i consider myself a "gamer-at-heart" altho im far from being a pro gamer etc so i try my best to stay away from involving $$ in any games i play (apart from the initial investment of buying the game itself) but hey to each their own right
i hv on few occassion almost succumbed to the temptation of buying gold from 3rd party knowing that i can get it cheap & can easily make back the money i used to buy gold by flipping GAH > RMAH like most of flippers do but as ive said in above statement, it defeats the real purpose of me playing the game not to mention its against Blizzard's ToS so its the same as cheating using a bot
There's no harm @ wrong on making some side income while u play but if the making $ overshadow the gaming experience itself (indirectly affects other true gamers who grind n save gold just to try buy good gear only to be sniped last minute by some flippers .. i truly understand the frustration) might as well spend the time & knowledge of buy low sell high in a more profitable environment eg forex trading etc
Lately theres been a lot of talk about few pro d3 players (kripp .. alkaizer cough cough) b****ing about how the game is doomed bla bla bla .. they rushed to get to end (para 100) equip their toons with BiS gears (which im sure with some help of $ one way or another) and now they're left with nothing to do i keep hearing ppl saying D3 is dying etc etc from months back YET each time blizz comes out with new patch they come back in droves n start QQing again IF indeed the game is dying i wouldnt be seeing 10k players just on PTR & so many more on live server .. to those player who still enjoy grinding to get their own gear upgrades & patient enuff to wait for whatever future upgrades/patch Blizz hv in store, they will always be here .. maybe those who say the game is dying r those who used to make $xxxx per month from RMAH but now only able to make a fraction of that
in short a game lifespan is not determined by how much money u can put into it @ how much money u can get out of it BUT how u enjoy playing it over n over again .. just my 2 cents

This post has been edited by Gecko: Apr 11 2013, 02:02 PM

my earlier post wasnt an attempt to belittle @ making remarks at anybody who enjoy making money from D3
its just my POV from a fan/player of diablo series since its inception
even JW himself admitted that AH hv somewhat "corrupted" the diablo gaming experience .. i am sure from the beginning he didnt intended it to turn out this way
However its is not too late for blizz to do sumthin about it .. and for us players to give feedback/constructive criticism on how to overcome this
Lets us see the root of the problem here:
imo RMAH is never intended to be a place for players to make money by buying stuffs in GAH then resell it in RMAH .. thats why blizz hv that 15% tax (apart from they also wanna make money haha) BUT with the availability to buy cheap gold (mostly gathered thru unlawful ways against the ToS ie mas botting) .. flipping from GAH to RMAH bcomes a viable n profitable option for many players .. some may do it for pure profit & some might argue this is the only way they can afford to get BiS upgrades for their toons
A solution? I wish blizz can somehow implement a unique tag on any items sold on GAH & RMAH seperately so that any item that has been traded on GAH cannot be resold on RMAH n vice versa. So a player find a good gear he doesnt want to use & wants to sell .. he must decide either to sell it for gold in GAH to get gold to fund his own upgrades @ sell it for $ in RMAH for profit. This will also lessen demand for 3rd party gold bcos eventually the demand for gold will go down since its not viable anymore to flip across AHs. Its like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Sure there will always be flipper trying to flip in each AHs @ botters who bot to get fast gold but at least it wont be so rampant & damaging as it is now. Hopefully in the end players who put in time to grind will finally be able to afford/buy some good/decent upgrades at a reasonable price.



and what concrete proof u have to back this up?

This post has been edited by Gecko: Apr 11 2013, 02:48 PM