250 Million Bankroll

It didn't take me long to move my bankroll up from 100-130 million to 250 million.  Many of the markets that I'm currently playing allow me to buy items for between 1 and 5 million gold and sell them for 10-20 million gold.  Generally, I sell about 10 items a day at this rate.  I'm still logging in every morning for a few minutes, checking my listings, re-listing any items that expire and listing new items that I've won from bidding.  I also invest my entire bankroll in bids every time I log in.

Having a bankroll of a quarter million gold has allowed me to consistently buy enough items to have a full 10 slots of items up on the RMAH.  Making money in Diablo 3 is not a get rich quick scheme, it's a marathon of making a little bit here and there and adapting to find new markets to squeeze out margins.  I'm still making between $5 and $10 every day with about an hour of total work (half hour in the morning and half hour at night).

I'll continue to work with this bankroll for a little while and continue to pull some extra cash out of this game. I plan on slowly experimenting with the higher end markets, many of which are discussed in Markco's Gold Forum and his Gold Guide.  Instead of investing in items with 1-5 million, I'm starting to set up to buying items between 10-20 million gold and selling them for 20-35 million.  They move slower, but the profit margins are better.

For those of you grinding out there, keep it up.  This concept seems to be working for Blizzard and I expect that other games will come out that will have similar real money auction house set ups, based on the model that Diablo 3 is providing.  Just image, if there were 10 games out there like this with real markets and you were making $5 to $10 per day on each, you'd be pulling in $50 to $100 per day by selling virtual goods.  

Who'dathunk - pixel traders as a profession.

$5 Per Day - Looking to Move Up

For the last couple weeks, I have been steadily making about $5 a day by buying items on the Gold Auction House and selling them on the Real Money Auction House in Diablo 3.  I've been able to steadily make enough gold by flipping items on the GAH to keep my gold balance around 100 million gold and using any excess gold to buy items that I know will sell for real money.  Usually after I log in and go through all of my auctions that have closed, my balance looks a bit like this...

If I'm below 100 million, I invest whatever gold I have into bids or items that I can flip for a profit.  If I'm above 100 million, I look for an item to buy and put up on the RMAH.  

What I want to do this weekend and for the next few days, is build up my gold balance to around a quarter million so that I can invest in more bids and items, especially now that I'm learning about some of the higher end markets in Diablo 3.  The key to making money in Diablo 3 is knowing what sells, and right now higher ticket items are the way to go.

It will most likely take me a few days/turns to reach my goal of 250 million gold and I will miss out on a few days worth of RMAH sales, but I believe that it will be worth it.  My plan is to move up from making $5 a day to making $10 a day with this investment in capital.

Also, if you are interested in participating in my dueling tournaments (when PVP FINALLY hits), sign up for my newsletter and I'll make sure to get you an update on how to participate.

Cheers,

PBody5205

100 Million Gold

For those of you who have been following my blog, you'll notice that I have never had a huge amount of gold to play around with.  All of the markets that I have been playing are very low end, which can result in some insanely high profit margins but the overall net gain of a transaction is mere pennies compared to what some Diablo 3 RMAH traders are doing.

Last week, I hit a milestone that I was pretty proud of...100,000,000 gold!  If you think about it, 100 million gold is only worth $25 in real money at the current rate of $0.25 / 1,000,000.  It's not a lot, but considering that using that 100 million gold I have cashed out around $75 dollars in a week and still have a running balance of between 80 million and 100 million gold every time I log in to the game, that 100 million gold is valuable capital for my Diablo 3 business.

It's also nice to know that I've never invested any cash into Diablo 3, other than the initial purchase of the game and purchasing guides from Diablo 3 Gold Secrets and Gimmic Gaming, and built up my bankroll from scratch.

When you have a "bankroll" to work with on the gold auction house in Diablo 3, there is really no reason to leave a balance sitting in your account.  Make your money work for you by investing it each time you log in.  I make most of my money by bidding on items and then listing them for a higher buy out.  Each time I log in, I find items to bid on with whatever gold balance that I have on my account.  Because I log in before work and before going to bed, while I'm not logged in to the game my auctions are selling and my bids are buying the items that I will re-list later.

It's a bit depressing seeing a balance of just over 1,000 gold after having 3 more digits just a few minutes prior, but I know that all of the gold that I used to bid on items is worth more than the 100,000,000 that I had before I bid on those items.

Keep grinding away while we wait for patch 1.0.7!  If you would like to receive an e-mail update about my upcoming dueling leagues/tournaments, sign up for my e-mail list under the big red arrow.

Cheers,

PBody

Selling Weapons on the RMAH in Diablo 3

In the last couple weeks I've been playing Diablo nearly every day and learning as much as I can about the current markets and how to make money playing Diablo 3.  While I am still focusing on growing my account and its value by investing into my Barbarian, I am starting to take some of the profits that I am making from the auction houses and cashing out to my Paypal balance.  If things keep going the way they have been, I should clear about $200 in January while continuing to grow my gold balance.

I am going to share with you a few of the markets where I have found the most success in the last few weeks.  There are so many markets on both the GAH and RMAH in Diablo 3 that it is very simple to play around and find something that works for you.  Since I know the Barbarian class very well, I focus mainly on gear that I would buy for my character.  This strategy allows me to quickly evaluate an item and determine if I think it will turn over quickly and takes out a lot of guess work if I was playing markets for Witch Doctors or Wizards.

