TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY
Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.
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You Can Sell Your Diablo 3 Loot For Actual Money
I was at Blizzard last week to play a bit of Diablo 3, and find this out: it has an auction house where players can buy from and sell to each other for real money.
It’s both crazier and slightly less evil than it initially sounds: it’s not Blizzard selling this stuff, and while they take a transaction fee, it’s not proportional to the item value. They say they expect it to break even.
The crazier part is that you could actually make money from this system, with no risk: you get a few free listings a week, and you can use them to sell items you found for real money without even having given Blizzard your credit card.
Lots more details, screenshots and quotes from Blizzard in my piece on PC Gamer. I am broadly negative about it.
Update: I’m in a podcast with Graham and Tim discussing what we think of all this.
Update: My preview of the Diablo 3 beta is also up now. The game itself is really, really good I’m afraid.
Update: Now we’ve done a video where me, Tim and Graham talk you through what’s going on in the latest footage.