Investing in thin air?
March 27, 2014, 3:53 pm Yahoo!
A gaming company has launched the world's first 'million-dollar virtual property'.
Photo: Arkadia Forum
A gaming company has introduced what is billed as the world's "first million-dollar virtual property".
Located on Planet Arkadia, a part of the Entropia Universe massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), the Arkadia Underground property will be sold in the form of 200,000 deeds.
Each deed is priced at US$5, which equates to 50 PED (the game's online currency). Players who invest will share in the revenues of the virtual property and receive dividends on a daily basis, according to the company.
It may seem rather absurd to consider virtual property an investment, but it's not the first time that massive sums have traded hands in the Entropia Universe.
In 2004, a user going by the handle "Deathifier" purchased a virtual island for US$26,500. He then began selling virtual homes and charging other gamers for activities on the island.
According to the BBC, he recouped his investment in less than a year.
Other virtual property deals include a space station sold for US$330,000, a shopping mall for US$70,000 and an asteroid for US$100,000.
In 2011, the virtual planet Calypso blew the records away when it sold for a staggering US$6 million. According to MindArk, which developed Entropia, US$248 million in player-to-player transactions occurred on the planet in 2010.
The game operates on a micropayment business model, with players buying in-game currency (PED) with US dollars at an exchange rate of 10 to 1. Players can withdraw their virtual currency back into US dollars at any time.
While it can be played for free, nearly all in-game activities require resources that must be purchased from vending machines or other players.
