Why pay $100 or more when you can pay $12? EU needs to be the ultimate sandbox game where you can hunt, mine, craft, be a space pilot, be a fisherman, be a musician, be a movie star, be a laser tag champion, be an arena boxer... in short, be it all.
Then your cost is justified because your options are plentiful and of high quality. Its the difference between a game and a virtual world.
I Will tell you why I pay $100 (or more) monthly to play EU rather than one of these free or cheap games you mention..
Because Entropia is a Real Cash Economy with game supported methods to withdraw. you can "invest" in your avatar here, and arguably when your done playing get some of your money back, or if you play well or get lucky you may even make a bit of money from t me to time.
Every other game I have played online (and I played all the mmos from ultima beta, up to wow) when I found something of "value", or was ready to move to another game. I had to sell it through ebay or some other hassle. True I could have just ignored the value of my time and game skills, or ignore there was a market for it. and simply play, but that gets old after a few years
IMO Entropia does not need to compete with "free to play" games, they need to be concerned with future RCE competition. Because while Entropia has dominated the market, for a long time. I think that may change soon with competition from blzard.
I love free to play aspects of EU, I have done a lot of sweating and walking, and think fishing would be a great improvement to the free or low cost experiance..maybe make fishing cost a couple of pecs a day to do all day long, with "rookie" gear, and maybe 5ped a day with "master baiter gear" just something to bridge the gap between no cost sweating and the often high cost EU game play.
But at the end of the day, I am here because its RCE, (and I think one could argue most people are here for RCE) it has gamble aspects, adventuring aspects, socialization aspects, investment aspects, and even free to play aspects...it is very accommodating of many play styles and financial levels, allows one to set and pursue their own goals at their own pace, and provides a way to "sell out" , or even set up shop and withdraw regularly if your of the right skill set.
Overall its a great experience I have been happy to be a part of, I am concerned with many issues lately but, perhaps its growing pains..I am not quite ready to bail out yet
I personally would like to see entropia become the worlds first, virtual world RCE, I mean real virtual like VR head gear, or sensors or whatever...real honest to god matrix type VR...when it becomes possible to sell a 5 thousand dollar unit that will allow the user to participate in a VR MMO. and MA sells that unit like a gold card, on the website. or at the Trade terminal to be mailed to you...
Then possibility expand quickly and player base expands quickly...and Amazon.com buys a planet where you can interact with their virtual products, watch movies pick books off shelves, look at 3d modles and specs of things you want to buy to be shipped to you. Record your reviews to be played back by other users, maybe get a virtual tour of or storefront etc.
But in the current market I think they should...
Sell a planet to tony hawk, its not a calypso clone, rather it uses the cry engine from the ground up to develop a console type gaming experience on a MMO level.
Players could buy and upgrade their skate boards for ped, and could win ped contests against other players in game sponsored rings. etc.
Same idea could be applied to ANY current successful console game franchise that wanted to expand to MMO I think, but our current planets are all the same basic calypso clone with different pictures. seems a waste of the game engine power.