Never say Neverdie in a virtual economy

Late last month, Jon Jacobs, an independent film-maker from Miami, became the first person in the history of online gaming to spend $100,000 (£58,000) on a single virtual item when he bought a space station in the game "Project Entropia".

Jacobs, whose avatar Neverdie is somewhat of a celebrity in the space fantasy game, is so confident of his ability to turn his hefty investment into quick riches that he pulled cash out of his real-world home to help raise the hundred grand.

His certainty is based partly on the experience of David Storey, who earlier this year set the previous record for highest price paid for a virtual item when he plopped down $26,500 for Treasure Island, a private piece of "Project Entropia" land. Storey, Jacobs said, has already made his money back through revenue earned by hunters and miners who pay a tax to use his island.

And though there haven't been many instances of people paying five or six figures for virtual items, the trade in such goods is big business. The value of all virtual items — swords, armour, dwellings, vehicles and the like — is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And it is growing.

With that in mind, ZDNet UK's sister site, CNET News.com, recently talked to Jacobs to pick his brain on his in-game celebrity and why he would do something that the rest of us would never even dream of.

Q: Where does the name Neverdie come from?
A: That's my idea for the ultimate video game avatar, because the thing you do most when you play video games is die. So the ultimate character is the one who never dies.

I'd previously spent $1,000 on a small piece of land, a tiny piece of land inside "Project Entropia", and it was already yielding like $15 a day in revenue, you know, which is like $450 a month.

Why is Neverdie famous in "Project Entropia"?
It started early on. When I started playing, I went after all the good stuff and I was like the first person to acquire a full set of shadow armour, which was the uberequipment. That was a historic day in itself, and the first time Neverdie began to establish a reputation. About a year later I recorded a song about my girlfriend: "My girl is a gamer chick, I really love her so." I sent it to the developers of "Project Entropia," and they really loved that. They offered to put it in the jukeboxes (scattered throughout the game). It was just amazing. I would go from town to town, and people would be playing the song everywhere. Once the word got around that Neverdie had created the song, both my avatar and my girlfriend's avatar became celebrities.

Tell me about your participation in the real cash economy?
I was very much in love with the whole concept of the real cash economy. When they put this Treasure Island in the auction, I ended up selling everything and doing everything I could to raise enough money to get it. I did it almost entirely with profits that I had accumulated in the game, and I managed to bid $26,000. But I was beaten. It was really one of those real historic moments like being in "EverQuest" and killing the first dragon. I've seen the potential of it all, and I've gone through it, and I learned my lesson, and my lesson was that I can't afford not to do this. I could not afford not to get the space resort. It's too valuable. The guy that bought the Treasure Island recouped his investment in a year.

Where did the $100,000 come from?
Well, probably around $35,000 was accumulated (from the sale of virtual goods from the game) over the course of three years. We have items that are very, very valuable. The rest of the money, I basically refinanced my house. If I bought a property on the beach in Miami, I would just...

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