Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House - Will It Be Worth Your Time and Effort?

[Enlil]

There are a number of conditions that one must have before decide what to do about this.

If you can match the following conditions,

-time to play (40-50 hours / week);
-years of experience in trading in-game (multiple games prefered, not only one, let's say WoW);
-patience to do research (might eat up 1-2 hours / day);
-strong understanding of real life economics;
-at least 5-6 Diablo 3 accounts;
-the capacity to "feel" the market,

you will make money in RMAH...but not much more than like 2,000-3,000 $ / month.

Also, keep in mind that those 2,000-3,000 $ / month might be possible for only 12 to 18 months.Then what?

However, if you miss only ONE of the conditions above...even if you have all the others, DO NOT quit your day job.

40 - 50 hours a week ROFL

More like 100 hours a week

D3 will be the first blizzard game with real money involved. You can be sure blizzards next mmo titan will have a RMAH if D3 makes them money. So the pro D3 players will always have the next game to move onto when prices are really low maybe 5 years from now, but Expansions will keep value to the game so prices should never drop so low that playing the game for a living is no longer viable.

[semakka]

40 - 50 hours a week ROFL

More like 100 hours a week

100 hours / week for a farmer with 1 account.But this would not be enough to quit a day job.

However, 40-50 hours AND the rest of the conditions i said, will make worth quiting a job.

A pro farmer, in ANY game, will NEVER make more than a pro trader.This is because the farmer only have the TIME while lacking the BRAINS or PATIENCE.
The pro trader utterly destroy any farmer.

So, 100 hours / week ? Yep, if one is a moron and is happy with 300 $ / month.

[semakka]

Also, 100 hours / week is like 14 hours / day.To be able, physicaly, to do this, one needs to eat + pee + **** (1 hour at least).
In 2 weeks, following the above, the farmer will spend MORE money in hospital than what he made in game.

Anything less than a BOT will not worth.

A SAFE period or time playing games without sending one into emergency room is 5-6 hours / day.TOP.That if he eants to be able to play for 3-4 months, before having health issues.

[Enlil]

100 hours / week for a farmer with 1 account.But this would not be enough to quit a day job.

However, 40-50 hours AND the rest of the conditions i said, will make worth quiting a job.

A pro farmer, in ANY game, will NEVER make more than a pro trader.This is because the farmer only have the TIME while lacking the BRAINS or PATIENCE.
The pro trader utterly destroy any farmer.

So, 100 hours / week ? Yep, if one is a moron and is happy with 300 $ / month.

Of course not with 1 account, perhaps 2/3 maybe 4. All depends on how fast stuff sells, with millions of people in the market I think your auction slots will free themselves up within a few hours, should be able to sell quite a bit with your 10 slots on each account, not forgeting the GAH slots which are very useful for stuff you don't want cash for then sell that gold.

100 hours a week will give you the most items/commities "far more than 40-50 hrs" and the work/income is solid.
The trader has to make risky investments which don't always go to plan, so they take losses where the farmer does not, only thing that can effect the farmer is unlucky days with bad drops. Edit: After reading your last post I should add "risk of death" lol

Without the farmer/player the trader has nothing to trade, they both need each other to survive.

[Enlil]

Also, 100 hours / week is like 14 hours / day.To be able, physicaly, to do this, one needs to eat + pee + **** (1 hour at least).
In 2 weeks, following the above, the farmer will spend MORE money in hospital than what he made in game.

Anything less than a BOT will not worth.

A SAFE period or time playing games without sending one into emergency room is 5-6 hours / day.TOP.That if he eants to be able to play for 3-4 months, before having health issues.

LOL Death or make a living from the game it is then xD
That argument is rubbish ! What about pro Starcraft players like Idra, these guys practice 10 - 12 hour a day everyday. You don't see them dropping down dead or in hospital all the time.

[semakka]

Even with 2-3 accounts, the day is STILL 24 hours.The only thing easier will be more listing slots.

The point is, that a farmer cannot make more than a trader.Or, to better put, the BEST farmer is dwarfed by the BEST trader.Well, at least that is happening on a number of games i play, like EvE online (best traders make billions / day, best farmers a measly 400 mil), like WoW (on my server, if i play the AH 8 hours, i make 40k / day, the best farmer can only HOPE to make 2k/hour, so 20k / day, farming 10 hours), like RoM (here the traders make 20 times more than farmers).

The thing is and will be the same : a FARMER is stupid.The farmer cannot understand how a trader can make 4-5 times more than him, and he does what he understands : kill skelies and pick gold.Rest is rocket-science for him.

If Diablo 3 will prove to go the WoW way (lots of farmers that play 10 hours / day, supplying the smart trader) i am going to buy a new car and a new home in 12 months.

[Enlil]

Even with 2-3 accounts, the day is STILL 24 hours.The only thing easier will be more listing slots.

