Diablo 3 real money auction house has launched in the Americas

It is now possible to spend $250 of your hard-earned cash for something called a Horadric Hamburger, with the Americas region launch of Diablo 3's real money auction house.

Currently, the maximum bid and buyout that can be set on any one item is $250, and there are plenty of items priced at that already. Since Blizzard takes a $1 cut on every successful auction, the minimum is $1.25. Players who want to buy and sell using a Battle.net balance are, understandably, required to attach a Battle.net authenticator to their account. Other options include using a credit card or linking a PayPal account.

Equipment sales come with a $1 deduction (taken by Blizzard from the sale amount). Sales for anything else—like gems, crafting materials, and gold—take a 15% deduction instead of the flat $1, presumably to avoid loopholes of selling those commodities in large stacks. Gold must be sold in quantities of 100,000 or more.

Any money made on the auction house is subject to a 15% withdrawal fee if you want to put it anywhere besides the Battle.net balance (which can be used on the auction house, to pay for WoW subscription time and pets, or anything else directly linked to your Battle.net account).

We have no word on when the real money auction house will be available in other regions aside from "the near future."

"We are rolling out elements of the real-money auction house separately to ensure all of our players have the smoothest possible experience," Blizzard claims. "We'll have more information on the availability of the European real-money auction house and the remaining Americas currencies soon."

You can read all the technical and financial details of the auction house on the official Diablo 3 site .