Diablo 3's auction houses are gone for good on Tuesday

Diablo 3's ill-fated auction house shuts down for good on Tuesday, concluding two years that brought more controversy and abuse than value to the game.

The real-money auction house was effectively closed back in March, and no transactions have taken place since then. June 24 marks its total removal from the game, so any player with items or gold still in the Auction House (undering the "completed" tab) must retrieve it by Tuesday or lose the goods forever.

Diablo 3's auction house had a mostly troubled history since their introduction shortly after the game's 2012 launch. The auction house was taken offline more than once because of bugs and exploits, the most notorious incident being a gold duping bug back in May 2013 that caused major problems with the Diablo 3 economy.

At Game Developer's Conference 2013, Diablo 3 director Jay Wilson said the auction houses "really hurt the game."

Blizzard co-founder and president Mike Morhaime followed that by saying the auction houses "hurt the long-term engagement in the game, and in the long run hurt the life of the game," adding that Blizzard internally "agreed that the game would be better without the auction houses."