Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs

Bio[edit]

NEVERDIE Controversies[edit]

CND Controversy 2005[edit]

A controversy following the sale of Asteriod Space Resort Club NEVERDIE in 2005.

Due to the relation of Jon Jacobs and MindArk -the developer of Entropia Universe- and the order of specific events (like for instance news articles where Jon Jacobs identified himself as a spokesperson or ambassador for MindArk) the purchase was considered to be controversial by the Entropia Universe community. Adding fuel to the fire was that several other parties were close to get their bank transfers finalized which would have allowed them to place a bid at the buyout price, when suddenly the Project Entropia servers went down. When the game came up again, the estate deed for the Asteroid was gone from the auction and Jacobs was announced as the winner. Below is a timeline of the earlier articles, identifying the titles Jacobs used to identify himself with during interviews, and some of the statements he made in there.

29 Sept 2004 Jon Jacobs appeared as "US Spokesman" of Entropia Universe at a panel on Digital Hollywood conference. ^[1]

30 Dec 2004 Jacobs is referenced in an (French) article discussing the Treasure Island sale. In it, he is identified as "Jon Jacobs, qui officie aussi comme porte-parole de Mindark", which translated into English means as much as "Jon Jacobs, who also officiates as spokesman for Mindark". ^[2]

09 Jan 2005 - Article published on telegraph.co.uk where Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs is cited: "I'm negotiating with the developers to build the greatest virtual nightclub ever". ^[3]

08 Feb 2005 - Article in gamespot.com where Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs is referred to as "Jon Jacobs, US 'ambassador' for Project Entropia". ^[4]

September 2005 - Mortgage Documents

Borrower's Copy
Instructions to closing agent

11 Oct 2005 - Domain clubneverdie.com was created. ^[5]

21 Oct 2005 - Mindark announced the sale of the Asteroid Space Resort. ^[6]

24 Oct 2005 - Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs bought the Asteroid Space Resort, Mindark updated the announcement. ^[7]

24 Oct 2005 - Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs appears on a radioshow as "Jon Jacobs of MindArk". The interview is no longer available, but during the interview Jacobs never got a chance to say anything, due to Hurricane Wilma disabling the power. It is therefore possible the DJ and the article misunderstood the role of Jacobs in this. ^[8]^[9]

NEVERDIE commented on the discussion as follows:

NEVERDIE's last word on the subject!

Guys and Girls, You all want to know NEVERDIE’s secrets, some of you are angry and demand an explanation… You want an official explanation. Why did NEVERDIE buy club NEVERDIE.com on OCT 11th? How Did NEVERDIE succeed in using the Buyout feature one hour before Deathifier?

Well you have to look back in time for the answers… You have to look back to the time that I wrote I song called Gamer Chick and sent it to Mindark… who could have hated it and thrown it in the trash, but instead they liked it… At the time I sent it to

them, they were not hosting competitions offering thousands of dollars worth of Equipment for a player made movie to promote PE, nope they were doing none of that, yet here I was making music to celebrate virtual life and project Entropia….

When I sent them the song I included with it an Idea, “hey guys you could make the Juke Box cost a few pec to use and I could make money every time people listen to my song…” nothing wrong with that idea, that’s how juke boxes work in Reality….

Unfortunately Paying Juke Boxes was not very High up on their list of development priorities and they declined… I said hey what the Heck, you can just put my song in there anyway if you like it. Maybe later I could buy a night club or something….(lets not forget this was the early days, No land ownership, no taxes, Bars were empty, the most valuable items were mod faps… What the hell would be the point of a virtual Night Club?

Well some of you may know, I was producing and starring in a movie called HEY DJ! Featuring cameo appearances from many world famous DJ’s and I thought there might be a market for a virtual Night Club… Anyway that was that… I did however ask for permission to use a clip from Project Entropia in my movie HEY DJ!... Why? coz I love it, Coz I play it all friggin day and Coz my girlfriend loved it too…. So I put a scene of Tina and I playing project-Entropia in my movie… Hey and you know what else… I was distributing a lot of my own movies on DVD as well and I thought it would be cool to have the PE Movie on my DVD’s as extra content in the special features sections. Mindark had no problem with it… Free Publicity for them and I liked it too, I thought it was Cool and Hey after all MA was just a small company and an indie game developer, and I’m an indie Filmmaker…

I also offered to appear at a couple of conventions in Los Angeles, since MA had no one in the USA to represent them… By this time they knew I loved PE and I loved the whole concept of a Real Cash Economy, so they approved… Of course I had to provide some details to the people who ran the convention for their brochure so I said I was the US spokesman and people could ask me questions about marketing and business development, of course I would be referring interested parties to MA…. Was I paid by MA to do this ? No? was I employed by MA? Nope…

