One of the stigmas of the free to play model that has become increasingly popular in the gaming community, is the ability to buy your way into a game and move past all of the players, regardless of your personal skill and your ability to play the game well. that is, if you are willing to spend more money than the next guy, you will likely be much stronger than him and defeat him in duels and other important goals in the game. When players are able to do this, it is demoralizing, and players that do not have the same amount of disposable income can feel alienated and have a far worse experience. For example, when a cheater enters a server full of players trying to play fair; regardless of the player’s skill, the cheater has a huge advantage and is more than likely going to empty out the server of hopeful gamers.
Blizzard has said in interviews cited in PC Gamer and other magazines that the auction house will allow for real currency to purchase items. This is a two-way street, as gamers can actually withdraw money from the game and make a profit off of their Diablo 3 efforts. This is an exciting concept, but the fact of the matter is that for most people playing the game, the interest in Diablo 3 is not as a commercial prospect and a profit turning business, but as a way to enjoy a game that we have all looked forward to for so long.
Additionally, if there is an incentive for people to commercialize the game, there will be a huge amount of “farmers” or people who play Diablo 3 exclusively to “Farm” items and flip them on the auction house for some real money, turning an entertaining game into a job. The idea would be to hire as many people as possible to work for this “Farming” company and sell as many products as possible. The products will be sold on the auction houses that legitimate players list their products on. What can eventually happen, as did in other popular MMO’s such as World of Warcraft, is players will be spammed with item offers and the auction houses will be flooded with far too much inventory on items, causing economic problems in the game for those trying to play legitimately.
