By The Way...

This strikes me as vaguely ridiculous:

A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 (£13,700) on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game (RPG).

The Australian gamer, known only by his gaming moniker Deathifier, bought the island in an online auction. The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other.

"This is a historic moment in gaming history, and this sale only goes to prove that massive multi-player online gaming has reached a new plateau," said Marco Behrmann, director of community relations at Mindark, the game's developer.

Apparently the fellow plans to make money off of selling parcels of land to other players in the game -- and given the amount of real-world economic activity that goes on in these virtual worlds, it might even actually be a smart buy for the guy.

Having said that, this is one of those times you want to pull aside everyone involved and say, "now, you know you've just spent real money on a fake world, right?" I pity this dude if the gamemaker decides to pull the plug on this virtual world anytime soon -- after all, in these virtual worlds, gamemakers have all the rights to the game and everything within them. And there's nothing to keep the gamemakers from, say, creating another island just like this one anytime they want, thus driving the value of the island way down. It just seems like a risky proposition is all.

Interesting factoid from this story: "Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia." Which sounds impressive until you actually find out that the GDP of Namibia is only about a third of Bill Gates' personal fortune. He could actually but the country three times over. Now, that's real estate purchasing power.

Would you spend $23K on a virtual island?

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• #3 Comment from xxlilfweak1231xx 
  12/21/04 2:29 AM | Permalink

  if you have that kind of money- maybe he doesn't care that he just bought nothing. then again, maybe his little project might work- i would like to think that he would somehow prove everyone wrong- i would love to see if this thing takes off....   it would prove that some people need their med's everyday at the same time- or it causes serious side effects!!! lol   have a good one!   rachel    p.s.- if i had this kind of money- i would NOT buy something that i can't go put my butt on!! lol   http://journals.aol.com/xxlilfweak1231xx/Whatcanyoudo/
• #2 Comment from greyhoundloner03 
  12/20/04 6:16 PM | Permalink

  Good Grief...If he wanted to throw away money, he coulda thrown it to me.
• #1 Comment from collinbrtn 
  12/20/04 12:34 PM | Permalink

  No. I honestly couldn't imagine doing that just for the reasons you stated. The whole Project Entropia thing seems... dubious. To me at least. Of course, since I'm on a Mac I don't have the option to participate even if I thought it was a good idea.