I Spent many years in Hollywood working on all kinds of stuff that I was passionate about for nothing… I am a person who pursues their dreams. I have a career of low budget art movies to prove it… Labours of Love, that I rarely got paid to do… Why did I do them, because I believed in them and I believed in myself… I believed that somehow my destiny lay in following my heart…. I often starved, I worked at starbucks… I even wrote a book About my journey……

So how does this tie in with Club NEVERDIE? Well when Treasure Island was added to the auction, I thought cool I will buy it and turn the castle into a Night Club…. I sold My mod fap, my shadow armor an imp fap, almost everything to the point that I no longer had the tools to Play PE…. I amassed a warchest of $20,000+ largely from in game profits… still concerned it wouldn’t be enough I started pre-selling housing lots on the forums….. I wanted to take money out of my Real World House But Tina Was fragile and I felt it would be too much of a risk…

Well I thought I would win Treasure Island, I was already planning my Club NEVERDIE, I told many other gamers that I would like to have a club… I even mentioned it to MA That I would want them to make some changes to the castle If I got it, so I could make a nightclub…

Anyway Auction time came around I had $26,000 in PEd, I thought I was going to get it for $10k, almost everyone else thought it was mine… And Whaddya know? Deathifier appears with a formidable war chest put together from a group of private investors outside of PE and he wins the Island….

Do you think anyone else in PE was as affected by that more than me? I was the sole underbidder? I had sold the rarest, coolest equipment to buy this place, I had all kinds of plans that were now put on hold…

What you think the first thing I did was? I asked MA to put something else in the auction, I’ll buy it? C’mon, I got $20,000 in cash here?

Did they? NO!!! it wasn’t on the agenda… not a priority…I watched like everyone else as the Treasure Island generated lots of publicity and I knew that I had helped make that happen if it were not for both Deathifier and I fighting for Treasure Island It would have sold for maybe $5k and the world might never have noticed….

SO I just lost the greatest PVP event in PE, and what did I do? Quit? Well Nearly…. I mean Tina died soon after, MA built a memorial, for the beautiful Gamer Chick, some players bitched and cried favoritism, I ran into financial difficulties, sold my pre-gold IMP MK II, etc etc… People flamed me for using Island girls Avatar to buy out one of NEVERDIE items… Heck I even warned people on the forums I was withdrawing the item, before I did it… Yes I thought about quitting, but I’m a passionate Person and I wasn’t going to let anyone… ruin my plans…. Nope I knew Mindark was gonna need to make another splash, sell off some wonderful virtual Real estate and this time, I had nothing to Lose, my life was already in ruins, girlfriend dead, Income dried up, resources tied up in a friggin DJ Movie… Hell this time I would sell the House IF I had to….

I was ready to pounce, and while you all were busy hunting and crafting I was refinancing, I was plotting, I was buying Web Domains, I was telling everybody in the Dance scene that I was gonna start a virtual night club and I would want them to spin there…

I was actually getting ready to buy the piece of land above memorial Island, lots of people knew that I wanted it… It was gonna be a virtual Ibiza, it was only slightly smaller than Treasure Island… But then Mindark decided it was time to show the world once again the Value of Virtual Real estate and they chose to create a space resort with a nightclub, Of course they knew I wanted a nightclub, maybe they had me in mind, they knew I was hungry to get back into the game after my defeat at the hands of Deathifier And Hey guess what, they knew it would generate a #%$^@ boat load of publicity if it sold for $100,000, maybe they figured If someone were to really put that kind of money together, they would need a buy out feature to keep the transaction clean…

Nevertheless they timed the auction to end, December 19th around the same time Treasure Island ended a year before… that’s a sure sign they thought it was gonna be a long and fun affair…

They added the Resort News to the main page the day before Memorial Island N LA auction was due to end…of course I decided not bid for it… Jenna Star Mercury Spent a lot of time on that Friday trying to talk me and Deathifier into joining a consortium to buy the resort… He told me that Deathifier wouldn’t join the consortium,,, What did that tell me???? Deathifier was going to go Solo, he already recouped most of his dough from TI! Jenna wanted it because he knew it would make History… …

I had a friggin Hurricane Bearing down On me in MIAMI!!!!!! I was already READY, this thing had my name written all over it… Do you think I was gonna get my ass Whooped Again???

Come On People are you NUTZ??????

Deathifier was thinking the same Thing.. HE moved Money from down under like a friggin magician!!! HE was ready too!!! His investors were ready!!!!

The same two People who duked it out the year before already had their fingers on the Button!!!!

That aint Rocket Science!!!

And whatdya know there was a few other smart folks breathin down our necks, but lets face it, they weren’t nearly as ready, they hadn’t already paid in blood Sweat and tears!!!

So What happened??????? NEVERDIE came back from the dead, of course he never really died after all, he was just licking his wounds…

And you know what Else NEVERDIE had his shit together, his domain names, his business plan…. And what happened… The Story Landed on the Front Page of the BBC News 3 times in 10 days… “Virtual Night Club to Rock pop Culture!!!!”

