Assembling HEX has cost the proverbial arm and a leg -- "tens of thousands of dollars, " says Haygood -- and is controlled remotely using a Zigbee USB dongle attached to his laptop.

CNN: SHARE THIS

Taken to the extreme, owners of clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City can attempt to overwhelm the opposition by assembling never-before-seen squads of immense cost (see first graph below) which results in unprecedented odds in their favor of winning the league title if they can get more of that talent on the pitch than the competition (see second graph below).

FORBES: In Professional Soccer the Final 10% is the Difference Maker

In-Q-Tel wouldn't reveal which, if any, of the U.S.'s 16 intelligence agencies had expressed interest in assembling the virtual world or how much the project would cost.

FORBES: Building The Feds' Virtual War Room