The point is, that a farmer cannot make more than a trader.Or, to better put, the BEST farmer is dwarfed by the BEST trader.Well, at least that is happening on a number of games i play, like EvE online (best traders make billions / day, best farmers a measly 400 mil), like WoW (on my server, if i play the AH 8 hours, i make 40k / day, the best farmer can only HOPE to make 2k/hour, so 20k / day, farming 10 hours), like RoM (here the traders make 20 times more than farmers).

The thing is and will be the same : a FARMER is stupid.The farmer cannot understand how a trader can make 4-5 times more than him, and he does what he understands : kill skelies and pick gold.Rest is rocket-science for him.

If Diablo 3 will prove to go the WoW way (lots of farmers that play 10 hours / day, supplying the smart trader) i am going to buy a new car and a new home in 12 months.

Well if the trader is so smart that all his investments pay off, he should make more money.
But its a fact of market traders that they can't make profits on there investments all the time, some times there are big losses as with any gambler. Major investment banks lose a fortune a year in bad trades/deals, money which could of been profit.

If trading was a cut and dry as you say you'd never see banks or investment compaines going bust over debts and bad deals, there are plenty as I'm sure you know. Trading and investments is a gamble you make the wrong choices and the outcome can be very expensive and goodbye to the traders huge profits.

[jwfcp]

yes, you should be observant for items listed well under the value they are worth. no, you should not identify yourself as a "trader" and do nothing but spin in station. the market is simply too big to corner.

eve has a modest fee, diablo 3 has a crippling 15% behemoth of a fee.

eve has people running through a gauntlet of pirates to get to market, itching to unload their stuff for whatever someone is buying for and just get back out while the coast is still clear, in d3 there are no buy options, you cant lay out a million gold with instructions to buy up the first 20k essences some rube is willing to let go for 50g when you know very well people are buying for twice that.

you also have a max of TEN sale slots to work with. what you list friday night might still be up sunday afternoon if your eyes are bigger than your stomach, wasting your whole weekend. spend time to farm an item worth a million gold, list it, the whole profit is yours. find an item worth a million gold, listed for 600k, you just tied up that precious, precious sale slot for way less than half the profit you might have gotten by just playing the game. and how often will you look at the whole auction house and see nothing worth pursuing? never mind that the ah just devoured 240k gold in fees, assuming your valuation was correct in the first place. steals are not gonna happen alot with the whole world scrounging just like you. I strongly, strongly suggest people not invest real life money thinking they can "flip" items like houses, we all know how that turned out (housing boom).

also, eve has destructible items, causing a constant demand, in d3 people will get it and stop needing it.

there will be teams that can handle inferno, they will rule the ah and everyone else will throw money at them for their scraps. this will be a very, very farmer centric game.

[FizzyBubbly]

Well if the trader is so smart that all his investments pay off, he should make more money.
But its a fact of market traders that they can't make profits on there investments all the time, some times there are big losses as with any gambler. Major investment banks lose a fortune a year in bad trades/deals, money which could of been profit.

If trading was a cut and dry as you say you'd never see banks or investment compaines going bust over debts and bad deals, there are plenty as I'm sure you know. Trading and investments is a gamble you make the wrong choices and the outcome can be very expensive and goodbye to the traders huge profits.

Trading in these games is no where near the complexity of trading for an investment bank or even operating as a personal broker. 90% of the tools an equities trader has access to does not exist in game: such as leverage, options, orders, derivatives, dividends, warrants, private placements, preferred shares just to name a few. Yes some trades lose money at times yet successful traders obviously make higher percentages on their wins then on their losses.

Farmers are restricted to a static hourly rate, Traders take use a means that requires more risk therefore leading to greater profit potential.

So lets edit Semakka's statement to read as such:

A traders profit potential over time is greater then a farmers.

[Enlil]

Trading in these games is no where near the complexity of trading for an investment bank or even operating as a personal broker. 90% of the tools an equities trader has access to does not exist in game: such as leverage, options, orders, derivatives, dividends, warrants, private placements, preferred shares just to name a few. Yes some trades lose money at times yet successful traders obviously make higher percentages on their wins then on their losses.

Farmers are restricted to a static hourly rate, Traders take use a means that requires more risk therefore leading to greater profit potential.

So lets edit Semakka's statement to read as such:

A traders profit potential over time is greater then a farmers.

Potential, yes I agree.
But the you to take into acount the one thing that all traders and investors suffer from "GREED" its only a matter of time if the trader is making big profits, he starts to get greedy thinking that he can't lose. One fatal mistake and the market will bite him in the ar*se.

More risk doesn't always mean greater profit potential, things can go very bad for the risky investor.

Lets use a real D3 example.
A real money investor buys up $500 worth of gems. His charts show a steady fall in the price over the past month so he makes the choice to buy. There is still a good chance the price will continue to fall. Its risky business and those traders who do make huge profits will only do so by putting up there own real money. If someone has the balls put up there own money "like the big boys on the real market do" and win, more power to them.

I'd rather have a stress and worry free life as a farmer making steady money, rather than trying to make a fortune with huge risks involved and possibly big losses.