I haven’t stopped working since the auction ended, just telling the world how incredible Project Entropia is and how Virtual reality is the future…. I just had a TV crew in my house for 2 days and I bared my soul to share with the world my virtual dreams…

I’ve been bleeding cash for a while now, web design, mortgages, domain names, I got it all riding on Club NEVERDIE.

And many of you may think well man that’s insane, you can’t do any better than that… Well think again… Did you watch the VGA (video game Awards) there were a million Stars there… all the great games… any mention of PE? Nope. Was Deathifier there? NO? Was NEVERDIE invited? NO! You wanna know why I called my club NEVERDIE? Because if you wanna really crack the mainstream… you gotta Brand your ass… You wanna get on Oprah, you gotta make a million bucks in virtual Reality not Spend $100k….

That’s where my head is at everyone! Im going for Oprah, Im going for the front cover of Rolling Stone. Im going for the front Cover of Time Magazine… Coz that’s when people are really going to take notice, that’s when our little virtual universe is gonna Explode that’s how high the stakes are…

And that’s all your gettin’ from me on this subject, I got a shit load to do, I got a bunch of crappy mobs to exterminate off the face of my Space Station… I got a 6 year old boy with no mamma, that needs to be read a bed time story and I got a party to start at the greatest virtual Night Club in the Universe!!!

Shareholder Controversy 2006[edit]

As of 29 Dec 2006 "Golden Shadow Pictures" held ~0.36% of MindArk's shares (the same amount also held by Marco Behrmann) and company registers list Jon Jacobs as president of "Golden Shadow Pictures".

As per MindArk's Annual Report 2006 the number of shares at that time was 11.463.500 and the equity per share was 3,72 kr. Considering Marco Behrmann and Golden Shadow pictures who are both listed holding 0.36% and Marco Behrmann held 41.500 shares (as per MindArk's Annual Report 2006) one should assume Golden Shadow Pictures held 41.500 shares (=~0.3621%) too. With the given equity per share of 3.72 kr the amount of 41.500 shares had a value of 154.380 kr or with a exchange rate of 6.8725 on 29 Dec 2006 a value of 22.463,44 USD.

Space Pirates Controversy 2008[edit]

In 2008 Jon Jacobs started promoting "Space Pirates" as a treasure hunt event in which participants would be able to loot items with total value of 5 Million USD. Trying to sound official the promotion was linked to his personal website.

Space Pirates^[10] "Entropia Universe is expanding the frontiers of virtual reality to include Space exploration and the colonization of new planets, to herald in this new age, a vast assortment of space related tools, equipment, blueprints, vehicles, treasures and artifacts are being introduced."^[10]	Video:VPkJoyTi550

It turned out later that the promotion was purely based on assumptions about EU's future development, most of which never became true:

NEVERDIE: "'Space Pirates' is the name I have Created for the Event that is Entropia's Expansion into Space and Upgrade to CryEngine2...
If U take a look at the Space Pirates marketing materials they point to my NEVERDIE.com portal. If U read the Copy of the Event You will see that the treasure I'm referring to are new items that will be dropping to support the expansion into Space.. We all know that those items will be extremely valuable if they are balanced in the way that the first items discovered on calypso were balanced. (The General public doesnt know or even understand any of that, to make it simple I have used the term treasure hunt)"
NEVERDIE: "I put the Space pirates event together based upon Public information.

If You Read the China Release it states that the upcoming planets will cause the opening of Space. As far as pirates are concerned Since we first Purchased hangars 4 years ago we have been expecting Pirates and other Space mobs..
(the ships have Guns!!!)

If you Read The Entropian you will see A quote from jan Welter talking about full Space Flight and shipping between Planets coming soon, (last year???)

I wrote my materials based on public knowledge, I Simply ran the copy that i wrote By MA and confirmed that it would be a Technological Revolution akin to the launch of Calypso...

I own an Asteroid a private SPACE based Portal in Entropia, it is a Private Business that I Have the Right to market to the general Public... (from a marketing standpoint i have a business relationship with MA)"

CND Controversy 2010[edit]

NEVERDIE completed the sale of CND for a total of 635.000 USD^[11] in full knowledge of the new planet Next Island to launch just a month later with a kind of theme park named Club NEVERDIE exceeding by far the just sold CND in size, variety, installations, etc. This new CND has been created for Next Island by NEVERDIE Studios but is owned by NEVERDIE himself.

Regular Participant vs Planet Partner Controversy[edit]

The fact that Jon Jacobs is a Planet Owner (ROCKtropia) and Developer (ROCKtropia, Next Island) and as well a regular participants owning in-game property and engaging in regular end user activities bears a conflict of interest.

(more info needed here, the whole story)