Back in September 2000, I posted an article wondering if the proposed online game Project Entropia was, in fact, just a scam.
And what do you know — Project Entropia now has potential serious legal problems including a raid by Swedish authorities who found game’s maker, Mind Ark, using hundreds of pirated software titles and at least one player who is convinced that the game is a scam.
The reason I was suspicious of Project Entropia was because it promised to allow players to make real money transactions in the game. Rather than using fake gold coins or some other pseudo-currency, characters in Project Entropia would use real money. I noted at the time that I thought this would run afoul of all sorts of money laundring problems.
I did back away from that early last year conceding that it might be able to survive in the same legal grey area that PayPal has. But details in a Wired story about the raid suggest that even if it’s not a scam, it’s not very careful with its players money. Exhibit A,
MindArk stoked these dreams by promising that a “dollar millionaire” would emerge from Entropia within a year of the game’s release.
But enthusiasm for the game has been hobbled, as a series of bugs wiped out some players’ inventories and deleted others’ long-assembled characters entirely. That’s a big deal in any game but an outright disaster in Entropia, where those hoards are paid for with actual cash.
“It seems more like a scam than anything,” Entropia player Joao Coelho wrote in an e-mail.
Another player, whose account mysteriously disappeared, added in a post to the Entropia message boards, “I’m going to be calling my credit card company to get my stolen money back.”
Scam or not, I doubt Mind Ark can pull off all of the things that would be needed to make a game like this succeed. There are just too many obstacles to overcome.
Source:
Pirate Cops Raid MS Gaming Foe. Noah Shachtman, Wired, June 28, 2002.
Hey buddy, if you have ever played a pirated game or watched a pirated movie than you are just as guilty as the maker. And you’re saying there are too many obstacles to overcome, number one, who makes more money, mindark or you, number two, who has survived 10 years despite some random brians claims of fraud. Although you have your own pedastal that you have placed yourself on, doesnt give you the right to say or make you an expert on whether or not technology is going to go places. I honestly wouldnt be surprised if you were right now, sitting in your living room, eating a bag of chips, playing project entropia, depositing 50 bucks a month, trying to support your budget.