Yantis gets paid bigtime.. Reported 10+ mill for his company

[Junaru]

http://www.waterthread.org/news/107474916112769.html

God I HATE this guy.. Why couldn't he sell befor he purchased www.eqbeastlords.com and saved us tons of problems..

[TheOriginalGronker]

Assuming its valid, note that the payout is in 'both cash and equity'.  I'll leave that up to the imagination (for example, somehow pooling all the virtual 'assets').  Don't forget, these people thrive if somehow they look like big business.  It *is* big business, but bigger is better in their case.

Perhaps this sort of thing is precisely what the game owners are looking for before sueing - for the small-timer that sells their level 65 toon its not worth it to drag them to court.  But if someone can and has made millions of $$, perhaps its worth it to drag them to court, no matter how drawn out it is.  But is that what they really want to do?

Online gaming is still in its infancy - a real sustainable money-making model has yet to be determined.  And society, even most of the online society, still perceives gaming as 'bad'.  At some point however, spending $10k on 'virtual' gear for an online game will be regarded similarly to a mountain climber spending thousands of dollars on gear and a trip to their next climbing target.  Is there really a difference?  I have so far only paid money for the game, online time, and internet connection to actually play on-line games.  I know a fellow that collects stamps that pays EASILY $10k/year average for rare and collectable pieces, often taking trips to different coutries to take part in conferences and auctions.  Somehow, he/she's not regarded as the 'loser' someone paying $10k for online plat.

[Kenaniah]

I guess the reason I see people who buy platinum as a little less wise ( I wouldn't call them all losers) is that you are buying something you have no control over. At any given time you are subject to the status of the computer your character is saved on over at Sony. You are subject to being ripped off by the person not actually giving you the cash... (How do you verify that someone never delivered fake money to you?)... How do you stop the company from deciding to shut the servers down one day, and your money being out the door. You can't... When you buy a physical item you have some control over what happens to it, someone could steal it but you have a better chance of protecting it... The servers are completely at the whim of Sony, and thus you are paying for something you never really own.

[Xalmat]

The servers are completely at the whim of Sony, and thus you are paying for something you never really own.

Bingo. An economy based purely on the value of someone else's 0's and 1's won't have any value whatsoever once those 0's and 1's disappear.

At least for software (like Windows, Starcraft, and the Everquest CDs themselves), the CD and related media have tangible physical value.

[TheOriginalGronker]

I guess the reason I see people who buy platinum as a little less wise ( I wouldn't call them all losers) is that you are buying something you have no control over.

While this may seem like a simple conclusion, its not.  Consider the stock market:  Shareholders, really, have little/no control over their investment yet the perception of value and impending growth fuels this "investment".  

At any given time you are subject to the status of the computer your character is saved on over at Sony. You are subject to being ripped off by the person not actually giving you the cash... (How do you verify that someone never delivered fake money to you?)... How do you stop the company from deciding to shut the servers down one day, and your money being out the door. You can't...

This is very true.  And, really, and I'm sure everyone playing agrees to some extent, that EQ will 'go down' and all remaining characters etc will be non-accessible some time in the future.  But what buying stuff does for you is reduces the TIME you have to spend to otherwise acheive what you want now.  Its frivillous really ... but there is perceived value in this 'playing time' savings.  And I"d guess that people feel they'll get their money's worth just by having these items for a long time to come, as the game will not be shut down anytime soon.

and thus you are paying for something you never really own.

People pay for plane tickets, facials, property taxes, and other things that result in nothing material gained or anything to 'own'.  You can easily consider paying for plat similar to paying someone to mow your lawn : instead of you investing time and equipment to do this, you fork over $10 to the kid down the street.  Instead of spending a week farming 100k plat (or however long it would take you) you hand over $100 to someone.  Easy for an adult with a decent job to justify and afford saving them 20-30 hours.  Heck if the game company sold this stuff I think I might have actually considered it myself a while ago (new games are too close ...).

I dont want to sound like I'm advocating sales of in-game stuff by a 3rd party - personally I hate it and if it were significantly more rampant I'd probably get frustrated enough to quit and move on - but reality is its here, and likely in the future the business model for 'virtual goods' for on-line games will coalecse into something noone can really forsee.

[skell]

The link in the first post isn't responding for me.  Can someone give a brief summary beyond what is in the thread title?

[Noriko]

This is a cut & paste in case you can't get to the link on first post:

Boca Raton, FL – January 22nd, 2004 – Internet Gaming Entertainment, Ltd. ("IGE") (www.ige.com), the worldwide leader in the market for buying and selling virtual property used in multiplayer online games, announced today that it has agreed to acquire substantially all of the assets of Yantis Enterprises, Inc. (www.mysupersales.com).
The deal involves both cash and equity in IGE's parent company, IGE U.S. LLC ("IGE U.S."), headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, according to Randy Maslow, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of IGE U.S.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games ("MMORPGs") like EverQuest and Ultima Online are filled with virtual property — things like magic weapons, houses, in-game currency, and characters that are bought and sold on auction exchanges, with thousands of dollars trading hands every day. The total trade volume for virtual property is estimated by Professor Edward Castronova, professor of economics at Cal-State Fullerton, to exceed $400m annually, with an undetermined portion of that amount annually captured in real-world dollars by dealers in virtual currency and goods.

With more than 80 employees and thousands of suppliers, IGE is the largest provider in the world of virtual currency exchange and game-enhancement services to players of MMORPGs. The company provides 24x7x365 customer service and tech support from its state of the art operations center in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong.

"Jonathan Yantis is an entrepreneur who blazed the trail in creating a market for the exchange of virtual currency and property," said Brock Pierce, CEO of IGE U.S. "This acquisition is a big step for both us and the virtual currency exchange market as a whole, and solidifies our position as the largest player in this market by far."

Mr. Yantis will be joining IGE U.S. as Chief Operating Officer and a member of the company's Board of Managers. The other members of the Board include Mr. Pierce, Mr. Maslow and Alan Debonneville, President of the IGE subsidiary in Hong Kong.

"This is a marriage of the two pioneers in this industry," said Jonathan Yantis. "I'm excited to be joining IGE and look forward to our future successes together."

[DiosT]

hhe...

eqbeastlords -- Priced at $200,000
Ranger's site -- Priced at $150,000
Druid site -- Priced at $10


Bet that's some of the value of the business :-P overpriced domain names that used to be popular