Last month, Blizzard Entertainment announced the addition of an auction house to Diablo III, a multiplayer online role-playing game coming out next year that looks pretty sweet. What's interesting to me is the auction house, which essentially establishes a way to spend your time and money.

In games like Diablo III, people put a lot of time into characters that require very specific items (from the Stone of Jordan to Verdungo's Hearty Cord). These items are rare. More than that, it's almost impossible to find the best versions of the rare items you're looking for without trading. People are willing to pay real money for the best virtual items, and Blizzard built an ingenious auction house around that desire. If you pillage an item you think is valuable, you can sell it in the auction house for a list fee and a sale fee. If you cash out, Blizzard will take a small cut (if you don't spend that money in the auction house yourself).

These rare items are going to be worth a lot of money. For perspective, a third-party vendor of items for Diablo II has an axe on sale for $239.97.

For some players, this could literally be a full-time job and an income. Most likely, it would be a small income. So... most likely, it'll result in many more kids farming for rare items in video sweatshops in Asia. And because of historical game usage, Blizzard is specifically allowing gamers in Oceania and Southeast Asia access to the North American servers, creating a huge incentive to exploit cheap labor.