Most of the RMAH sales that I have had in the last few weeks have been weapons for Barbarians.  Here are a few screen shots of my transactions (note that I will sometimes send the funds to my Battle.net account and sometimes to Paypal - I learned a lot about cashing out in Markco's Gold Guide and highly recommend buying it and joining the forums, which have a good group of active members that are making hundreds of dollars playing Diablo 3)

Markco has a great video on his Gold Guide about buying and selling Skorn and I took those strategies and applied them to other weapons that Barbarians use in Diablo 3.  The more that I play around on the RMAH and the GAH, the more markets that I'm finding.  Keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks with other potential markets out there!

First Hellfire Ring

I FINALLY crafted my first Hellfire Ring.  I can't believe that it's taken me this long, but normally I only have time to sit down and do one key run at a time when I play.  A normal key run for me takes about 15-25 minutes, depending on how quickly I find the key warden.  I'm keeping my Diablo 3 time down to about 45 minutes a day if I'm going to do any farming and I only spend about 15 or so on the auction houses when I don't farm.

With the help of my friends at Gimmic Gaming, I've jumped from struggling with mp3 to killing it at mp5 and mp6.  I quickly saw more key drops and had better luck on my UBERs drops, which resulting in...

*cue epic entrance music*

It's not the best one I've ever seen, but it's a start and I'm enjoying the 35% increased experience bonus.  I'm paragon level 12 now (a bit short of my goal for December, but I'm ok with that) and the 200+ strength is nice for my build.  I'm on my way to another one, so hopefully I'll get a better roll next time.

I've invested quite a bit of gold (and some real money that I spent on Gimmic's Barbarian guide) into my character in the last couple weeks, not to mention the time I've spent playing him.  I think that to truly know what's going on in the game and in the markets that I'm trying to make consistent money from, I believe that I have to be up on what other players are doing, what is working, what's trending, etc.  The only real way to do this is to actually hop on my Barb and get into groups with other players and mow down some hellspawn.

...At least, that's my excuse :).

In truth, if I spend 45 minutes every day playing the auction house, researching, reading Markco's Gold Forum, instead of spending a portion of my "play time" whirling around with my Barbarian, I would be making more money.  The real money in this game is in the auction houses.  There is plenty of good information out there, especially in guide's like Markco's, that can help you make consistent money from playing Diablo 3.  Unless you put a ton of time and/or money into one of your characters, there isn't much money in farming and frankly, it doesn't make financial sense.

But who can resist hacking away at demons for a few minutes every now and again?

How I went from MP3 to MP6

Lately my goals have changed from crushing the auction house for extra cash each month to learning new markets and investing my profits from Diablo 3 back into my character.  My idea is that when PVP and/or an expansion hit, I will have a high powered character to go along with my knowledge of both the gold auction house and the real money auction house.  Having a high powered character will allow me to farm high level content effectively, which at certain times may be just as profitable as spending time on the auction house (or a good use of time while waiting for auctions to sell).

Two days ago I was stuck grinding in MP3 doing key runs and getting into the occasional group for running ubers, where you need an infernal machine to access the high level bosses that drop items to make a Hellfire Ring (which I'm still working on).  I'm currently Paragon Level 11 and have yet to get a decent legendary drop while key farming.

Enter Gimmic Gaming's Class Guide.  Markco posted on his blog about Gimmic Gaming's new guide and gave it a thumbs up, so I decided that it would be worth a shot.  The guide contains extremely useful information about building your character and walks you through exactly how to spec to move up from whatever current Monster Power level you are farming.

I literally took the information in the guide and went from farming MP3 to MP6 by just changing my spec and investing a couple million into some new weapons.  

Check out the guide here

I only purchased one class guide (each class guide is $30) because I primarily play a barbarian.  That was all I needed and it was worth the $30 investment.  I learned more in 30 minutes of reading and watching videos about playing my Barbarian than I've learned in the hours and hours I've spent playing the game.

You can get a class guide for each class for less the $100.  If you play more than one class and want to learn go dominate with all of them, I highly recommend buying all of them for the reduced price.  If you specialize like me, try out the guide for your class first.  If I start playing another class, I'll be buying Gimmic's guide to that class before I even get started.  I'll be posting results of my upgraded farming runs soon!

Key Farming and Paragon Level Grinding

There are plenty of people making good money playing Diablo 3.  At this time, I am not one of them.  I've changed my outlook on playing Diablo 3, mostly due to a couple months of not spending as much time as I would have liked on the game.  Now, I'm making an effort to log in at least once a day and learn about the game, market, and put myself into a position to make a good amount of money consistently.

Here are the things that I am doing to invest in my account and learn.

1. Gold Auction House flipping/research.
1. I'm learning what markets are over saturated and what players are spending gold on.  Soon I will venture back into the real money auction house as well.
2. Reading Markco's site and gold guide.
1. Markco is updating his gold guide often and the forums are still bumping with valuable information.
3. Farming on Monster Power 2-3 for drops
4. Grinding Paragon levels
5. Farming for Keys of Destruction 

I'm able to accomplish 3-5 all at the same time, which is great.  I have a balance of gear on my barbarian that allows me to farm MP2-3 and also get a little bonus experience.  I have a ruby gem in my helm for 29% bonus and am planning on investing in a Leoric's signet ring soon.

I also am hoping to craft a Hellfire Ring for the added experience bonus, which will help me grind out a few more paragon levels as I'm farming.  The long term goal is to have a paragon level 100 character that will be able to farm high Monster Power levels, especially after players come back to the game with the PVP patch, which is on the horizon.

Right now I seem to be able to make around 3-5 million a day in a few markets that I have learned about by experimenting and also from advice from Markco's Gold Guide.  As I build up my gold stash, I plan on jumping into some higher end markets and hope to be making 5-10 million a day.

Status update:

Gold amount: About 30 million

Paragon level: 10

DPS: 54K