Queen’s University School of Computing professor Nick Graham is available to talk about the May 15 release of Diablo 3 from Blizzard entertainment. The video game giant has added a controversial real money auction house to the game, allowing players to sell items they have won in-game to other players for real money. Blizzard takes a cut from each transaction.

“Game developers have been aggressively experimenting with new types of revenue models for games, including the ability to buy extensions to the game following release and the ability to buy items enhancing gameplay,” says Dr. Graham. “Players of games increasingly are expressing anger over a sense of being nickeled and dimed, where after paying full price for a game, they must pay more to be competitive. Blizzard might be accused of balancing the game such that real-world purchases are necessary to be able to complete the game.

“Also, now that game items have a real world value, it raises the question of the degree to which Blizzard Entertainment might be liable for loss of items due to software bugs or the loss of value of items due to rebalancing of the game through software patches.”

Please note Dr. Graham is in Texas and only available for phone interviews.

To arrange an interview, please contact communication officers Anne Craig at 613-533-2877 or anne.craig@queensu.ca at Queen’s University News and Media Services Department in Kingston, Ont., Canada.
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