Roadmap to Profit: How to Make Real Money on the Diablo III Real Money Auction House

[PsychoSmiley]

Most of my guild mates playing D3 are all botting, even the ones I would have expected better from, they tell me that if you want to even have a chance at being competitive you have to be botting, is it really that prevalent?

Glad I never bothered with the game.

You should do the world a service and slide their account names to Blizzard because the less of these scum that exist the better.

[purehybrid]

That's the thing though Ralph, and the one that purehybrid missed as well

I didn't miss it, I was simply focussing on the standard "zomg i can maek money playign d3!" line that seems ever present these days...

Yes, the article was more about AH... but auction house arbitrage is extremely hit and miss. As with any other market, opportunities for arbitrage close rapidly, and the more opportunities there are, the more people there will be waiting for them.

The auction limit does allow the average punter more of a go (by slowing turnover per account), but it also hinders their ability increase turnover (and thus, profit) themselves in the same way.

That said, if you're willing to spend hours playing buy n sell on the RMAH because it grants you some sort of satisfaction seeing your blizzbucks or paypal balance sluggishly increase... why not just get an actual job? You'll be earning more, learning more, possibly actually contributing to society, and you'll still get your warm fuzzies from your balance increasing.

[R3DNUT]

high 5 on the article but to be honest, if i were making $200 a day on this, i wouldnt be telling people how to do it.. it wont be long before theres a million of everything and worth fark all.

[R3DNUT]

Wait what? Open Battlenet? I used to just create my own hacked items to play with on open bnet.

I created hacked items and then sold them on ebay.

And this is why Diablo 3 is always online. *Clap* lol

hahahahahaah

[Bronze_D]

That's the thing though Ralph, and the one that purehybrid missed as well

I didn't miss it, I was simply focussing on the standard "zomg i can maek money playign d3!" line that seems ever present these days...

Yes, the article was more about AH... but auction house arbitrage is extremely hit and miss. As with any other market, opportunities for arbitrage close rapidly, and the more opportunities there are, the more people there will be waiting for them.

The auction limit does allow the average punter more of a go (by slowing turnover per account), but it also hinders their ability increase turnover (and thus, profit) themselves in the same way.

That said, if you're willing to spend hours playing buy n sell on the RMAH because it grants you some sort of satisfaction seeing your blizzbucks or paypal balance sluggishly increase... why not just get an actual job? You'll be earning more, learning more, possibly actually contributing to society, and you'll still get your warm fuzzies from your balance increasing.

Why do you need hours?
if you look for an item and it's not there, there's not much point waiting for it for hours... we just use the more logical thought ie: figure out what the time is in US, and thus what are the best times to seek item, and when to sell.

similarly, once you put the item for auction, what's the point of waiting around for it? The slot is taken and it's gonna be there till it either runs out or it sold, but if it sold immediately or within short time then you probably under-priced it and could fish for higher price.

either way though, all we did essentially check the AH say before you go to work/uni/whatever... then check again when we go back, takes like a few minutes each time.

[Bane Williams]

I've been tempted to not reply to this because honestly there are a lot of people who have no idea what they are talking about, and I don't want to start a flame war on a site with people I know and love

However:

@joniee I guess I'm kidding myself then. I don't put too much time into Diablo 3 and I make more than any job I've ever had. Oh, did I mention it's fun (to me)?

@purehybrid While I have a character capable of tackling Act 3 Inferno, I generally don't 'farm' it in any way, shape or form. While my Auction slots are full, then I will play - until I get that lovely email telling me something has sold.

@TheBard I love this post, I love knowing that there are people in china making $20 an hour plus playing this game and that that is huge money compared to what they could earn there natively.

@Ralph Like I said, there isn't any farming involved in Arbitrage - it's buying and selling, not just selling. I get that it doesn't seem fun, but people feel the same way about manufacturing and market hunting in EVE, don't they? Some of us just like to play the game differently.

As for profit over time, I could give out details, but I'd need to turn my spreadsheet into a graph

@Bronze_D You're hugely right about it not lasting. The idea however is to make as much profit as I can during this time so that when the gold rush dies down I can gear so well that Inferno is a fricken snap.

