15% fee is outrageous, need 3rd party websites suggestions ! der=0

[psyadam]

I would think one could just use ebay unless ebay has banned it.

I just checked ebay. Someone is selling 20jahs and 20bers for 5$. I didn't realize that you could get that for 5$... but anyways, it looks to me that there should be no problem using ebay to sell d3 items. I might even do that myself rather than using RMAH.

edit: I would suspect there would be tons of stuff that would go for more than 20$. But why not just everyone use ebay to avoid paying fees for everything? That would make Blizzard upset, I'm sure. Even if ebay decided to ban selling online items, unless somehow Blizzard could force you to use their service for buying and selling items (which seems unlikely), it seems to me that some entrepreneur would likely create a website similar to ebay just for selling d3 items. I hope that happens anyway and that the site is good. 15% is outrageous, I agree. Where does Blizzard say the fee for using RMAH is 15%?

Legally, Blizzard could state in it's EULA that you could only use their service to sell items, but I doubt that would stand up in court. But, I don't know that much about the law, maybe it would. Its possible that since Diablo 3 isn't an essential service (i.e. one does not need to play diablo 3 to survive, although that point is debatable), and since Blizzard can claim ownership of all online content, Blizzard could argue it can charge any %fee it wants and then force you via it's EULA to only use their online service. That would be very crappy and I would hope the courts would rule against Blizzard in that case.

[psyadam]

I wish I knew Java, or I might create a 3rd party website myself. I wouldn't think a website for selling and buying d3 items would be all that difficult to make. Of course, any entrepreneur making such a website would almost certainly need to have a lawyer ready to face Blizzard's lawyers.

[Raesene]

The buyer doesn't care how much of a cut the seller is getting from the sale. They are going to want to get the greatest value from their purchase. If an item is equally priced on the RMAH and on a third-party site, the buyer is going to choose the RMAH version for the convenience and the added security of the transaction.

To sell an item on the third-party site, you will have to price it below what you would get on the RMAH. The value you can get away with might be in-between that 15% difference or it might not.

[psyadam]

The buyer doesn't care how much of a cut the seller is getting from the sale. They are going to want to get the greatest value from their purchase. If an item is equally priced on the RMAH and on a third-party site, the buyer is going to choose the RMAH version for the convenience and the added security of the transaction.

To sell an item on the third-party site, you will have to price it below what you would get on the RMAH. The value you can get away with might be in-between that 15% difference or it might not.

Good point Raesene. The more I think about all the different problems with not using RMAH the more 15% seems not so bad. For items that are 100$ or less anyway. Any items that would sell for $1000 or more I would think you'd want to sell somewhere else, but I'm not sure how many items like that (if any) there would be. It's hard to say, but I do predict records to be broken for how much online items would be selling for, so I would think there would be some things that would go for $1000 or more, but it's hard to say whether there would be a lot of items like that or not (and I'm not even sure what I mean by "a lot").

edit: Even if you did find an item that was worth $200 or more and used RMAH to sell your item, you're still doing pretty good, considering that the game itself only costs 60$. Now that I think about it, it seems more likely that the higher the price the more the buyer would want to use RMAH so he wouldn't get scammed.

[beingmused]

They need to have *something* to stop the flood of TROLLLOLOLOLOLOL postings. As it stands without a listing fee, there will now always be a huge number of grey items posted for tens of thousands of dollars.

[psyadam]

I'm sure if that became a problem they would do something about it.

[Apocalypse]

is the 15% fee just for the transaction fee or does it cover everything? if it covers everything i see no problem with it at all. actually i dont think 15% is bad either way

[psyadam]

I thought it was bad until I started thinking about it. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than "$1.25 flat fee." which was Blizzard's first idea. At least if you're Blizzard.

[Apocalypse]

they are providing a service and should be paid for that service. the flat fee would have ensured no items ever sold for less than that, now you are losing 15% of the sale meaning you are still going to profit 85%. thing is, the item you are selling was free so everything you get is pure profit

[Namik]

I just checked ebay. Someone is selling 20jahs and 20bers for 5$. I didn't realize that you could get that for 5$... but anyways, it looks to me that there should be no problem using ebay to sell d3 items. I might even do that myself rather than using RMAH.

I don't think you should compere Diablo 2 item prices with Diablo 3. For once, it's an almost 12 years old game. Second thing is dupes. After a month of new ladder season there is as much HR's, SoJ's, etc., as it should be reached after 4 years of farming and botting. Market is just overflow with items and obviously prices will be very low.
If Blizzard manage to completely block dupes (and they should, in WoW there is no such thing as "duplicated items") and Inferno will be very hard to farm then "uber perfect end-game" items will be extremely rare on RMAH. And such prices can be very high. Especially for few months after release.