Blizzard have announced that they have just closed down the Diablo 3 Auction House due to a game breaking exploit that appeared following the 1.08 patch. The patch went live on Tuesday but it took eagle eyed players only a few hours to discover an exploit, one so bad that is has almost totally destroyed the in-game economy.
According to an official post on Battle-net many players have Runescape Powerleveling earned billions of gold with one individual managing to collect over 300 trillion gold. The exploit was first discovered on Twitch as an individual streamed the exploit and gave thousands the tools they needed to totally destroy the economy. Yet another hole in the sinking ship that is Diablo 3.
Blizzard revealed that a Diablo III exploit all but destroyed the economy after the latest patch. It gave players the opportunity to earn millions of gold and basically exploit the economy to make tons of real cash. The unique auction house in Diablo III allows players to sell in-game items for cash and other items, meaning the players that abused the exploit could easily turn a huge profit from doing so.
Blizzard have announced that all of the proceeds and revenue from the exploit, that has now been fixed, will be donated to charity; instead of the highly feared rollback of servers. 415 players were found to be exploiting and all will be removed before the donations are made.