news in reverse: virtual island sold for $26,500

a virtual island in the mmorpg online game project entropia sold for $26,500 in real money last year to david storey, a 22-year old player based in australia. the island rumoredly contained 6,000 acres of land, a castle, a mine, and fantastic beasts to hunt. the lines between virtual worlds and the real world has been blurring for a while now, as players have long used sites like ebay to sell rare items for real cash- commonly for anywhere between $1 - $50. project entropia is a rare mmorpg, because online money is transferrable into real money. the game doesn't have an online fee, but apparently has real money fees to keep certain parts of your game running smoothly. this is then converted into artificial money and injected into the virtual economy, allowing the online money you make in the game to also be transferred back into real cash, since it all started out that way anyway.

full article at new scientist