Man Spends $330,000 on Virtual Item

[plonker]

to the people calling the guy an idiot just refer to neverdie

he spent 100 000 $ and has become a multi-millionaire since

this other space station is more popular with the people that play the game

i'm shure he'll make his money back and more.

I played Entropia Universe for a very short while...word of advice to beginners:
Don't fucking play it. Delete it and find something else.
It's confusing as hell and makes zero sense.

Well same goes for EVE Online for many people, and yet it has a strong dedicated playerbase, so obviously it wouldnt be confusing for everybody. But thanks for the free advice.

And thank you ever so much for the unnecessary censorship. EVE Online is a lot less confusing that Entropia, I assure you.
In my time playing it I was placed in some strange city next to what appeared to be a lunar lander, dressed in what also appeared to be a sort of cutoff wetsuit. My screen was filled with unexplained icons and stats, and I spent the majority of my time in some endless plains gathering sweat from strange creatures which 80% of the time would get pissed off with me, and relentlessly chase me until I died. After I collected said sweat, through a method which involved chanting some strange aborigine-esque tune and then miming a kind of pulling-a-rope motion whilst a green beam travelled between my hands and the creature, I had to sell it to some woman who I really couldn't figure out as to whether she was AI or player controlled.

So yeah, pretty confusing.

dude you just quit to early

sweating is just a way to make some free cash in the game ofcourse it's going to be hard and confusing, it's free money after all. if it was easy then the peopel that run the game would go bust because all these peopel would be making money for free dooing something enjoyable on there computer.


as somone who has played this game i'll warn everyone that this isn't WoW, you wont get to max level in 6 months and the game wont hold your hand and go threw the baby steps and wipe your ass for ya. it's extremely hard to pull yourself out of noob level.

that said if you do persist then it's a verry rewarding and enjoyable game.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

You have to wonder how much disposable income this guy has.......

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well I have mixed opinions about the whole thing. In general I feel it's their money and they can do what they want with it, however I dislike it because as things like this go on it's making real money more of a factor in MMOGs rather than gaming abillity and soon I'm afraid MMOGs will simply become a toy for very rich people, and you won't be able to play one and get the full experiences for the cost of software + $15 a month (and expansion packs).

Truthfully though when I look at this stuff I don't immediatly think of "The Matrix" I think we're coming closer to say Larry Niven's "Dream Park" before we get to that point. I can't remember the author's name but I also read a book called "A Point Of Honor" which dealt with similar themes and portrayed virtual MMOGs as being something you pretty much had to build your life around and "want it bad enough" to be able to afford. Despite the intention of trying to make this seem relatively normal, I was thinking it seemed a lot like the mental aspects of heroin addiction.

At any rate, with some of the stuff going on in Second Life this really doesn't surprise me. We had a virtual millionaire (though she's not in the net-news much anymore), international embassies being built, virtual classrooms, and a massive porn business as people swapped their stuff through that service, and prostituted virtual child avatars to pedos.

Entropia doesn't surprise me, but personally I can't afford to either sink that much money into a game, or pay people for services and such (other than a membership fee) so I wouldn't touch this game with a 10' pole.

 

[Radeonx]

Well obviously this man knows his priorities.

 

[plonker]

Hmmm, well I have mixed opinions about the whole thing. In general I feel it's their money and they can do what they want with it, however I dislike it because as things like this go on it's making real money more of a factor in MMOGs rather than gaming abillity and soon I'm afraid MMOGs will simply become a toy for very rich people, and you won't be able to play one and get the full experiences for the cost of software + $15 a month (and expansion packs).

Truthfully though when I look at this stuff I don't immediatly think of "The Matrix" I think we're coming closer to say Larry Niven's "Dream Park" before we get to that point. I can't remember the author's name but I also read a book called "A Point Of Honor" which dealt with similar themes and portrayed virtual MMOGs as being something you pretty much had to build your life around and "want it bad enough" to be able to afford. Despite the intention of trying to make this seem relatively normal, I was thinking it seemed a lot like the mental aspects of heroin addiction.

At any rate, with some of the stuff going on in Second Life this really doesn't surprise me. We had a virtual millionaire (though she's not in the net-news much anymore), international embassies being built, virtual classrooms, and a massive porn business as people swapped their stuff through that service, and prostituted virtual child avatars to pedos.

Entropia doesn't surprise me, but personally I can't afford to either sink that much money into a game, or pay people for services and such (other than a membership fee) so I wouldn't touch this game with a 10' pole.

the software is free for a start and people have been playing off 15$/month

infact the developers reacon the average deposit per player is in the 23-25 $ a month on average

obviusly there are people ehat put in 0 and can play for free ( because they have fount a system that worked for them ( for example you can sell your skills for transfer)
and then you've got the big nutters that burn threw hundreds of dollars a month

 

[Rickyvantof]

For all we know Mr. Lightyear is a billionaire.

 

[AdambotLive]

If this guys ever turns a profit, we will be one step closer to the matrix.

this. THIS, GODDAMNIT.

