Virtual property yields $100,000

Yes, game-playing can pay. But I'm given to think that it's the game owners who win. A Miami resident has bought a virtual space station for $100,000 in the virtual/online world Project Entropia. Like other land areas in the game that has been visited by 300,000 players, the resort grounds will spawn dinosaur-like monsters, which visitors can kill. Jacobs will take a cut of the virtual resources that the carcasses yield, like hides.

Jacobs, 39, plans to hire famous disc jockeys to entertain visitors once a week or so at the space station which he will convert into a resort but still reckons on netting $20,000 a month from the hunting tax and other income. 'I want to operate this thing at the level of a major nightclub in a major city,' Jacobs said. Jacobs bought the property late last month from MindArk PE AB, Project Entropia's Swedish developer. The game, which has no subscription fee, has its own currency but it's convertible at a fixed rate to dollars.

About a quarter of the purchase money came from Jacobs' in-game earnings. Over three years playing Project Entropia, Jacobs accumulated items that later became worth thousands of dollars, like first-aid kits and powerful weapons.
He sold those items last year to try buy an island in Project Entropia, but was outbid -- it sold for $26,500, the previous record sale in that world.