Anyone who’s ever played a massively multiplayer online role-playing game like World of Warcraft is familiar with the concept of a virtual world, but gaming isn’t the only application for such a world. Virtual worlds like Linden Lab’s Second Life and MindArk’s Entropia Universe aren’t so much games as enormous online communities with virtual economies, real estate and consumer goods.
Entropia Universe’s economy is based on the Project Entropia Dollar (PED), which can be exchanged for other currencies at a fixed rate of 10 PED to US $1 (despite MindArk being based out of Sweden). Entropia Universe has a history of record-setting virtual exchanges. In 2004, Entropia’s Treasure Island—complete with mutants, robots, beachfront property and even a volcano—sold for $26,500. In 2007, MindArk sold five of the world’s first virtual banking licenses, authorized by the Swedish government, for upwards of $99,900.
In 2009, Entropia once again became home to the most expensive virtual real estate in the world as the Crystal Palace Space Station was sold for a mind-blowing $330,000 to the player of Buzz Lightyear.
Why would anyone pay so much for a virtual property? Well, like owners of real property, these virtual tycoons can develop their real estate into lucrative business ventures. The Space Station, for instance, has four domes where players can hunt for unique creatures—as long as they pay Lightyear’s hunting tax.
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This would be a really bizarre purchase…