From gaming teen to virtual entrepreneur: how to cover college tuition [update 1]

by James Ransom-Wiley { Sep 6th 2006 at 3:25PM }

Despite devoting much of the past three years to hunting and mining, Ogulak Da Basher, or Mike, a 17 year-old from Durango, Colorado, rarely breaks a sweat. Ogulak is Mike's Project Entropia avatar who has earned more than $35,000 through hard work in the Entropia Universe, becoming captain of the "ck Coat Killers" hunting society, and creating a potentially lucrative new business model based on Ogulak's mastery of crafting weapon and mining attachments.

The next step in this young virtual entrepreneur's budding career is to donate $12,000 to pay for parts of his siblings' college tuitions. Lovely story, right? But wait, before you go and sign up your future collegiate kin for Entropia accounts, know that MindArk's inspiring tales have a history of being manufactured. Think of Entropia like Poker, you might have fun playing, but chances are, you're spending dough, not making it.

Update: added "Ogulak Da Basher" image.

[Via Terpin Communications press release]

Tags: college, Entropia Universe, EntropiaUniverse, exchange rate, ExchangeRate, income, MMORPG, Ogulak Da Basher, OgulakDaBasher, PED, Project Entropia Dollars, ProjectEntropiaDollars, tuition, virtual

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rod @ Sep 6th 2006 3:42PM

Is that a picture of darryl? Cause that kid looks retarded...

Anonymous Hero @ Sep 6th 2006 3:59PM

not only that I heard Entropia is full of hackers, script kiddies and thieves. no thanks.

emceay @ Sep 6th 2006 6:41PM

Entropia sucks. I played seriously until i realized that your weapons expire faster than you can earn the funds to arm yourself. And then it's back to making gestures at stupid creatures to gather 'sweat' which sells for a fraction of a fraction of a cent. Forget poker, this is like those "make a fortune in your underwear" infomercials.
I quit shortly after discovering that the majority of players fund their accounts... which then empties right into the pockets of the aforementioned fabricated youth.
...Sponsored rebuttal from Mindark in 3...2...1...

Mr. Khan @ Sep 6th 2006 6:41PM

@ Anonymous Hero

Sounds like the Console PSO's, The world needs more MMOs that are (unlike FFXI) very lax about security and not server-side-saved

Oh, and Damn Bungie for cracking down on Bridgers and Modders!

P.S. Does the name Nugz have meaning to anyone here?

DannyOB @ Sep 6th 2006 7:19PM

Nugz? Doesn't mean a thing to me.
As for being a virtual entrepreneur, during my short experience with, what i believe to be a similar game, SecondLife, i met a few people who actually had functioning businesses in the game which made them money that they could then convert into $$$'s. I'm not sure how many of them were exaggerating just how much they made, but i imagine it would be perfectly feasible to make profit if you put enough time into it.

cheezedog420 @ Sep 6th 2006 8:36PM

"I'm not sure how many of them were exaggerating just how much they made, but i imagine it would be perfectly feasible to make profit if you put enough time into it." DannyOB

And that right there is the problem.... Most of us have jobs or school to go to. Otherwise everyone one would be on the web make Hello Kitty shaped dildos for perverts in Secound life.

Dr.Swiss @ Sep 6th 2006 9:34PM

@1 (Rod)

No no no, you got it all wrong. Darryl told us he's 31 years old, remember?
Here is a better picture of what he would look like:

http://bbb.blogs.sapo.pt/arquivo/Darryl%20copy.jpg

Hahahaha I google imaged "Darryl" and that's what it came up with.