Blizzard has announced that Diablo III’s auction house will be shut down on March 18, 2014. In a blog post on Diablo’s official site, Blizzard’s John Hight explained that the auction house “undermines” the core gameplay of Diablo III and doesn’t fit with the changes headed to the game in the upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion.

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“When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades,” Hight wrote. “But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.”“We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players,” he continued. “We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.”Along with game director Josh Mosqueira, Hight released the following video explaining the decision to shut down the auction house:Blizzard first unveiled the auction house back in 2011 leading up to Diablo III’s launch last year. Former game director Jay Wilson later called the auction house “ the wrong solution ” in March, and in May a gold exploit caused the auction house to be temporarily shut down.Blizzard announced Diablo III’s first expansion, Reaper of Souls, at Gamescom last month . For much more on the changes Diablo fans can expect, read our interview with Mosqueira and art director Christian Lichtner

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.