Some people may have too much time on their hands. Some may have too much money. Some guys, like Jon Jacobs, have a little bit of both; or at least now he does. Jon Jacobs sold his in-game property for a whopping $335,000 dollars. The property was in the Swedish-made MMORPG Entropia Universe3, a game which looks like a clash of Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies where avatars can go around and do pretty much anything.
The property is one which Jacobs had been managing for over 5 years. Jacobs bought Club Neverdie in 2005, taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his home. The club sits on an asteroid around Entropia’s first planet, Planet Calypso. Club Neverdie hosts in-game shopping, clubbing with live DJs, hunting, real cash prizes and more. The thing about Entropia Universe is that it runs off a real cash economy, where players can buy in-game currency (PED – Project Entropia Dollars) with real money and then redeem it back into real world funds at a fixed exchange rate. Jacobs’ business brought him an annual income of around $200,000 a year, allowing him to live comfortably with his family. Pretty sweet set up – he even has his own theme song.
The sale of the property netted him just over half a million in cash, with the largest chunk being sold to an avatar named John Foma Kalun, who paid $335,000 for it. This tops the previous largest virtual transaction, which was the sale of the Crystal Palace Space Station for $330,000 back in 2009.
So who’s the guy who deals out $335,000 big ones for fake real estate? A man named Yan Panasjuk, who had this to say for himself… Continue reading Today’s WTF: Virtual MMO Real Estate SOLD for $335,000