If you have played Diablo 2 you have probably more than once seen the annoying spambots screaming about the latest items available for sale, both ingame and in the battle.net channels and I was surprised to see that not only are they still around, but they seem to have evolved into a serious business!

I checked out 3 such sites earlier today and I must say that as a returning gamer with little time on my hands I do get tempted to take the easy way out and buy things rather than spend the hours grinding them up and I started to wonder what kind of business ideas we might see for Diablo 3 and if things will change that will make these kinds of businesses impossible or less likely?

We know that Blizzard will make Diablo 3 a game where trading will be a factor and it will be far easier to move object between characters and accounts. We also know that Battle.net will see many improvements, perhaps even introduce a marketplace, like we have seen on the old diabloii.net (now changed into diii.com) to allow people to make actual trading more controlled and easier?

As I look through the items on the three diablo 2 items websites I ponder for myself what Blizzard really think about this kind of behaviour and if they will take action to move things around to their own advantage soon. It would not be a big stretch to tap into this kind of cashflow by setting up a marketplace like e-bay where anyone can buy and sell their game related items and then a percentage goes back to Blizzard in terms of fees.

The advantages are many for such a setup, not just in terms of tapping into a new cashflow, but also to be able to control the market for in-game items to prevent sales of illegal and/or bugged items. It also would set a balance between seller and buyer if adding a reputation system, which is not very difficult to do really. In such a controlled environment people could make money from their efforts and Blizzard would still benefit from the money exchange without having to actually participate, like sellers paying a license fee or something like that.

For me as a webdesigner and hopeless ideamonger I could surely consider setting up a marketplace for Diablo items like e-bay. Its not very difficult to do as there are good scripts out there that could easily be modified and re-designed for that purpose, but the question is if its worth the time and cash investment?

While I ponder on that I’ll continue to look at all the items I want to have once again from these diablo 2 related webshops and ponder on the ethics of actually buying myself my old character back or not…