http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/160-man-drops-record-setting-335-000-on-virtual-game-property So the guy that owned it before, paid $100,000 for it in 2005 and sold it for $635k. Guess the real estate propery bubble didnt burst in cyberspace. I wonder if this is where the world is heading? Everyone sitting at home making virtual transactions instead of real world transactions.
The price mark is not unheard of for property inside a computer game. However, in Second Life, an older sibling of Etropia, people "lease" empty real estate from the game for next to nothing and sell developed estates at an appropriate premium.
After reading that article I decided to create an account on entropia and see what its like(its free to play) Apparently you can make money in game and transfer it to real dollars at a fixed exchange rate of 10 PEDs to $1 USD. This might be a good idea for unemployed individuals. If they cant get a job in real life, they can get a job in the game. Any earnings they make in game can be turned into real dollars. Of course after playing for an hour I get the impression that you have to buy stuff to start making any real money. The 1 hour I played I got enough materials to sell to make about 1-2 cents. The game didnt seem to exciting, but maybe if i have some free time I will explore it some more.