Summary: The forty-second episode of The Diablo Podcast covers the Diablo III economy from a financial, analytical, commodities broker-type perspective. Azzure, our new site chief economist, is heading up a new site for IncGamers, one that will cover the Diablo III economy and Auction House. Topics include the purpose and function of our new Diablo 3 Markets & Economy site, which Azzure and his economics degree will be heading up for IncGamers. We also discuss how Real Money Trading will work, and as Azzure explains, it doesn't matter if players want to use it or not, since the gold and money economies are linked, like any two currencies in a forex. Even if you refuse to use money, other players will just convert money to gold (or vice versa) and buy or sell on either type of auction house. Those are the people who will make the real profits with the Auction House, buying low and selling high like commodities traders, and making a nickle on 500 sales a day. And they will laugh at even the mightiest item finder's "Windforce a week" profits. Other economy issues covered in this podcast include gold sinks, gold as a viable currency, barter, the huge differences between WoW's and D3's economy (no one trades for items in WoW since everything worth using binds), character sales, botting in Diablo III (should be much harder to do than in WoW or D2), tools for players to track economy movement over time, and much more. The Diablo Podcast Episode Guide in the wiki provides easy navigation with a short summary of every show. Listen and subscribe through iTunes. View video versions of all The Diablo Podcasts on You Tube, via our all-encompassing Diablo3Inc channel.
