 release date while the idea that this cut to the Auction House is coming in March, we must suspect that the first big box addition to the game wont come long after. Also note that this release of Reaper of Souls will be similar to past expansions where users must own and be running the original version of Diablo III to run the expansion.

As you'll find in the lovely explanation video above, Production Director of Diablo III Reaper of Souls John Hight and Game Director Josh Mosqueira speak about how the game will be progressing from here. They say they've left users a fine amount of time to "settle your affairs" with cash and gold, leaving here 5 months to the day before the drop.

Blizzard has also promised to share more information on the transition that'll have to be made with the dropping of the auction house, likely centered on the Real Money aspect and cashing out. The actual shutdown date of the auction house will be March 18th, 2014 – so make sure you've got all your bartering done well before then. Hopefully this won't put too many in-game millionaires out of business (or hopefully it will, depending on your perspective).