Unfinished MMO Raises $21,000 in Auction Selling Virtual Items

December 29, 2011 by Mat Growcott

Chinese developer Snail Games proves that people will buy things that don’t exist in a game that they’ve never played – I have an opera house in Sydney they can buy.

During a closed beta I imagine that most MMOs are actually entirely unprofitable, the cost of keeping the servers running, advertising and fixing problems rapidly is probably far is excess of what you're actually bringing in from new players. So I imagine when it comes to fundraising you have to be somewhat creative and Chinese developer Snail Games has taken the cake, eaten the cake and then sent out text messages to all its friends about how good the cake was.

During an auction for MMO Age of Wulin, some Chinese buyers might have got a little bit carried away. Keep in mind that the following don't actually do anything – they're not weapons, just pretty things to look at. One sheath. one of ten, sold for $1600; another, one of five, brought in $2500. These would be amazing totals in themselves if not for one rich and very unwise man who spent a whopping 16 grand on a one of a kind scabbard.

16k – more than a lot of people earn in a year. On a scabbard, a virtual scabbard, in a game he has not yet had access to.

I think it's best that I end this post here…