Virtual Space Station Sold For $330,000

Pirx Danford writes "The world record sale for a virtual item was surpassed yesterday by the avatar known as Buzz Erik Lightyear, when he acquired a very special piece of property. For the incredible amount of $330,000, the space station Crystal Palace has been won by Buzz in the in-game auction system of Entropia Universe. The player who won the auction is known as one of the best crafters within the game, and like with Chuck Norris jokes, there are a bunch of sayings about what Buzz Erik Lightyear can achieve."

Comments

Just the Facts

[AP31R0N]

http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/off-topic/91003-buzz-erik-lightyear-facts.html

Enjoy

Stay Away

[Anonymous Coward]

No big deal.
The 3.3 million are money the player made in game from like 7 years of playing in a similar ponzy scheme game. Dont know if any sane person would deposit that kind of money to a game where they dont even own the items but the company does.
Game itself is a sinking ship. People are leaving due the lack of game enjoyment and bad loot and its probably the most buggy game on the net where conspiracy theroys claims they are not fixed because company makes money on the bugs.
Some people are addicted to a point where they loose 2k bucks per month and still going on.
Its some mix between casino and ponzy scheme. Stay away!!

Entropia? loz wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is this game? I watched some of the videos and it looks boring, ugly, and stupid.

Nya-nya-nya ... ? Really? Did the avatar just say that? $300g even remotely associated with that bullshit is just stupid.

No Cash

[brjndr]

He didn't actually spend $330,000. FTA:

"The auction for the Crystal Palace Space Station in Planet Calypso has sold for 3,300,000 PED. This virtual game currency when converted to US dollars is $330,000."

Apparently he earned all the PED in game.

Re:No Cash

[Pirx Danford]

As you can just deposit and withdraw anytime it is as good as cash ;)

I expect that this sale will replace the old Guinness Book record of 100 000 $ shortly!

Re:No Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

This discussion is obviously going to drift into the topic of micropayment Ponzi schemes, so I'll be the first to point out that there are, according to the wikipedia, a few people making actual profit off of the game, and thousands of people who are depositing hundreds of dollars a month into virtual bank accounts. The gaming appears to be a micropayment hell, where the Visa Crucible could be an actual thing. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/04/25/

Re:No Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

So this dude had 3M in game money that could have been converted to 300k in cash and did this? You could buy a *REAL* decent sized house/condo for that... To each his own I guess.

Re:No Cash

[YouDoNotWantToKnow]

I was a member of his society ingame and I can attest he definitely deposited quite a bit over the time. Entropia started back in 2000 and he was one of the top crafters right off the bat. That cost him money MindArk really needed at the time when they were just starting out. Look at it as inflation and opportunity cost adjusted money, 30k back then could well be 300k now.

Re:No Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he thinks the space station will earn him more than he spent on it. If true it's a good investment, but I don't know anything about Entropia so who knows.

Re:Because i'm bored

[Thundarr Trollgrim]

You are awfully pedantic for someone who is unable to capitalise 'I'.

PE Marketing Guy?

[ludomancer]

Isn't this the guy who works for the Project Entropia team? Before he "bought" an island, but really it's just PR for their game? Correct me if I'm wrong, but after I found that out it really irritates me whenever his "accomplishments" make headlines.

Re:PE Marketing Guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buzz doesn't own any Islands to my knowledge. I think you mix up with Deathifier who owns an Island, and VOLUNTEERS as an ambassador for FPC at conventions, as does several other people.

Re:PE Marketing Guy?

[YouDoNotWantToKnow]

No, that guy was Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs. Some sorta extroverted DJ from Florida and former MindArk PR guy for the US. He set the previous record by buying an asteroid for 100k $ couple of years back.

Re:PE Marketing Guy?

[JohnKBates]

Actually Jon never worked for MindArk or Entropia. The confusion stemmed from what I think is actually a great program. MindArk often sends players to conferences to speak about the game from a player's perspective. They're called ambassadors. I think that's actually really cool, as it gives people an interesting and meaningful perspective. It was in this capacity that Jon attended some conferences in the past for MA and that led to the confusion. I am the PR guy and I can't bid on things like the asteroid or the space station for that reason. So, I am correcting you since this is a persistent, but incorrect myth. So, you can stop being irritated by him. He actually put his cajones on the line to buy the asteroid. He mortgaged his house and put everything he owned on the line to take what many thought was a huge risk and buy the asteroid, as a hurricane was bearing down on him in Florida. He made his money back in about 8 months and has been doing very well since he is a very extroverted, very savvy marketer and he's done lots of great events and put a lot of personal effort into making the asteroid one of the "places to be" on Planet Calypso. I think that Buzz will do an excellent job with Crystal Palace. Like Neverdie and Deathifier, he is a very well known and very, very respected player. That will be a big plus for him in running CP. Rock on, ya'll.

My Opinion

[YouDoNotWantToKnow]

I have been playing Entropia actively from early 2005 till mid 2008 and I have an intense love/hate relationship with them. Let me list my personal pros/cons:
Pros:
Videogame with real money.
CryEngine powered.
No shards, one world.
Mature playerbase, mostly US/EU.
Stable financials, the company is shareholder-friendly.
They are a registered Swedish banking company.
They have a deal with Chinese Cyber Recreation Development Bureau.

Cons:
Addictive as hell.
Quite random, i would say quite close to poker in variance terms.
You will never catch up with the oldskool players, you would have to deposit million $ to get the same items and skills as top people.
Slow innovation, no new core systems for a long time.
Long term tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.
Low new account growth.

They seem to be content with having low amount of heavily hooked players. This is a conservative strategy unusual for a revolutionary company. However, this may be just the right type of approach to make it work. They will probably end up being bought by Microsoft or someone like that if they play their cards right.

For a scifi game..

[Ka D'Argo]

You'd think they want a broad audience.. I've been really interested in trying out Entropy, but they don't support Vista O_O