What is the most ever paid for virtual property in a video game?

How to get close to this number

Value it as a business rather than as a toy. The explanation says the buyer took over running the planet, and that its economy runs on real money players can withdraw. Priced as a stake in a working economy rather than as a possession, a few million for something that earns from everyone who plays there is an ordinary acquisition decision, not a collector's whim.

That is what separates this from other virtual item sales, and why guesses come in far too low. Most expensive in-game purchases are consumption — a rare skin, a cosmetic, a status symbol — and they anchor people on the price of a luxury purchase. This was the purchase of an entire world inside a game, closer to buying a company than a game item. Even the famous earlier sales in the same game, a space station and a nightclub, were only pieces of property within it.

Note what the figure counts: virtual property inside a video game, the category Guinness World Records tracks. Digital artworks sold as tokens outside any game are a different market, and this question is not about them. The deal was struck in December 2010 and announced some weeks later, which is why some reports file it under the following year; the price is the same either way.