Diablo III Auction House Closes its Virtual Doors

Blizzard has finally made good on its plans to shut down the controversial Diablo III auction house system, following an announcement by the company of their intent to remove the content six months ago.

In the orignal post on the on the Diablo III blog back in September, the company cited its main reason for pulling the auction house system (which is also a prevalent part of Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMO) as concerns that it "ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot." This, combined with the new Loot 2.0 system rolling out with Diablo III: Reaper of Souls next week, led to Blizzard's decision to pull the service, despite acknowledging that most players were using the auction house as intended.

While the auction house is still up and running for the moment, users can no longer bid, buyout or list new auctions, and must claim items from their Completed tab by March 24. Current auctions will continue to run until the end of their allotted time.