The real-money auction house is about to open up in Diablo III. This is great news for gamers with heavy pockets (or those who found the rarest of the rare and are looking to make a quick buck) but with hackers farming gold and using bots to advance in the game, there's no telling whether or not the real-money auction house will be safe for users to place their bids down on. Blizzard recently announced and began steps to ensure that the auction house, and the rest of the game for that matter, remains cheat-free.

"If a Diablo III player is found to be cheating or using hacks, bots, or modifications in any form, then as outlined in the Diablo III end user license agreement, that player can be permanently banned fomr the game. This means that the player will be permanently unable to log in to Battle.net to play Diablo III with his or her account." Blizzard warned earlier this week.

The developer has now begun to take action regarding that threat. According to a post on the Battle.net forums by community manager Zarhym, "[Blizzard] recently issued a round of account suspensions and bans to several thousand Diablo III players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using botting or hacking programs while playing." Ladies and gentlemen, the Banhammer has fallen. Who it will strike next, nobody except Blizzard knows, so cheaters and miscreants beware.