I live in MMORPG for 3 years now. I built the first romanian mmorpg who continue to be a great success in .ro and one of the best spanish online game. Economically speaking, owning a MMORPG is a good business depending how you succeed to sell it. In fact you are not selling a product or a service. You end up selling a story and every second you are fighting with a growing and powerful gamers community, hoping that they will give you a brake on sunday (yeah, dream on). Oh yeah. There are also cheaters that turns up to be one major challenge for the game’s developers. The $ chalange is in the 2nd place. Trust me. ;)
I can say that since I started to blog (thanks Antonio) and I discovered RSS feeds all over the world I started to read about the MMORPG addiction and about a lot of MMORPGs out there. And yes sir. There is a jungle out there!
Question is: What happens when the main resource of a MMORPG turns out to be the real $? Is there anyone crazy enough to invest in a totally virtual world? Well. We can search the answer back in time, in December 2004 when a 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 (£13,700) on an island. The news will be a shock for anyone who dreams about buying an island. Fact is the 22 years old australian gamer bought a virtual island. With real money.
Isn’t that nice?
Source: BBC NEWS – Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land
Game URL: Project Entropia
PS.
Join the 395581 people before you and get a life in Project Entropia.
PE GNP 2005 : 1.6 billion PED (160M$)
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[...] Citeam acum ceva timp cum un australian cumpara cu putin peste 25,000 de dolari o insula intr-un joc online. Azi in schimb am dat peste o stire cum ca anul trecut la inceput de august o tanara viitoare mireasa din China isi ucide logodnicul din cauza timpului prea indelungat petrecut cu jocurile online. Apparently a woman in China took it upon herself to make the term “video game widow” a reality. According to the Beijing Morning Post (by way of the Pacific Epoch Daily News) a young woman has been charged with murdering her fiancé for “too much time playing online games.” [...]
[...] Prin martie a.c. comentam aparitia unui articol in editia BBC Online despre un tanar australian de 22 de ani ce investise $26,500.00 intr-o insula. O insula virtuala. Da da. O anumita “chestie” ce nu exista. Nu e palpabila. Nu o poti lua acasa. Nu poti sa faci plaja si sa simti nisipul intrandu-ti intre degetele de la picioare. De cele mai multe ori stai pe un scaun ce poate fi si incomod, fumezi, bei cafea si o tona de cola (mai am 2 pastile de Nicorette). Si toate acestea se intamplau in Project Entropia. [...]