Gamer buys virtual Island for real $

[Kidlicious]

Who said spending thousands of dollars on a painting was a good idea?

There could be several problems with this.

1. You can create capital in the game.
2. It's addiciting.
3. There is not regulation of the economy.

What would happen if these games became hugely popular, sucked up much of the capital out of the economy, and the vitual economy collapsed.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Imagine if the server crashed and all the data was lost

Well, that's another serious risk.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Imagine if the server crashed and all the data was lost

That's like saying, to someone buying a computer game, "imagine if your computer crashed and all the data was lost! " So you'd have to reinstall it... big deal. A MMORPG can't crash and lose an entire part of the game.

[Lul Thyme]

But this kind of stuff adds a lot of weight on development teams.
Now if they make a decision which is good entertainment wise, but might hurt some ppl who have real money invested, they might get a lot of pressure...

I can see lots of other problems tied to this (I mean that this could indirectly hurt the enter. value of the game)

[General Ludd]

I believe Project Entropia is built on the idea that people buy in-game things with real money, I am guessing that he bought this island from the 'game' itself.

[Shogun Gunner]

I wonder if the guy who got outbid for this is feeling better about holding onto his 25K or so.

Any money spent on stuff in the game is just spending money recreationally. It's ridiculous to suggest that the real economy would collapse because everyone spent their money in a virtual environment. It's impossible, you can't set the luxury slider all the way to 100%.... uh oh

No seriously, it's no problem. I hope everyone invests their money into virtual realities. I won't, and relatively speaking, I will be better off than everyone else despite not moving forward in any absolute terms.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by General Ludd





That's like saying, to someone buying a computer game, "imagine if your computer crashed and all the data was lost! " So you'd have to reinstall it... big deal. A MMORPG can't crash and lose an entire part of the game.

Why not?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by General Ludd
I believe Project Entropia is built on the idea that people buy in-game things with real money, I am guessing that he bought this island from the 'game' itself.

I don't know if the company gets any, but the players can create capital in the game, and sell it in the real world.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Any money spent on stuff in the game is just spending money recreationally.

I don't think so. This guy expects to get a return on this.

[Lul Thyme]

I didnt know Entropia was built around this whole concept, so I guess for the game itself its not a problem then.

So I guess its ok in this case.

[Dis]

it's times like these I'm reassured I'm not as geeky as I think I am.

[Thucydides]

Wow, think of the possibilty. A few people who have too much time on their hands and a little capital can make careers out of playing this game. It's a zero sum game of course, so other people who play this game on a more recreational level are going to be giving their money to this guy and a few others like him. But given enough interests in this MMOG, you can make your entire livelihood on virtual real estate in a video game. This is good news for gaming geeks everywhere

Unfortunetly, I don't have the time to invest in game like that anymore despite having the money

[Drogue]

There was an article posted here written by an economist about how MMORGs now have real exachnge rates. Someone can easily make minimum wage playing an MMORG, and selling the items they make, indeed companies have been set up to gather items and sell them at a profit. The legal problems come that if the company running the game decides to remove it, everything is lost, and there's little comeback, since the company running the game has no legal responsibility to these items. Moreover, they could add much money to the game, increasing inflation and reducing the worth considerably. It's very risky, but I don't see why it shouldn't be seen as that, people buy MMORG items on eBay all the time for real money.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Thucydides
It's a zero sum game of course,

Not actually. People enter the game, thus increasing demand for items and land. As more people use it and gain benefit from it, the value of everything in the game increases.

[Kidlicious]

I'm suprised that there doesn't seem to be any polytubbies that have played any games like this.

In a game like this you would be at a serious disadvantage if you didn't have money to invest. I wonder how they work things like that out.