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"The Six Billion Dollar Gamer"

A letter arrives in the post one morning. It turns out that your distant relative Great Aunt Dotty whom you've never heard of has passed away and bequeathed you her entire fortune of US $6,000,000,000 dollars. A cheque is enclosed, made out to you.

Everybody's dream, but you never know, it COULD happen to you. Six billion dollars going by today's exchange rate is more Pounds Sterling than you can smother Brian Blessed with, so as an avid gamer with an unlimited budget, this is what I would do...

1) Buy a property.

Not just any property, mind, but a big one, out in the country so that when I turn the speakers up the only complaints I'll get are from the estate wildlife. Something along the lines of an old Farmhouse Hotel with about 20 acres of land surrounding it would do nicely methinks. A heated indoor swimming pool with en suite jacuzzi and sauna is a must.

Estimated value: £4,000,000

2) Add a 'Gaming Room' Extension.

No snooker tables here, we're talking consoles and PC gaming. The main feature would be the cinema-sized silver screen onto which all gaming images are projected whilst being played. Instead of auditorium type seating, there would be a couple of sofas and a few easy chairs placed around a coffee table (for the Pringles). Annexed to this would be the air-conditioned area where the twin Cray-XMP Super Computers are housed (for playing UT2003 on).

I'd bring in Dolby consultants to sort out the sound system, about ten speakers should do the trick as long as they're the right size (about 40 feet high).

Over in the far corner would be the retro-gaming section, the 14" colour TV being the piece de resistance giving an authentic feel to those old ZX Spectrum and Commodore games.

Estimated value: £3,500,000 (subject to planning permission)

3) Hire the staff.

Every good gamer needs a lackey. Someone to fetch the pizzas, someone to throw over the beer, someone to hoover up the peanuts from the carpet the morning after, someone to organise getting the latest subscriptions to the gaming magazines, someone to put discs into the respective consoles when you tell them to and so on. A decent butler would set me back around £25k a year, and I figure with the rest of the staff (cook, chambermaids, chauffeur) my total wagebill will be around...

Estimated value £150,000 pa (including PAYE and NI Contributions)

4) Bring on the Games!!

Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy collecting things. One of my dreams has always been to collect every single UK PAL Dreamcast game ever released. I'm about 10% of the way there on a limited budget.

Of course with my unlimited funds I'd get complete collections of every game ever released for every console ever released, including such classics as 'Diggers' for the Amiga CD-32, 'Nights' for the Sega Saturn, 'Rings of Power' for the Sega Megadrive, as well as the hundreds of PS2, XBox and Gamecube games currently in circulation.

Estimated value £200,000

5) Invest the rest for a rainy day

Wise advice there, usually the sort of thing your Granny says. I figure I've hardly dented the original six billion, so on every rainy day I'd draw out a little money and get something nice, like a Ferrari or a Porsche. The interest alone would pay my staff wages, go towards the upkeep of the estate and the service contracts for my Cray-XMPs, and should just about cover the Pringles bill.

6) Invite the mates around

It's gotta be done. Playing Timesplitters 2 on an i-link network, 16 players at a time, the losers getting to cool off in the swimming pool, the winner getting to cool off in the jacuzzi with the chambermaids.

I'd get all the Notables and SR Staff around for 11 aside PES2 tournaments, we could nab a couple of Ferraris from the garage and take them out onto the dirt-track out the back to see who's the daddy at 'real' racing.

I'd even have the Regulars, Newbies and JATs around for a spot of paintballing in the woods on the estate. Capture the Notable and SR Staff Deathmatches would be the preferred modes, and of course the 'guns' would have little extras...ever seen a paintball grenade launcher? Paintball mortars? Paintball claymores? On my budget all these and more would standard field weaponry.

*sigh*

*wakes up, checks the post for a Giro...*

I'm not too sure what PES2 is, but no doubt I'd rule at it. {:)

You could probably make your own console with £6 Billion FM.

Just put it all in the bank and wait for a couple of years. Even more money when you take it out - hurrah!

:-D

Actually i imagine buying every single dreamcast game would only cost a few quid :P

Grix Thraves wrote:
> Wouldn't a paintball claymore just be a paint... brush?

Yes, but shush :D

Wouldn't a paintball claymore just be a paint... brush?

If I were to do all that I'd start with Manchester.

:)

Personally, I'd lavish a third world area.

Build them a school, hire good teachers to build futures for the children of the people. Irrigate land, build better farms, buy better equipment, and the means to maintain it. Buy hospitals, and hire and train the staff to occupy them. Fight disease, combat depravity, give hope.

I would take a broken community, and from it build them a future.

I would do all that, and they would owe me nothing.

...except maybe I wouldn't try to stuff it all into my mouth and sleep through winter with the odd expedition out to dig up nuts.

I'd throw a few million at Bill Gates as long as he promised not to make any more Flight Simulator games and fixed Windows.

In this way I'd feel that I'd done my bit for world peace.

Then I'd hoarde the other $5,995,000,000 like a squirrel.

I'm fairly certain that if you look around, you can find a better use for a few billion pounds than hoarding it like a squirrel.