Forbes Coverage of Treasure Island

[Deathifier]

Last week I had a chat to Oliver from Forbes about the business I have running inside Entropia, as part of a story he was writing about "Extravagant And Outrageous Virtual Goods."

The conversation went well and covered a wide range of topics covering how the business operates, how things have changed over time, comparisons to real world investment options, security of the virtual world, and the skills I've learned over the years.

It was actually one of the most interesting interviews I've had


It was distilled into his article titled:
The World's Most Expensive Island--Online


Additionally the original story was turned into a slideshow:
Extravagant And Outrageous Virtual Goods

The slideshow includes the other major Calypso properties and items from other online games, some of which I've seen before, and some I haven't.

It's interesting to see that the business empires (corporate or not) in Second Life didn't get any coverage, although an item did - perhaps this hints at the different ways the virtual worlds are perceived.

- Deathifier

[UUUU]

Very interesting articles. Looks like EU has by far the highest level of investment at the top end of the scale.

I read news at the time about that guy murdering that other guy over a sword. Didn't know it was only worth $870 though. I guess it was worth much more to the murderer...

Thanks for sharing

Makes me wonder how fuzzy the lines between reality and the virtual will become in years to come

[Hally]

Interresting read, which made me do a little math.
100k$ chopped up and divided out lead to a whooping 685k peds looted a day on TI on average.
With a nomal gamer being able to cycle less then 10k peds a day thats quite a few people using TI every day.
Thats offcourse not counting the money earned from sales of property and taxes for shops.

Im not even doubthing the numbers, but i am a little supriced they are so high.

TI was a bargain but thats what you (sometimes) get for being the first to dare, great work Deathifier, hope you eventually get all you payed for, especially nown that i see the vulcano elsewhere.

[Profit]

Nice article, pity the ending was so abrupt, never-the-less it was a good read.

[Hanne|FPC]

Very cool, Deathifier!

[Shorty]

Originally Posted by Hally

Thats offcourse not counting the money earned from sales of property and taxes for shops.

It's probably mostly this, revenue from the rent of the shops/apartments etc.

but think of hogglo's bringing up 30k ped hofs every once in a while

oh nice article btw

[Deathifier]

Originally Posted by Hally

Interresting read, which made me do a little math.
100k$ chopped up and divided out lead to a whooping 685k peds looted a day on TI on average.
With a nomal gamer being able to cycle less then 10k peds a day thats quite a few people using TI every day.
Thats offcourse not counting the money earned from sales of property and taxes for shops.

Im not even doubthing the numbers, but i am a little supriced they are so high.

TI was a bargain but thats what you (sometimes) get for being the first to dare, great work Deathifier, hope you eventually get all you payed for, especially nown that i see the vulcano elsewhere.

There is indeed a lot of activity there

Income is entirely from tax now - hunting, mining, and a little from shop sales tax.
All rent goes to MA/FPC, not me, and any estate sales are not included in that particular income figure as they are one-off influxes of cash.

Something to keep in mind is that even though it was purchased for $26.5k there has been well over a hundred thousand dollars invested in it since purchase.

Basically almost everything earned has gone back into Calypso one way or another, such as DNA, land areas, and promotion (e.g. Aussie expos, which were expensive).

The island is actually pretty close to spec now - there are a few more small things to do, and a whole lot of post-VU10 issues to fix, however on the whole I'm happy with the situation.

Oh and TI does have a volcano, it popped up after VU10 and part of it is crawling with Globster.
It is a very quiet and peaceful inactive volcano though, not like the smoky rubbish on Eudoria

- Deathifier

[Noodles]

Originally Posted by Hally

Interresting read, which made me do a little math.
100k$ chopped up and divided out lead to a whooping 685k peds looted a day on TI on average.
With a nomal gamer being able to cycle less then 10k peds a day thats quite a few people using TI every day.

1M PED/365 days = 2740 PED/day tax

2740 PED/day / 0.04 tax rate = 68.5k PED/day looted.

Still a big number, but easier to believe

[Jake Rogue]

This story has also been on the homepage of Yahoo.com (US Version) all day.

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by Deathifier

It is a very quiet and peaceful inactive volcano though, not like the smoky rubbish on Eudoria

That has been said many times about volcanos back at Earth... then one day... *BOOM*


"Well I was very happy with buying Treasure Island, until the west side of it exploded, half sank into the ocean and the rest was covered in dried lava and ash..."