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Virtual Island Sells For $26,500
Aziphirael writes "The MMORPG Project Entropia has just announced that its first treasure island sale via Auction has gone for a grand total of US$26,500. Project Entropia's unique selling point is the ability to convert real money into ingame cash and vice versa. The owner is Zachurm "Deathifier" Emegen who intends to develop the island into a place for the community." From the article: "A large island off a newly discovered continent surrounded by deep creature infested waters. The island boasts beautiful beaches ripe for developing beachfront property, an old volcano with rumors of fierce creatures within, the outback is overrun with mutants, and an area with a high concentration of robotic miners guarded by heavily armed assault robots indicates interesting mining opportunities."
SUCKER!
From the "I have more money than sense department"
Jeez, I hope they down shutdown the game's server. Then his island may as well be called Atlantis.
can move out of their parents basement!
but who in their right mind would spend $26K on a virtual world
I've got a virtual bridge that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn.
It's sure to generate lots of revenue. It's for sale by auction, I expect to get at least $100,000FUD (equal to $100,000USD).
Seriously though, good luck to all the virtual real-estate agents out there.
...to each, his own wishes. On the bright side, this is only a sale of disposition rights to creative property. Much like what we do when we buy music.
I have to admit, though. The price was VERY steep.
... there is a sucker born every minute.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
...you are eaten by a grue. Game Over.
How much for just one island girl?
Since nobody bothers to RTFA anymore:
The first ever virtual Treasure Island is for sale in Project Entropia, a Massive Multi-Player Online Universe with a real cash economy. This extremely desirable piece of real estate promises to make the highest bidder very rich and very influential within the rapidly growing Project Entropia universe.
So the reason it might be worth paying 26k for this virtual island is that there is a real cash economy in the "game" - in other words, presumably the in-game resources he can extract from his island can presumably be sold or utilized to make items in the game that can be exchanged for real US dollars. So it's a virtual investment, but one that has potential real-world payoff.
sounds like a wonderful place for me to open up my lemonade stand.
I assume the idea is that the new owner can reap real usd profit from subdivision, mining and taxation. what does the irs think about this? foreign income? does the world have an offshore bank? good lord. the devlopers seem to have invented a money printing press...
WTF? My initial reaction: "All I have got to say is that somebody is spending waaaaaay too much time playing games if they are willing to pony up that kind of cash for a virtual island". Then I realized (as I am browsing Slashdot wasting my time) that perhaps his person has plans to be a virtual developer which, while still the type of person associated with developing (build! build! build!) is developing and making money in a virtual world without the real world effects on the environment or populace that "real" developers have. Ah, I say go for it. We all gotta make money somehow, but I feel better telling my grandma I am a scientist as opposed to a make believe developer for a game. He will likely make more money than me anyway.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
For all you guys making fun of this guy, it's possible he expects to make money off it. If he manages to sell resources and land from the island, he could then exchange his profits for US dollars.
According to the article, he will be allowed to sell plots of land on the island worth around $30,000.
He may not be as much of a dolt as you think.
This space intentionally left blank.
He could end up making us look like the fools.
...you mean PT Barnum, and he never said that.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
It seems to me that this "Project: Entropia" isn't really a game, but instead nothing more than a place for rich pseudo-gamers to show off. In a game, you get ahead through intelligence and talent, both physical and mental, not by how much of your pocketbook you have to spare.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Doesn't this raise a whole host of legal issues? What if the server crashes, can they be sued for neglect since they destroyed someone's property? IIRC other MMORPGs went out of their way to point out that their ingame items have no value and that buying them IRL is not allowed. Not that it isn't common anyway, but do game companies really want to get into property disputes?
English is easier said than done.
We've seen this before, and it usually ends up with quite a lot of people losing not only virtual but real money as well. Heck even with payment systems we've seen that (paypal).
Also, due to the addictive nature of MMORPG's (think everquest), I feel there should be some limmit as to how much a game can affect you in real life, especially involving finances. In the real world you've got all sorts of financial protection (from, for example, pyramid schemes), but in virtual games you've got pretty much no protection whatsoever.
Let me see if I have this right:
(Virtual) Remote Island Location + Monster Infestation + Mutants + Active Volcano + Heavily Fortified Automated Mine = Prime Real-Estate at $26K USD
Only in a game.
I'd hate to see what the burned-out inner-cities of Entropia look like.
"The island boasts beautiful beaches ripe for developing beachfront property...<snip>"
Mr. "Deathifier" Emegen went on to describe his computer desk from which he does his online business. It is a large desk with newly discovered space underneath a pile of computer gaming magazines. The upper desk boasts a monitor rest with beautiful stacks of Mountain Dew cans ripe for recycling, an old arm lamp with rumors it once worked, and behind the desk described as an "outback" that is in desperate need of cable tying which is overrun with mutant horse flies, The house he inhabits has an area described as the "kitchen" in desperate need of the girlfriend who left it two years ago that indicates excellent penicillin mining opportunities.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
"It never got weird enough for me...". Well, this is it, it's gotten wierd enough for me. I am cashing in my chips and going home.
