Virtual World, Real Banking 65
The Opposable Thumbs blog brings news about MindArk PE AB, a Swedish game developer whose MMO Entropia Universe has an in-game economy based on real money. It seems the company has been "granted preliminary approval for a real banking license by the Swedish Finance Supervisory. ... MindArk's going to be just like a bank in the real world: it will be backed by Sweden's $60,000 deposit insurance, offer interest-bearing accounts for its clients, feature direct deposit options, let players pay bills online, and apparently will offer loans to customers." An Associated Press report adds that "The economic activity in Entropia Universe was worth about $420 million last year, about the same as the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, population 110,000. The game has 850,000 player accounts, though not all of them represent active players."
Re:Sounds like Second Life. (Score:4, Informative)
A quick trip to Wikipedia tells me that Entropia predates Second Life by more than 6 months. And as far as I know, their underlying model has always been based on real money, just like Second Life's.
Flaws (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dangerous (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that entropia is merely a glorified casino, I am very surprised it they are actually granted the license.
I tried "playing" entropia for maybe 20 bucks a year or two back. Atleast then it was blindingly obvious that the success revolved around chance and diminishing profits. I tried hunting and mining. Manufacturing seemed too expensive to even start with. Munitions for mining and repairing for hunting were just slightly more expensive than the profits even when carefully done.
Re:Sounds like Second Life. (Score:2, Informative)