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Am7oKBD3PU

@bagwan unfortunately that's what happens when you have an extremely slack company when it comes to dealing with bots. 'Oh we banned BLAH amount of accounts' - that's nice, in the month it took you to get off your fat ****, they made enough money to buy 100 more.

@psychosmiley - while I agree with the sentiment entirely, the truth is that like I mentioned above, when bans aren't instant the moment Warden picks up botting activity, they are never going to stop botting. They are earning so much money they can just make another handful of accounts.

@PureHybrid - Ah, the post that made me reply, after this long winded speech I'm no longer 'epic level rage' at your response. Auction house Arbitrage has never been really hit and miss for me. I have not purchased a single item that hasn't made me profit (though on one occassion I was close).

One of the biggest things is knowing items and equipment that sell and who they might sell to. I do a lot of unconventional builds, that require specialist gear, and I know there are a huge amount of players with a similar situation. So what I do is I profit from that.

Truthfully, Arbitrage will only get harder once that Gold:$$$ part of the RMAH goes live, but even then I expect opportunities for Arbitrage will still exist, at least in the early days, and it will be far easier to turn my $$ into gold, allowing me to have a more steady flow of profit. Not bad either way.

The final part? Sluggishly? Really? This was three hours while I was asleep:



Yeah, real sluggish.

[Capt.no0b]

I've had a go at this and it can work quite well (plenty of experience working the AH in WoW). Made a couple of hundred so far. I think selling more of smaller items seems to work better (for me anyway).

[Bane Williams]

I've had a go at this and it can work quite well (plenty of experience working the AH in WoW). Made a couple of hundred so far. I think selling more of smaller items seems to work better (for me anyway).

There is less inherent risk in smaller items, and they generally sell faster, which are both excellent reasons

[Marius]

I kindof regret going pure hardcore now. But I had fun, and I've got my business to work on to bring the money in. And like this, it's fun.

The biggest thing about this for me is that it's allowing some people to do stuff they find fun and profit for it.

[skitzor]

[ http://i.imgur.com/8Mksv.jpg ]

Yeah, real sluggish.

jealous.

wish I had time to do this, but am in the middle of exams. hopefully there will still be an opportunity to do this in a few weeks (holidays).

[purehybrid]

One of the biggest things is knowing items and equipment that sell and who they might sell to. I do a lot of unconventional builds, that require specialist gear, and I know there are a huge amount of players with a similar situation. So what I do is I profit from that.

Exactly... and that requires constant information gathering.

Truthfully, Arbitrage will only get harder once that Gold:$$$ part of the RMAH goes live, but even then I expect opportunities for Arbitrage will still exist, at least in the early days, and it will be far easier to turn my $$ into gold, allowing me to have a more steady flow of profit. Not bad either way.

Of course, as I said the opportunities will always exist... but more and more people will be fighting for them, increasing the time investment required, and lowering margins.

The final part? Sluggishly? Really? This was three hours while I was asleep:

lol... no it wasn't.... The sales may have come through in your sleep, but don't kid yourself, those sales were the result of many many hours of play and research.

If you enjoy it, fine... but people are approaching this with an eye to make money "playing the game"... In most cases, they aren't able to do that. In fact, from what I've seen, a lot of people are forcing themselves to do things they aren't really enjoying (whether it is farming, or game knowledge research for arbitrage or whatever), because of this whole game->$ frenzy. I've been converting my gaming hours into real money for years, with and without the developer's blessings, so none of this is new to me...

[TheBard]

So I have to spell it out now?
There is only ONE winner here and that is Blizzard. After watching all the money that some people made from D1&2 selling well Pixels that they made lol they thought "holy ****" how do we tap into this and still allow people to make money to keep them making a transaction BUT this time we WILL get a cut of EACH and EVERY One.

I GIVE you the D3 winner!

[Bronze_D]

i don't think there's anyone that doesn't realize that from the VERY first day it was announced months ago before the game was released when we get the detail of just how much Blizzard will tap into the flow.

[skitzor]

There is only ONE winner here and that is Blizzard.

no. you are wrong. simply and plainly. you are wrong.

it takes a great level of ignorance to say **** like this, and I'm sick of seeing it.

it's like saying medicine companies are the only winner when it comes to making vaccines. yes, they make money, but the people win as well.