Diablo 4 has had to disable transactions due to a doubling bug, as community manager PezRadar announced on the Diablo 4 forum:

“We are disabling transactions for Diablo IV while we investigate a possible duplication issue. . We apologize for this disruption and will provide an update on when we can resume trading after we further investigate and identify any issues that need to be resolved.” [It is August 15, 2024, and Blizzard suspended all trading activity yesterday; on August 15, 2023, the company had to do the exact same thing; a similar suspension was imposed in October 2023, making this the third suspension in a year.

As YouTuber Sliver of Time explained, the do-over was first properly broadcast on streaming site bilibili (thanks to GamesRadar). Duplicating such items is a violation of the EULA, which states that players “may not create, use, or trade in-game items created or copied by exploiting platform design flaws, undocumented problems, or program bugs.”

The reason why these copying bugs are a problem is that the economies of live services and MMOs are fragile; any vulnerability that allows RMT sites to continue their immoral business practices risks prices skyrocketing beyond reasonable recognition. For example, in Star Wars: The Old Republic, low-level gear was traded for millions of credits last year.

Blizzard's intervention and closing the doors of the emergency bunker makes sense, regardless of whether the dummies are widespread enough to have an impact. The developers can pin down the exact nature of the glitch later, but for now, it makes sense to isolate the economy.

Still, the fact that this is such an everyday problem that it justifies a national holiday is frustrating. As one player pointed out on the game's subreddit, nothing is certain in D4 except “death, taxes, and the inability to trade,” which is unfortunate since, according to PC Gamer's Tyler Kolp, this season has otherwise been pretty good.