Gamer Pays 26K for MMORPG Land

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:24 am

Whether Deathifier may make money or not I still see this "investment" as rather sad and another reason why I stay away from MMORPGS. I think spending any real money on intangible goods or land in MMORPGs to be wasteful. Hell, if you want to give money away there are many worthy charities. Project Entropia will not live on forever and what happens when the servers go down? What do you have left besides a couple of screenshots and the title of most wasteful nerd? I am just glad I invest my time in first person shooters. You can still make just as many friends and not have to waste money. You can read the full article by visiting the BBC.

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:58 am

you just dont know the whole story in that game...

every bit of land/item/etc that is sold, the "ingame money" can be actually turned into real cash. so all the taxes he is collecting can be turned into profit.

and 26k for an island isnt that bad, its downright cheap actually in that games standards

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 12:10 pm

I read the whole article and I still think it is rather sad. Why not spend that money on real land that will be there forever? Eh, but once again I am pretty much to the point of thinking MMO games are the devil. As I get older I feel like unplugging more and more and living real life.

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 12:58 pm

i wouldent mind hooking the internet up to my veins Laughing

but he could make profit on it, people buy islands in real life and make it tourist attractions.. so why not in a virtual world?

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:16 pm

Hey if he makes some money then cool. I just can't see ever paying real money for anything inside a video game. But hey stocks and bonds are intangable also and I would invest in them. Thank goodness I am not playing life vampire MMO games anymore. I just thought it was an interesting article that would spark conversation. And it did. :p

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:42 pm

lol, indeed Laughing

i dident say its smart, and i dont see any profit, but its prety cool..

Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:51 pm

waste of money imo

UO Noob Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 22

If you can exchange the virtual money for real money, and the creators of the game actually support that, what's the problem?
If I want I could invest my euros into dollars without ever actually having anything to do with those smelly pieces of paper.
Everything is just as virtual as the game world, yet I can still make or lose lots of money if I invest (im)properly.
This isn't all that different.

What's "IMO" about "waste of money"?
Either the guy earns some money, meaning it wasn't a waste of money, or he ends up losing money, making it indeed a waste.
That doesn't have anything to do with opinions.
Well, perhaps the only reason he bought the land was to have fun in the game.
If so, my opinion would be it would be a waste of money, and his opinion would be it wouldn't, but when it comes to these numbers I really doubt that's the case.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:50 pm

he definatly loses money on this.. the game is free, and he pays 26K for it..
but he can make some of it back.. but not all, im sure!
but hey, everyone knows him now, especialy in that game. and people will want to visit him etc. tho i wonder how he can make sure they all pay? and can he build houses and sell them? on that virtual peice of real estate?

UO Staff Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 524 Location: Atlanta

Well, among other things, you can sell accounts and in-game currency for RL money. I did that after I beta tested Lineage II - I sold all my artifacts etc. Just set up an e-bay account, make an agreement with someone to meet them in a place and time on a server, give them your items in game for no cost to them (in game) and get the money sent to you via PayPal. A friend of mine sold his L2 account for $400. It's all... eh, it's all about what's important to you. I never paid a cent for any of my L2 stuff, since I was just doing beta.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:19 pm

cool, but maybe they run away after you gave em your stuff? not all people are as nice as you..

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:45 pm

that could happen too.. but thats a risk you have to take.

i did that with a character in a game im currently playing (conquer online)

i got it up to lvl 50, got some decent stuff with it, traded the excellent stuff to my primary character, and then sold the lvl 50 char to someone for $250. its an easy way to get a strong grasp into a game without spending too much time being a "n00b" and in the game i'm playing you can buy things with real money, and credit them to your in-game acct so you have some really nice stuff for el-cheapo.