Big money to be made in virtual land speculation

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-12-10 12:32am

Virtual property market booming

Property is hot in virtual world
A gamer who spent £13,700 on an island that exists only in a computer game has recouped his investment, according to the game developers.

The 23-year-old gamer known as Deathifier made the money back in under a year.

The virtual Treasure Island he bought existed within the online role-playing game Project Entropia.

He made money by selling land to build virtual homes as well as taxing other gamers to hunt or mine on the island.

Project Entropia offers gamers the chance to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, a trend which is gaining popularity as the boundaries between the virtual and real worlds continue to blur.

Property boom

There are fortunes to be made in the burgeoning world of MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role playing gaming).

The views in the virtual world are pretty good
"The money made to date is only a taste of what can be achieved with my virtual island purchase," said Deathifier.

"We've really only just begun with the estate sales and land management, there is still more room for growth and revenue with the untapped resources surrounding the land."

Last month, another of Entropia's virtual properties - a virtual space station - sold at auction for £57,000.

Bridging gap

While the real housing market may be somewhat static, the one in the virtual world is booming, said the space station auction winner, gamer Jon Jacobs, AKA Neverdie.

He said the virtual real estate market was "on fire" as gamers increasingly realised that virtual worlds could start to compete with real worlds at an economic level.

Neverdie plans to use his space station to establish an in-game "night club" through which the entertainment industry can sell music and videos to gamers.

The Entropia economy works by allowing gamers to exchange real currency for PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and back again into real money.

Ten PEDs are the equivalent to one US dollar and gamers can earn cash by accumulating PEDs via the acquisition of goods, buildings and land.

Project Entropia was launched in 2003 and now has 300,000 registered accounts.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-12-10 01:58am

I remmemeber this story, nice to see a good investment recoup

.
making 13,700 pounds in a year ain't bad, wonder how much profit he's making on it now (In rl cash)

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-12-10 02:01am

Assuming that's not his only source of income, that's not bad...

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-12-10 02:36am

InnocentBystander wrote:Assuming that's not his only source of income, that's not bad...

Well, he did have to buy it in the first place.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-12-11 03:46pm

Project Entropia is the most insane "high concept game" I have ever seen.

The entire basis of it was to see if players would be willing to use real world currency as the in game currency. And apparently they are.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2005-12-11 04:37pm

weemadando wrote:Project Entropia is the most insane "high concept game" I have ever seen.

The entire basis of it was to see if players would be willing to use real world currency as the in game currency. And apparently they are.

Well, yeah. It's pretty much a proven concept. Look at Gold Farmers in pretty much every MMORPG there is. People will pay lots of money to skip past the tedious crap in MMORPGs to get to what they see as the fun stuff.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-12-11 04:41pm

weemadando wrote:Project Entropia is the most insane "high concept game" I have ever seen.

The entire basis of it was to see if players would be willing to use real world currency as the in game currency. And apparently they are.

The game was insane, I still have my Beta CD from back when the community was about two hundred people and everyone knew each other and the Devolpers talked directly to their very small fanbase. However I got into Beta and saw what was supposed to be the first ever MMOFPS(Predating Planetside by a year) and saw basicly a giant pyramid scheme. After messing around for awhile they told us they wanted us to use acutal money in the Beta.

Which ment exit stage left for me as I saw this most insane of scheme's coming togther. Keep in mind that the Beta servers were to be wiped, and of course they promsied us they would give back any money we invested to that point. However reading the ToS I found that this was iffy at best. (If the gameshuts down they are not liable which is what happened)

I tossed in $20 on a dare and tried to see if a profit was possible from a newbie. I did not even have fun but at least I was kept amused for what I considered $20 worth of time.