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Project Entropia: Games
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Like other games in its genre, players of Project Entropia (or "PE," as fans are calling it) use a virtual currency to buy the swords, shields and other equipment they need to have adventures. But unlike these other games, PE players don't start out with any "Project Entropia dollars," or PED. They have to buy the online money with real-world cash.
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As a MMORPG the world of Project Entropia is set to take you on an epic journey into the future, to a place far away from Earth, beyond the borders and frontiers of known space. The central point in the human universe is now focused on one single colony on a distant planet named Calypso. The world on Calypso will be under constant development and will initially include three vast continents with large expanding cities where you begin your life. The cities will offer you an immense virtual playground for social interaction with other players in a thriving social community. It will contain various forms of in-game institutions, real online services and a variety of virtual entertainment.
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Marco Behrmann, community relations director for Swedish company MindArk, which operates "Project Entropia," said, "The unique real cash economy means that every item has a set value in (PED) that has a fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar. To acquire PED, a participant needs to transfer real life funds onto his virtual avatar, which is used to purchase virtual items. The funds acquired while partaking in "Project Entropia" can be ... exchanged back into real-life funds, meaning that a participant can actually make real money by playing an online game."
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Project Entropia is a little different from other online games. The game itself is free to download and there are no monthly subscription fees. The 300,000 registered users exchange real money for Project Entropia Dollars, or PEDs, and participate in a virtual economy. Ten PEDs are the equivalent to one US dollar and typical items sold include Repedge battle axes at 4.55 PEDs (45 cents) and Angelic Flakes at 1.48 PEDs (15 cents).
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Development of Entropia Universe (formerly Project Entropia) started in Sweden in 1995 by Jan Welter Timkrans and a group of colleagues. During its initial testing phase in 2002 the offices of MindArk were raided by court officials following a complaint by Microsoft that MindArk was using unlicensed software. MindArk has stated that this may have been an attempt by Microsoft to derail the game's development because of its threat to their game Asheron's Call. The game was launched commercially at the start of 2003.[11] The latest Version Update of Entropia Universe took place on 29 January 2008.[12]
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Project Entropia has relied upon the "Say what?!" approach to grab column inches. Their announcements since 2004 have regularly and dramatically blurred the boundary between real and virtual money. They first became the subject of mainstream attention when it was announced that the sale of a virtual island in the online world went for over US$26,000. They repeated the feat the next year. Now their well-oiled press machine has gone into overdrive, with the announcement that users of the world can now withdraw cash from real-world ATM machines from stores of game-cash from in-world balances.
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