$100,000 for a non-existent space station!?

[Vroomfunkel]

Perhaps this is old news, but ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4374610.stm

This kind of thing never ceases to amaze me.

Physical collectibles, although the prices are sometimes crazy, at least you actually have something for your money. Rather than a big fat pile of nothing ...

Vroomfunkel

[Xexyz]

SO to play that game you have to pay real money in exchange for virtual money? That looks like one of the biggest scams ever...

[Mr.Faxanadu]

Perhaps this is old news, but ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4374610.stm

This kind of thing never ceases to amaze me.

Physical collectibles, although the prices are sometimes crazy, at least you actually have something for your money. Rather than a big fat pile of nothing ...

Vroomfunkel

I guess you can print out the source code and frame it.

[Yamazaki]

rofl



I mean this is nothing knew. people are dealing with weapons and items in almost every other mmorpg.

[Joelius]

Has anyone ever played this game? I mean, if I can make a few extra bucks playing this game in my spare time...then shoot, i'm all about it.

Has heard/done this?

[blissfulnoise]

What you might have missed is that Entropia has a system for Exchanging out in game currency with real money.

As a result, this $100,000 virtual space station could be seen as an investment.

The owner can tax a certain percentage of all hunting that occurs on their land. Say 5 in game "bucks" a kill. He can then exchange out 40 in game "bucks" for 1 real world US Dollar. Assume that 5000 "creatures" are hunted a day on his space station; he makes $625 that day. After 160 days of ingame play, he begins to make money.

All of this is a hypothetical of course, and I don't play Entropia, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

The game seems to be more about a true virtual economy experiment than about killing MOBs for phat loot. I've been pretty intrigued by it, but I don't think I'll pony up the investment to get started in it.

[Kejoriv]

so many other better things to spend 100,000 on

[rbudrick]

I wonder if he can make a return on his investment by charging other real money to shop there, stay there, etc.

-ROb

[Joelius]

Yes, because you can exchange out in game currency for US dollars. So it is very possible that he can make all that money back, and relatively quickly, according to blissfulnoise's equation.

[devils advocate]

Yikes. Kind of like a pyramid scheme disguised as a video game.

He had better hope the virtual economy keeps up with an aggressive growth rate , or he'll be sitting on some pretty expensive, useless "property".

I have a hard enough time keeping up with real world economy, let alone a virtual one.

If the games economy goes downhill, do characters start jumping off the top of the virtual space station?

[goatdan]

Yeah, I remember reading about that island that sold and looking at the game then. It seems to be pretty interesting. If I understand it correctly, you start out with a character with no real money. You can work in the game at various things to get money, or you can pay money into the game. Players then can use what they do to make money or to buy things.

The company that made the game gets paid for things like selling this space station and items in the game, instead of through fees paid to them. So, if you want to play the game you can for free... but you are vastly limited to spending TONS of time to earn the things you would need to make money. And likely, you won't get back an investment on them.

But you can pay in and buy things. Lets say you are on a planet, and you want to go to another one to start hunting things to sell for money. You pay the game $10.00 for a ticket to fly to this other planet. Once you're there, you can start hunting animals to sell. Other players may run a hotel for your character to stay in. You'll need to hunt a certain amount to remain there and stay alive. You'll also need a certain amount of money for ammo and weapons and stuff. You keep hunting, you keep earning.

If you run out of your money, you can pay in "real world" money. Or your character dies.

Lets say that you are that hotel owner though... you own the hotel and you charge the guests $1.00 (real world) per day to stay there. You pay your "employees" who help run the hotel $2.00 / day for helping. There are rooms for 100 people, and you have 10 employees. If your rooms are full, you could make $100 / day - $20 / day for the employees = $80.00 / day of "real world" money. Of course, your hotel could be taxed (likely by the game company) and your hotel wouldn't always be full. So it is just like setting up a virtual business.

Honestly, I think it is an awesome concept for a game, and if I had the time to actually get into something like that, I would be all over it. If I ever get some extra time, I'm sure that I'll sit down and play it for a while in the future

[Enixis]

OMG! Imagine all the games you can get with all that kind of $$$.

[Joelius]

This piqued my interest a lot, so I started playing to get some extra video game $$$. And yeah, IT'S A BOATLOAD of time from what i've noticed. And when they start you out, thats all they do. Drop you out in the middle of nowhere, and let you fend for yourself.

After I get past the point of making nothing, and actually make some money, I'll keep everyone posted.

[rbudrick]

I wonder if you could get rich enough to start a revolution and take over the space station by siege! Hostile takeover! Just like the real economy! Give me your country, weakling!

Would his investement go down the tube then? I know, the game's probably not programmed for the real economy as much as they say they are.

-Rob

[poloplayr]

this proves that Darwin was right beyond a doubt.