music-themed planet was opened on April 6, 2010, called "ROCKtropia", which is owned and developed by Neverdie Studios. In total there are six planets with different themes. While not a planet, space is a separate area in the Entropia Universe, connecting all planets. Space is developed and managed by MindArk. Development In 1995, development of Entropia Universe (formerly Project Entropia) was started by two different groups - one in Sweden headed by Jan Welter Timkrans and one in Switzerland, headed by Benny Iggland. Initially taking place on the fictional Planet Calypso, the 2001 version used the NetImmerse 4 game engine. On May 20, 2002, the Commercial Open Trial began, and the game was available to the public. With Version Update 4.2 on 28 January 2003, the game was considered "Gold". Some important additions to the game since release have been: In August, 2009, Version 10.0 was released, using CryEngine 2 from Crytek. With the new engine, almost everything in the game required changes, including the overall land maps. This change was retconned into the storyline as attacking robots crashing their large spaceship into the planet, changing the land. Significant events and virtual property sales December 14, 2004 – Game creators MindArk announced the conclusion of the first "Treasure Island Sale", a virtual island put up for auction. The winning bidder paid 265,000 PED () for the island, the highest price ever paid for a virtual item. October 24, 2005 – A virtual "asteroid space resort" was bought by Jon "Neverdie" Jacobs for a sum of 1,000,000 PED (), surpassing the sale of Treasure Island. May 2, 2006 – MindArk announced the introduction of an ATM card enabling players to withdraw the real-world currency equivalent of their PED funds directly from any Versatel ATM. It was stated that $165 million had "passed through the game" in 2005 and that this figure was expected to double in 2006. October 17, 2006 – MindArk announced that Entropia Universe had reached 500,000 registered users. May 8, 2007 – MindArk announced the results of a "virtual banking license auction". These two-year exclusive licenses aimed to integrate real world banking systems into Entropia Universe, working similarly to real-world banks or pawn shops. Initially, they would be provided with secure systems enabling them to lend money and collect interest, design and name their own virtual bank building(s), and make their own personnel available through avatars. Each winner