$26,000 for a virtual island? WTF? How much for the virtual bridge?
Perhaps the better quote would be "there is a sucker born every minute"
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
In real life, if you create a playground for kids, and someone gets hurt, you get sued and lose everything you own. See the war in skatepark culture.
The only recourse for people to meet is online games. Things in this new reality is really worth cash. The problem is, people haven't really made stuff *rare* and *desirable* yet in a game with a 20+ year long run. You'll see stuff going for 25 grand *all the time* once game designers get some skills. Its amazing with programmer and artist skills that game designers are still hacks. It really sickens me since I'm good at game design and can't get a job.
God spoke to me.
The comapny decided not to run the game any more.
Some people use this easily gained money to donate to the poor. Its a fun game. Go beat up a few dragons, sell magic swords, then feed some starving kids and build their infrastructure.
God spoke to me.
Virtual island, meet hurricane Slashdot.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I bet it was Bill Gates.
Yes, Bill "Zachurm 'Deathifier' Emegen" Gates.
I need to start using a full name as my nickname.
While this whole real cash game economy seems like a really interesting experiment, I'm not sure how eager I'd be to invest that much money into something so ephemeral (I welcome all luddite allegations hurled my way... just because). I hope there's a user-friendly EULA with this game.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But for the love of god, stop trying to tell other people how to spend THEIR money. They don't tell you how to spend yours.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
In the words of some comic I saw the other day:
Starving people in Africa, yeah, yeah...
We have deserts in the US too. WE JUST DON'T LIVE THERE!!!! MOVE OUT OF THE DESERT!!!
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
AC, are you advocating cannabalism? I'm shocked. Shocked! I say.
See what I've been reading.
So the only way he comes out not a sucker for springing $26K for a virtual island is if he finds other, bigger suckers to spring for pieces of his virtual island totalling more than $26K.
It's just like Amway, without the up-passing of future proceeds so it isn't a pyramid scheme but the mentality is similar. If you can find enough suckers yourself, you end up not a sucker and can make some money off of Amway. Most people just end up as suckers, though.
The enemies of Democracy are
... to buying virtual wives from virtual Russia.
These aren't the sigs you're looking for.
Hey, I resent that!
I'm a liberal socialist hacker... well, no, I resent being called *that* too, but it's pretty low on the list of things I, as a liberal socialist hacker, resent these days.
However, if someone tells me I'm bad and wrong for spending my money on something other than starving children, he's getting whacked upside the head by the nearest heavy chunk of metal I can find. I've got an old full-height 10-meg MFM hard drive here, and I'm not afraid to use it.
Sure, the starving children of the world need food. I'm all for sending stuff to them, if that's what you feel like doing. However, if you feel like buying an iPod, a sports car, a virtual island, or whatever else you feel like conspicuously consuming, go for it! Guess what? If you do, you're *helping people*. People make a living building and selling iPods, sports cars, and virtual islands. You're putting food on *their* tables. They may not be pitiful starving wretches, but that's only because people like you buy their (sometimes dubious) stuff instead of living like a hermit in a cave (or cardboard box, for those of you in urban areas) and sending all your hard-earned cash overseas to starving kids.
People who think it's some sort of sin to spend money on something other than "saving the world" need to get a grip. If we all spent money the way they think we should, this whole friggin' planet would fall apart.
That's what I thought.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While I think this is a bit premature, some of you nay-sayers really need to read Snowcrash. A virtual economy is inevitable, and few stories I've read have captured the awesome potential as well as Snowcrash did.
Bryan
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
" Listen, lad. I built this virtual kingdom up from virtually nothing. When I started here, all there was virtual swamp. Other virtual kings said I was virtually daft to build a virtual castle on a virtual swamp, but I virtually built it all the same, just to show 'em. It virtually sank into the virtual swamp. So, I virtually built a second one. That virtually sank into the virtual swamp. So, I virtually built a third one. That virtually burned down, virtually fell over, then virtually sank into the virtual swamp, but the fourth one... virtually stayed up! And that's what you're virtually gonna get, virtual lad: virtually the strongest virtual castle in these virtual islands."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What may cause that, you wonder? Our banker character's holdings were zeroed out. That would be $4000 USD, gone. Explanation? Our banker had bought an item (third-hand) from someone who had crafted an item which was fake, somehow. Members of our society were pulling down about $400 a month playing this game. Enough to pay rent to Mom and Dad, I suppose. Sad, pathetic, and lonely in so many ways that matter, but true enough.
One of our businesses was banking. We would trade in-game money for real money, back when PayPal was trustworthy. The makers of PE had something like 10% transaction fees, we charged a much more competitive rate, and managed perhaps 20-30% of the real money going into the game, early on.
As a direct result of this game, I read most of a field guide for geology, learned how to write some pretty solid Active Server Pages, and had some noteworthy personal growth.