$100,000 to play a game!!!!!!!

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This was in the news:

Not really D&D but it is a MMORPG. I read the story before, about someone buying an island in this game for $26,000 real money. But now they sell areas for $100K. Maybe I should give up working and devote myself to this game.

Virtual property yields $100,000

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Miami resident has bought a virtual space station for $100,000 and wants to turn it into a cross between Jurassic Park and a disco.

Jon Jacobs, a director of independent films, plans to call the space resort, in the science-fiction themed game Project Entropia, "Club Neverdie." Like other land areas in the game that has been visited by 300,000 players, the resort grounds will spawn dinosaur-like monsters, which visitors can kill.

Jacobs will take a cut of the virtual resources that the carcasses yield, like hides.

Jacobs, 39, plans to hire famous disc jockeys to entertain visitors once a week or so at the resort but still reckons on netting $20,000 a month from the hunting tax and other income.

"I want to operate this thing at the level of a major nightclub in a major city," Jacobs said.

Jacobs bought the property late last month from MindArk PE AB, Project Entropia's Swedish developer. The game, which has no subscription fee, has its own currency but it's convertible at a fixed rate to dollars.

About a quarter of the purchase money came from Jacobs' in-game earnings.

Over three years playing Project Entropia, Jacobs accumulated items that later became worth thousands of dollars, like first-aid kits and powerful weapons.

He sold those items last year to buy an island in Project Entropia, but was outbid -- it sold for $26,500, the previous record sale in that world.

He refinanced his house shortly after and considered investing some of the cash in the hot Miami real-estate market, but he realized that if he bought a rental property, it really wouldn't generate any income beyond what he'd pay for the mortgage and repairs.

So he invested the proceeds in the game.

IGE, a leading broker of game property, said it has handled deals worth more than $100,000, but would not provide details because of client confidentiality.

 

Can I become a virtual MMORPG lawyer?

 

Project Entropia?

 

Some people really ought to be euthanized at birth.

 

Not this guy though. Chances are great he can actually *make* money with that idea.

If not... well then that's his problem.

 

Considering that people have selling their virtual items for thousands of dollars on Ebay, and that one guy (in Southeast Asia, not sure exactly which country) killed his friend because said friend messed up his online character... nothing really surprises me anymore.

 

I wonder if there are limists of human stupidity

 

Probably not

Just look around you!

 

Just look at everquest, people routinely sell items for REAL money.

 

Same goes for Diablo 2.

 

Can someone explain this for me? I don't understand any of it. What exactly did he buy and how does he make money from it?

 

Buying virtual property for real money. For example, "your D2 character has awsome sword, here have 500$ for it."

 

I still don't understand. What can you do with "virtual property" that makes it worth money?

 

You just own a thing that doesn't really exist. It's like buying air!
You just have a satisfaction becasue you own an unique item, one of it's kind, no one else (or only few) in the whole gaming world has it.
It's just beyond my imagination.

 

Sorry for being thick, but I still don't understand. Are you saying that someone paid a real $100,000 for a non-existent item in a computer game?

Just so I get this straight - is that like me paying $100,000 to get the raven avatar on SP, because there is only one raven and nobody else can have it?

 

Harbourboy: Basically, yes. The game is Project Entropia, which is based on a real cash economy. Basically you buy game currency with real money, that can then be used in-game. Of course this works the other way too, so you can exchange it back to real cash. So if you make profit in-game you will make real profit as well.

As for this case, I do not remember the details anymore, but I think there were estimates that he will make profit with it in a year or so. By renting space and whatnot.

 

So you buy something that is not real for $1,000 and then sell that same unreal thing to somebody else for $2,000? Amazing!

 

Well, HB - the trick is that the area he's purchased spawns monsters that players will kill and harvest (make armour, clothes, weapons, FOOD, etc from the body parts). The profit-making is that these players will have to pay a 'hunting tax' in virtual credits for the permission to use the entrepeneur's turf.

Get maybe 200 ppl a week paying 100 'credits' each then converting those in-game credits to real-world (at what - 50:1 exchange? I've looked at PE, but never had the h/w spec to run it...) $400/week with no real effort? He's netting a decent income that'd easily rival being a RL landlord!

Let's see...I upgraded the PC not long ago...where's that MMO's page...

 

Huh? Who's going to pay real money to harvest fake animals from a fake place in a game?!

 

The same people who pay to play MMO games in the first place.