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We suggested - not entirely seriously - in E161 that one of gaming's greatest possible luxuries would be your own game studio, ready to cater to your every whim. But now, thanks to the magic of eBay, that's become a real possibility. A user "pricklymustard" has listed an auction to purchase your very own videogame development team.
The setup? For a starting bid of $150k (£83,800) or a BuyItNow price of $200k (£111,700), the winner will receive a dedicated staff of 7-15 from a un-named Portland based development studio to work exclusively on whatever the bidder desires for a full 90 days. While the auction doesn't promise a full retail product, it does mention that the staff will work within the confines of your design to complete "playable demo, proof of concept, or machinima trailer."
Through some clever snooping, Modern Savant convincingly deduces that the studio behind the stunt is Tesseraction Games, home to former Dynamix staff and developers of naval sim Enigma.
As yet there of course hasn't been anything more than curious sniffing, and while the studio likely reckons that will continue, it is perhaps the most creative sidestep of the publisher funding model we've yet seen.