Hmmm…I hadn’t read anything in years about Project Entropia and its successor Entropia Universe, but it looks developer MindArk was recently granted a banking license in Sweden that apparently will give it the flexibility “to offer real bank services to the inhabitants of our virtual universe” (at least according to MindArk CEO Jan Welter Timkrans).
Once upon a time I thought Entropia was a scam, but I think Walker Moore gets it right in this thread — Entropia Universe is a casino, sucking players in with the promise that they could win Big Money and Big Prizes,
It’s a casino really. Hunting and mining are their equivalent of slot machines (bullets and weapon/armour degradation cost money, but few people get out what they put in), and although it’s easy to make a profit on the auction system, you’re really speculating on a market that’s tightly controlled by Mindark. They produce all the commodities, and any clothes which don’t make you look like you’re heading for a gay Star Trek convention are in such short supply that prices are ridiculously high (a pair of plain black trousers with little detail will set you back around $40-$50 USD for example, and coats are typically $100+ USD). There is no such thing as content creation, so making money through your own creative talent is not possible.
Day trading meets Second Life.