A gamer has paid $100,000 for a virtual space resort in the massive multiplayer online role-playing game Project Entropia.Mindark, the Swedish developer of the game, sold off the “real estate” in a three-day auction.
Project Entropia is known for its commercialization of virtual goods in the game. Most massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as Everquest discourage the sale of their virtual goods for real world currencies. Everquest and others rely on monthly subscription fees of (on average) $15 in addition to the software purchase price.
Entropia however is available as a free software download and instead relies on the sales of virtual goods for real world currencies. The game sells tools and weapons that players use in the game for Project Entropia Dollars (PED). One dollar equals 10 PED. Items such as a Lesser Teleport Chip go for 40.59 PED and a Garcen Lubricant sets back a player 24.39 PED.
The sale of the space real estate beats the game’s previous record of $26,500 for a virtual island.
Because gamers are allowed to convert PED back into dollars, the purchase could turn into a lucrative investment for the buyer, a gamer going by the name of ‘Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs.’ He is entitled to the revenues from renting out the apartments and space in the shopping mall. He also gets to collect hunting and mining taxes and can rent out advertising space on billboards.
The space station comes with a 1,000 unit apartment complex, a shopping mall, sports stadium and night club.
“Designed as a pleasure paradise, the resort built on an asteroid is a monumental project aimed at being a primary destination for entertainment in the known virtual universe,” according to the developer’s property description.
Project Entropia claims to have had registered 299,359 players since its inception in 2002. They have created a collective economy of $150 million so far this year, the game’s maker claims.
Entropia is set on the distant planet Calypso, which the players are trying to colonize.
The rise of real economies in online games is causing game developers to deal with some new real world problems such as crime too. Last August authorities in Japan arrested a Chinese gamer for robbing players in the game Lineage II. He did not commit any real world crimes however, as there are no laws protecting virtual properties inside games.
In June a Chinese man was reported to have murdered a fellow player of the game Legend of Mir III after he sold a virtual sword without the owner’s consent.
