“Virtual” Space Station sold for $330,000Written By Roy
That’s right – we didn’t fall asleep on the 0 key when writing that title, someone really has spent $330,000 (about £205,000) on a virtual space station, smashing previous records for the price of a virtual item and making a whole bunch of people struggling to pay the bills or buy a new game facepalm in disbelief.
The game that plays host to the space station is Entropia Universe. It’s a PC only endeavour that’s a bit like a mix between a standard MMORPG and a more social based environment such as the more famous Second Life. You can play the game for free, although if you want to do anything but chat and ‘sweat’ at enemies, you have to start throwing money into the game.
Having never got a chance to play Entropia we can’t make many comments on the community or the reasoning behind the purchase, but in case you’re wondering if the buyer, Buzz ‘Erik’ Lightyear is absolutely insane, there doe
s appear to be a small bit of sense in the purchase.
The games currency called PED can be converted directly into dollars and back again, and the space station is the only place in the game where certain actions can be performed. Therefore, the only of the space station can make real money by setting a tax rate in PED which he can then convert back to dollars.
Still, it just seems like an amazing amount of money to spend out on something that doesn’t exist. We wonder who the buyer would feel if MindArk – the games developers – were to simply shut down their servers tomorrow leaving him nearly a quarter of a million pounds overdrawn with no space station in sight.
We’re keen to hear from any Entropia Universe players on if Erik’s purchase is likely to ever make him back the money!
The News Release was written by: Roy who produces professional