The real-money auction house is now available in Europe! With the real-money auction house, players will be able to buy and sell the loot they find in the game using actual currency from approved third-party payment services or using their Battle.net Balance.
Please keep in mind that players will only have access to the real-money auction house while playing in their home region. That means that, for characters created outside of your home region, items cannot be bought or sold in any real-money auction house.
To access the real-money auction house, click on the “Auction House” button on the left-hand side of character campaign screen and then on the button in the upper right-hand corner of the auction house interface. This will switch you between the gold- and real-money auction house.
Before you get started, here are a few important things to keep in mind:
Regional Auction Houses and Global Play
Players will only have access to the real-money auction house while playing in their home game region (Americas or Europe only), and characters created outside of your home region will not be able to buy, sell, or use items from any real-money auction house. Your home game region, along with which real-money auction houses you have access to, are determined by the country of residence registered to your Battle.net® account. By default, Battle.net will automatically determine the most appropriate real-money auction house for you, but players in some regions may be able to access auction houses for additional currencies in their region via the in-games Options menu. Additionally, in Europe and Russia the real-money auction house is only available for those aged 18 and above.
Account Security Requirements
We also wanted to remind you of a few important security measures you'll be required to use in order to access certain real-money auction house features:
- Players who wish to use Battle.net Balance to buy and sell items will need to attach a physical Battle.net Authenticator or Battle.net Mobile Authenticator app to their Battle.net account. Specifically, an Authenticator is required in order to charge up your Battle.net Balance through Battle.net account management or to select Battle.net Balance as the destination for your auction proceeds.
- Those who wish to use PayPal™ (available in certain regions) to buy items or receive the proceeds of their auctions will need to sign up for our Battle.net SMS Protect service. With Battle.net SMS Protect, you'll occasionally receive a text message on your mobile phone when making PayPal-related transactions; this message contains a code that you must then enter to proceed with your transaction.
Even if you don't plan on using the real-money auction house, we encourage everyone to consider adding these extra layers of protection to their Battle.net account.
Commodities
The real-money auction house will initially launch with equipment trading only (i.e., weapons, armor, and other such gear) -- we'll bring commodities online as soon as possible. As mentioned earlier, we want to make sure that commodity trading remains quick, stable, and reliable. The team is hard at work on this, and we’ll provide another update once commodities are ready.
Item Delivery and "Processing" Purchases
Occasionally, players may have to wait for a period of time before an item or any commodities they purchased in the real-money auction house arrives in their "Completed" tab. While we expect a majority of real-money auction house purchases to be delivered to buyers immediately, in some circumstances, we will need to hold items for delivery while we conduct a review of the transaction. Held items will show as “Processing” until the review is complete.
To learn more about the auction house system (including how to select your currency), check out the comprehensive Auction House Guide and Auction House FAQ.