Just in time for the launch of the Real Money Auction House in Diablo 3, Blizzard has banned thousands of players from the service. An exact number wasn’t released, but Blizzard has hinted that this was coming. As the RMAH was scheduled for release yesterday, it makes sense to clean up the rabble who could be cheating to take advantage of farming.

Here’s Blizzard’s official announcement:

We recently issued a round of account suspensions and bans to several thousand Diablo® III players who were in violation of the Battle.net® Terms of Use for cheating and/or using botting or hacking programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair play that’s essential to everyone’s enjoyment of the game, botting, hacking, and other such exploitive behavior can contribute to stability and performance issues with the Battle.net service. As always, maintaining a stable, safe, and fun online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we’ll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.