Tobold forced my hand a bit, so without further ado… I formally present:

The Diablo Annual Pass Challenge

For the the visually impaired, the four difficulties are as follows:

• Inferno – Earn $155.88 within 12 months.
• Hell – Earn $95.89 within 12 months.
• Nightmare – Earn $59.99 within 12 months.
• Normal – Earn $38.97 before you quit.

Completing Inferno will mean you financed both Diablo 3 and a year of WoW (with associated perks) entirely through Diablo 3’s real-money Auction House. The step below that, Hell, means you financed an entire year of WoW through the purchase of a $59.99 game. Meanwhile, Nightmare demonstrates that you got Diablo 3 for free after paying for a year of reduced-price WoW time. Finally, completing the Diablo Annual Pass Challenge on Normal difficulty means you managed to pay for 3 of the 12 required months via Diablo 3 gameplay.

A Hardcore mode can apply to any of the above difficulties, and requires two things: 1) no seed money, e.g. putting $20 on your account to get started, and 2) net profit only counts when cashed out via Paypal.

Death is (unfortunately) permanent in all difficulties and modes. We are working on a hot fix.

For the purpose of this Challenge, “earnings” refers to net profit from the sale of items in Diablo 3’s AH. If you spent $50 and made $160 flipping items, you have only actually achieved Hell difficulty, not Inferno. “Items” refer to anything sellable on the RMAH, whether it is gear, gold, gems, characters, etc. Any money spent in the satisfaction of your Annual Pass obligation, i.e. buying game time, will still “count” as long as it came as a result of AH profit. In other words, you don’t have to just sit on the money until you reach your desired difficulty.

For those Challenge participants not using USD, simply use the relevant cost of two 6-month WoW time cards (Inferno), two 6-month WoW time cards minus the cost of Diablo 3 (Hell), the cost of Diablo 3 (Nightmare), and the cost of three months of the reduced-priced WoW Annual Pass subscription in whatever your local currency happens to be (Normal).

Good luck everyone, and don’t you dare undercut my shit.