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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Games Gaming Demonstrates Inevitability of Global Capitalism

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 9:17 AM

A few weeks ago, Buzz "Erik" Lightyear paid $330,000 in cash money for Crystal Palace, a space station in a virtual world inhabited by over 800,000 virtual space people. Crystal Palace is the most expensive virtual object ever purchased, and the bidding was fierce. This interview with the winner is only marginally enlightening for readers who don't play or follow massively multiplayer games, but this quote answers our main questions:

"I won't talk much about the financial things, except to say it was not a collection of investors. And that I'm not rich, just worked out resources and invested them into [Crystal Palace]. An investment that I think will outperform any similar Real Life investments."

ENTROPIA DIRECTORY
Cozy, ready to move in

Dude gets to tax game activities on his space station, which include hunting aliens for rare armor parts, in-game auctions, spaceship repairs, and much more. The game, Planet Calypso, has a large and interesting economy in which players can add, trade, spend, and reclaim real world funds in-game, with no charges for download, installation, or game time. In 2006, players exchanged over $360 million. Time will tell if this turns out to be the final blow against the revolution.

The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.

Comments (5) RSS

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Much like the bogus figures that were often quoted about Second Life, that $300+ million figure is cooked. Planet Calypso is nowhere near that popular. That's just a flat out fact, people are NOT spending a third of a billion dollars on a game that almost nobody plays.

I bet dollars to donuts that the game company itself gave this guy the credits (since they can just poof them into existence at will) under a NDA, knowing that the publicity that would result from the accompanying press release would be the most coverage this piece of shit game ever got.

Stupid credulous hack of the day; Stranger Testing Department! I'm half teasing but if you're gonna write about this stuff you need someone on staff who knows about it.

Posted by Dave M on January 20, 2010 at 9:26 AM

C.R.E.A.M

Posted by Capitalist on January 20, 2010 at 9:27 AM

crystal palaces are the new chaldrons.

Posted by josh

on January 20, 2010 at 9:35 AM

@1, third of a million, not third of a billion.

Posted by Fnarf

on January 20, 2010 at 10:41 AM

@Fnarf: Congratulations on being retarded, your parents must be proud.

"In 2006, players exchanged over $360 million."

That's over a third of a billion dollars. It's also a crock of shit.

Posted by Dave M on January 20, 2010 at 12:18 PM