jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.