Blizzard has temporarily disabled the Diablo III auction house after the game's recent 1.0.8 patch triggered an exploit which saw some users disrupting the game's economy by generating trillions of gold.

　　"After the release of Patch 1.0.8 this morning," said Blizzard on its forums, "we found that some players were exploiting a bug that enabled them to duplicate gold through the Auction House. We're working on fixing the bug right now, and bringing the Auction Houses offline helps us troubleshoot in a more stable environment while preventing further exploiting."

　　A post on the Battle.net forums claims that one Diablo III player has amassed 371 trillion gold using the exploit.

　　NeoGAF user fastford58 provided an overview of the problem, saying that crafty users exploited the relationship between Diablo III's gold and real-money auction houses to rack up huge sums of in-game currency.

　　"It started with the new patch today. Blizzard dropped the gold floor from .25 cents a mil to .25 cents per 10 mil. Enterprising players then bought gems for real money and converted them to gold. People were making billions on this. But then! A gold dupe has just been discovered with some streamers duping TRILLIONS in gold by playing around with the 2 auction houses."

　　Many users on Battle.net have taken to the Battle.net forums to request that Blizzard rollback their servers to before the patch was launched, which would restore all characters to their pre-patch state and wipe away the economic disruption caused by the gold exploit.

　　Blizzard, however, says a rollback is not necessary. "We feel that this is the best course of action given the nature of the dupe, how relatively few players used it, and the fact that its effects were fairly limited within the region. We've been able to successfully identify players who duplicated gold by using this specific bug, and are focusing on these accounts to make corrections. While this is a time-consuming and very detailed process, we believe it's the most appropriate choice given the circumstances."

　　Patch 1.0.8 for Diablo III was announced in April, and was primarily designed to enhance the cooperative multiplayer aspects of the game. Blizzard says over one million people play Diablo III every day.

　　Diablo III's decision to incorporate an auction house has remained controversial throughout the game's lifespan. Speaking at GDC in March, former game director Jay Wilson said the auction house had negatively impacted the game.

　　The upcoming PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions of Diablo III will not feature a real-money auction house.

　　You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

　　Click To Unmute

　　Diablo III - Lore

　　How Alan Wake II Made Me Face My Fear of Horror Games

　　GameSpot's Top 10 Games of 2023Thompson: The Pop Culture Icon’s Strange Legacy - LoadoutFirearms Expert’s FAVORITE Weapons Of 2023State Of Gaming Handhelds In 2023How Lies of P Cracked the Souls GenreLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Ichiban Kasuga Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Saeko Mukoda Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Chitose Fujinomiya Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Eric Tomizawa Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Kazuma Kiryu Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Yu Nanba Character Spotlight Trailer

　　Share

　　LinkEmbed

　　Size:640 × 360480 × 270

　　Start at: End at: Autoplay Loop

　　Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?

　　Sign up or Sign in now!

　　Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

　　This video has an invalid file format.

　　00:00:00

　　HTML5

　　Auto HD High Low

　　Report a problem

　　Sorry, but you can't access this content!

Please enter your date of birth to view this video

　　By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's

　　Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

　　enter