The MMORPG blog Metaversed has a story up about a new company devoted to sale and resale of in-game items, Playspan.

This company has acquired $6.5 million in funding, and according to their website, signups from quite a few MMORPG publishers. That, however, is not the best part:

PlaySpan is founded by Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, passionate about gaming and software programming that can make game playing experience exciting and more importantly rewarding!

PlaySpan started in Arjun’s garage in Silicon Valley in 2006 and was incorporated with Arjun’s earnings from selling online game items won from quests he fought while attending 5th grade at Challenger School in San Jose.

That’s right…as many as four venture-capital firms and seven MMORPG publishers have now been rolled for their lunch-money by a sixth grader.

Leaving to the side (for the moment) the question of RMT in all of this…what were YOU doing in sixth grade? I was crushing on a girl named Theresa and pulling the lame stunt of leaving a stuffed dog on her desk during recess.

If $6.5 million in venture capital funds were involved, that dog must have been a LOT nicer than I remember it. That, and she wouldn’t have laughed at me.

Of course, the question of using money gained by violating EULA’s to start a company to change the nature of EULA’s is one I leave as an exercise for the student. However, this announcement seems to indicate that what folks “in the know” have been saying for a while is true…the future of the MMORPG business will feature some form of “buy yourself some uber”.

Thanks in part to a sixth-grader.

(Of course, when puberty kicks in a couple of years from now, the business plan may slightly change.)

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