Originally Posted by Thrasher
Not surprising. They wanted to profit from the auction house. Greed got in the way of good game design.

*sigh* not this foolish nonsense again. I'll agree they messed up itemization, but the conspiracy theory that they messed it up intentionally to rake in those tens of thousands of dollars!!! is laughable.

Blizzard is a big company. D3 made buttloads of money from straight up sales. The revenue to them from the AH is a drop in the ocean and was never going to be anything more than that. Not even the craziest of loons would have thought any differently before release.