Name Jon Jacobs | Role Actor Children Taliesin Jacobs | |
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Born 10 September 1966 (age 57) ( 1966-09-10 ) Derbyshire, England, UK Occupation Actor, entrepreneur, director, producer, writer Known for Lucinda's Spell, Rocktropia Virtual World, Zombie Kong Parents Adrian Jacobs, Jackie White Movies Hey DJ, Lucinda's Spell, The Girl with the Hungry E, Welcome Says the Angel, Surrender Similar People Christina Fulton, Leon Herbert, Tina Wiseman, Alix Koromzay, Ivelin Giro | ||
Jon Jacobs (born 10 September 1966 in Derbyshire, England) is an English actor, entrepreneur, director, producer, writer, and creator of the avatar Neverdie, which is frequently stylised NEVERDIE, from the virtual world Entropia Universe that Reuters described as "a legendary adventurer, celebrity, and fabulously wealthy entrepreneur in the online world of Entropia". The Associated Press described Neverdie as an "Internet icon".
As a film actor, director and producer Jacobs is best known for films such as Return to Oz, The Girl with the Hungry Eyes, Lucinda's Spell, Charlotte Sometimes, Hey DJ, and RevoLOUtion.
Biography
In 2005, Jacobs mortgaged his home to buy a virtual asteroid for US$100,000, being the most valuable virtual item ever sold at that time. The next day, he got an offer to sell the asteroid for US$200,000, but he refused. The asteroid space resort was named Club Neverdie after its owner's avatar name. In 2010 Jon Jacobs sold the Asteroid Space Resort to various other Entropia Universe participants for a total of US$635,000.
Jacobs' avatar subsequently appeared in The Discovery Channel documentaries Gamer Generation and I, Videogame, it also appeared in the Canal+ documentary La Vraie vie des mondes virtuels. ABC News did a video interview with Jacobs entitled A Portrait of the Avatar. The Los Angeles Times described Jacobs avatar as "the world's first cyber-superstar".
Neverdie was included in the 2008 Guinness Book of Records as well as the 2010 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition for owning "the most expensive virtual item", namely the Asteroid Space Resort called Club Neverdie. The club is also host to the Massive Multiplayer Online World Championships (MMOWC). Neverdie has appeared on 60 Minutes and numerous other international and U.S. national media and publications.
Other than Club Neverdie, Jacobs also possesses other land areas at the Entropia Universe’s Calypso planet, the most notable being Bank, at starting location Port Atlantis, bought for US$90,000.
The estate of his late father Adrian Jacobs attempted to sue J. K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Inc. for plagiarism of Adrian Jacobs's book Willy the Wizard in the Harry Potter series. However, the case was dismissed after security of costs were not paid to the court.
In 2008, Jacobs founded NEVERDIE Studios to create entertainment driven virtual worlds on the Entropia Platform. Planets produced by NEVERDIE Studios have included Rocktropia and Next Island.
In 2011, NEVERDIE Studios started working with Universal Pictures; the first title to launch was Hunt The Thing, a film length MMO inspired by both John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing and the 2011 prequel.
In 2015 NEVERDIE Studios announced the launch of a new virtual King Kong trilogy in collaboration with Universal Licensing and Partnerships, set in the ROCKtropia virtual world and based on the 2005 film King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson. The first title in the trilogy, Zombie King, features the tag line "King Kong is Back! ...From the Dead!"
On 27 March 2016 Jon Jacobs became the "First President of Virtual Reality". He proclaimed himself to be a democratic capitalist and pledged to create a billion jobs in virtual reality.
In April 2016 Jon Jacobs revealed his plan to create three million jobs in virtual reality by 2030 through the privatization of teleportation, the primary public transport system in the MMO Entropia Universe.