 

[Dudeakoff]

To put it simply money isn't a physical entity, it's a non-existent item used as payment for goods and services. If you provide something people want, you'll obtain more money for yourself with which you can buy your own goods and services.
Now, with the world's increasing use of the internet, it's only natural that we'll get people who want online-only stuff due to spending a lot of time on there, so people who invest in providing services for them appear to have a good chance of getting a return on the money they put in (dependent on a number of other factors of course).
What's wrong with that?
I also find it quite odd that a fair number of people on a gaming website would react so negatively towards such an event. I'd have thought they'd have realised that data can be worth a hell of a lot of money depending on how it's valued by people. I could apply the same reductionist approach of saying it's just some texture and AI to something like art by saying it's just a bit of paint, yet it still sells in the millions.
You guys need to read/watch more cyberpunk...

EDIT: Of course, I know next to nothing about the game and the above is purely an outsider's view of what's going on.

 

[Kellerb]

Oh crap, skynets building an economy.

 

[Mister Benoit]

Well, it's his money. Not going to argue with a man rich enough to have me killed.

Bingo.

 

[Brad Shepard]

if you are willing to spend so much on an item, you should turn off the game, and just give the money to someone who really needs it. this really makes me sick.

Then maybe you should go shutdown the stock market, and all business, and the economy too!

I ment a fake item, somthing that doesent exist in this world in a physical form and never will.

 

[MasterSqueak]

Snip.

the software is free for a start and people have been playing off 15$/month

infact the developers reacon the average deposit per player is in the 23-25 $ a month on average

obviusly there are people ehat put in 0 and can play for free ( because they have fount a system that worked for them ( for example you can sell your skills for transfer)
and then you've got the big nutters that burn threw hundreds of dollars a month

What?

I could make real money for no investment other than work on this game?

if you are willing to spend so much on an item, you should turn off the game, and just give the money to someone who really needs it. this really makes me sick.

Then maybe you should go shutdown the stock market, and all business, and the economy too!

I ment a fake item, somthing that doesent exist in this world in a physical form and never will.

Yeah, but the fake money it makes him can be transferred into real money.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Right now im playing this game. Cuz of this damn topic. I just wondered so much . . . .
tell you all the truth its a greatly calculated game. The way you put real money into it just to start off your adventures. . . .no matter what i do it seems im losing my money (PED) and the loots i get cant justify it.
There ways to earn money i got a great mentor who`s been playing for 9 months. But its still a sink in a hole while ur a low skilled colonist. Yes there no levels in this game....
I think...i should open a topic for this game n see what happens :O

 

[Censorme]

If this guys ever turns a profit, we will be one step closer to the matrix.

Very True. Just how close will developers make virtual reality into reality?
How long before people become permanent residents of a virtual world, dealing game money to make real money for the outside people to keep his lifeless blob of a human alive in the real world?

At first, this option/style of living would only be for the rich. The middle to wealthy class are able to afford consoles/goggles/suits or whatever to enter in and out of the virtual reality and interact with the permanent residents (therefore keep the in-game economy going).

The Developers make billions as more of their technology is made more available. As Earth becomes rotten, obese, and decrepit from people (being people), it becomes the trend to join the beautiful virtual world, full of beautiful people that live fake yet happy lives. The in-game economy is now stimulated by people who are given supervised rights to manipulate the virtual world by using their brain power for in-game jobs such as mail-sorting, art-making, modding, gaming, or whatever is the limit. If you somehow cannot pay for your existence in the game, you are ejected, and must adapt to reality or die.

The outsiders (mainly poor Africans, Asians, Mexicans,etc) are left behind to have jobs paid for by the game developers (who now rule all realities)to look after the fleshy shells or brains hooked to computers. Nerds rule the world...

 

[plonker]

What?

I could make real money for no investment other than work on this game?

yeh if you concentrate on only the free money ventures in the game yes

but you will be making alot less than minimum wage. some people in poorer countrys have been know in live off it in the past

other ways to make a shure profit is beeing a traider ( people buy other people's loot for knock down price because they dont have bulk then sell it on)

 

[Cargin]

if there is a method to this madness, i cant see it. not sure if im happy about that.....

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I'm not gonna knock the guy for doing this, especially if it turns out to actually make him a profit and all that. What always bothers me in these "players invest/spend their own money for virtual material" situations is that it could eventually become the next big thing that people want to do.

I personally don't like having to use real money in a game, especially after I paid money to buy it in the first place. It's the reason I dislike MMO's in general. The monthly fee ones have free in-game stuff yes, but you pay each month just to play the game you paid for. The free ones have only some of the items free, and the rest you purchase with real money, including services that would/should have been free otherwise.

I guess like any investment, if you have the faith in something then it gives you the desire to spend it. But for me, it feels like too risky of a venture to want to pull off anything like this.

 

[ucciolord1]

I'm pretty sure most of us have wasted much more than $330,000 worth of time on an MMO.

 

[Xeros]

Hey, if he gets his money back and then-some in profits, why not?

the game actually has a license from the Swedish government to act as a real bank [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90348-MMO-Granted-Real-World-Banking-License].

How the hell does that work?