"Right now with the state it's in D2R ladder items, it's an essentially unplayable product" John Walker wrote John Walker for RPS. "A single-player game that doesn't pause, and if you abandon it in play, it will prompt you out and then stop all progress. "

However, Blizzard maintained its position and the launch disaster was ultimately a rebuke. The frustration was further aggravated by the always-online requirement seemed to be tied to a different online function, one that was the most crucial to the game's problems during its early days. 

Blizzard had a problem. In previous Diablo games, this ability trading items had created the possibility of a black market for loot. Players hungry for the best equipment were willing to spend money, but it also left the doors open to unscrupulous third-parties and price-gouging. Blizzard recognized the dangers of an unregulated, non-official marketplace for Diablo items, and decided it could better by establishing a legitimate, controlled one. 

"The auction house was created out of the desire to legitimize the third party trading market to ensure that traders stay playing to carry out their trading , not go to third party websites, and , as a result, lessen fraud, scams, spamming, and the potential profit from hacking the game, making dupes or dupes buy diablo 2 resurrected items." former game director Jay Wilson said in an interview with DiabloII. net after leaving the company.