Silverfox, a Bridge Investor

[Skam]

She stays a cute puppet heh guys?
hehe.

*logs into PE, walks over to society-terminal*

Nupi... hmm.. Degrade? Lactarius will be higher in soc then her then.. muwahahhaa..

 

[Machman]

A couple of factors to consider;
1. Mindark never made any large advertising campaigns in Europe or the US.
2. The population of Asia/China is huge.

big advertising + huge population = massive influx of new players (very few of which speak any english, swedish, french etc).

Logistics of servers and support are one issue which I'm sure has been discussed at length, but how will it affect everyday players who could very easily find themselves waking up in a chinese speaking game one morning.

No worries there from me, I think that would be great, the more languages the better! - however the official ie written language would always be English.

this in spite of the fact that Mindark is a Swedish company

 

[The Mighty]

Wanda, you seem to be disagreeing with me, when what you've said is in line with what I said, and then the 2nd point about Chinese is annoying.

I said that perhaps MA should be advertising in Europe and the USA.

The population of Asia is huge... approx. 1/4 of the total world population, but thinking that this could all of a sudden become a Chinese speaking game is just silly... not only that... "so what?" if it does. There are plenty of French, Swedish, Dutch and even some Russian speaking people in the game already. MA states that support cases are in English. All their information on the client loader and all text in the game is in English. If someone from Asia that speaks Chinese can actually create an account... they probably have a good enough understanding of the English language to be able to speak English as well. Also, I don't see PE having support for the Chinese alphabet anyways....

 

[wanda]

but if the majority of players becomes non-english speaking overnight, mindark would have to accomodate them

 

[Crys]

on second thought, many 'foreign' students are required to learn english. such as in japan. english is the official language of the medical community, the scientific community, etc. cuz none of the oldskewl romance/glyphic languages are conducive to modern technology. english probly wouldnt be a problem. ive always admired oriental culture, especially that of japan.

the language thing probly wouldnt be any more of a problem than it is for any other players of whatever nationality. so its all about the numbers. as i said, a tenfold increase in the amount of non depositers does NOT get me wet. ill pass on that. can the game support so many more ppl, whether they deposit or not? i dont think pe is ready for that kind of traffic. marco, pls delete silverfox's email address and mobile fone number, and take another vacation, the last vu WAS pretty good =D

now would be a good time to distract us with tidbits about hte next vu.

 

[The Mighty]

Crys.... you missed something in my original post....

If you increase the number ten fold... even if 90% of them are non-depositors.... you're still making PE a viable option as an advertising medium.

Have 1 million active players, and you'll see Microsoft, Coca-Cola and a couple big names start taking interest in the possibility of putting their advertising within the game... (I am not for cheesy advertising, but some well thought out - futuristic looking billboards would be good. Like you wouldn't want to be advertising Windows XP in PE, and also not Windows 3000, but more like a plain "Microsoft" advert.)

 

[wanda]

maybe MA will come up with regional servers like battlenet where you log on to a specific server by your location in the world. That would lead to server hopping though if for example asian servers were dropping items in loot etc.

I spent many hours on asian battlenet and found not only language to be an issue but also culture - what people found amusing in europe was greeted with hostility in asia.

 

[The Mighty]

I spent many hours on asian battlenet and found not only language to be an issue but also culture - what people found amusing in europe was greeted with hostility in asia.

I have to say this....Please grow up (and I mean it in the nicest way possible). The world IS getting smaller, and this narrow minded thinking is what brought about Apartheid in South Africa. Learn to live with other people even though they are different to you!!!!! Next you'll be saying you want to refuse anyone from a different country, entry in to your country because their culture is just too different from your own... and you can't get over that "issue."

Pah !

Edit: Excuse the outburst, but I get quite passionate about "issues" like this.

 

[Etopia]

There are plenty of French, Swedish, Dutch and even some Russian speaking people in the game already. MA states that support cases are in English. All their information on the client loader and all text in the game is in English. If someone from Asia that speaks Chinese can actually create an account... they probably have a good enough understanding of the English language to be able to speak English as well. Also, I don't see PE having support for the Chinese alphabet anyways....

the suport was suposed to use the main game langage this year :
english , swedish , french , german , and maybe other.
the clien loader is allready in french and in swedish for shure.

but this is not the main problem , i dont think...

but with good game , advertise come alone.. no need to make it.
the island drained tons player.
but lots of them run away due to the game it self... bug,lag ( yeah remember uge lag because som more player)....

 

[The Mighty]

the suport was suposed to use the main game langage this year :
english , swedish , french , german , and maybe other.
the clien loader is allready in french and in swedish for shure.

but this is not the main problem , i dont think...

but with good game , advertise come alone.. no need to make it.
the island drained tons player.
but lots of them run away due to the game it self... bug,lag ( yeah remember uge lag because som more player)....

I think the reason they all joined so quickly was after Deathifier bought TI, there was a big amount of publicity around that. This publicity pretty much stated that you could make money playing PE. When those people who were purely playing PE to make money realized that making money in PE is hard work, they left....

 

[Etopia]

I think the reason they all joined so quickly was after Deathifier bought TI, there was a big amount of publicity around that. This publicity pretty much stated that you could make money playing PE. When those people who were purely playing PE to make money realized that making money in PE is hard work, they left....

you think with investor and advertising it will be something else?
for shure not ... thats the main PE argument.
but if you got good game , people stay , at least more people stay.
a good business make money with customer that com often , and come back again because they are happy with the service.
when a business live on the chance a new stupid moron will come maybe tomorow and spend tons buck , its a weak business.

 

[HunterZ]

hmm in general its normal money investment plan. nothing more. and its logical - investors wanna see their capital growing. scam or not scam - its ur own choise to join or not to join.

its a litle bit paradoxsialy - some pplz call pplz who try to make some RL money investments - scamers, but in PE pplz, who run around and try to buy itemz from less informed pplz cheap and then try to sell them for much higher prices - traders

and finaly - as he said - this plan doesnt inflict MA and noone force u to join if u dont like it

 

[Redoaks]

you think with investor and advertising it will be something else?
for shure not ... thats the main PE argument.
but if you got good game , people stay , at least more people stay.
a good business make money with customer that com often , and come back again because they are happy with the service.
when a business live on the chance a new stupid moron will come maybe tomorow and spend tons buck , its a weak business.

A new customer is more expensive than a returning customer.

or at least thats what I got drummed into my head over and over again at college

 

[The Mighty]

you think with investor and advertising it will be something else?
for shure not ... thats the main PE argument.
but if you got good game , people stay , at least more people stay.

I agree with the "make a good game and people will stay" bit.

As for what sort of people the advertising will bring... I do not know. I think a good advert could be made, but it should not give the false impression that its easy to make money in PE. If it says that PE is a virtual economy using real life currency, with hours of fun for everyone, and a great community of players.... then maybe it would entice people for the right reasons.

The thing is, it must not promise abundant wealth to everyone that joins, because thats plain lying!

 

[wanda]

I have to say this....Please grow up (and I mean it in the nicest way possible). The world IS getting smaller, and this narrow minded thinking is what brought about Apartheid in South Africa. Learn to live with other people even though they are different to you!!!!! Next you'll be saying you want to refuse anyone from a different country, entry in to your country because their culture is just too different from your own... and you can't get over that "issue."

Pah !

Edit: Excuse the outburst, but I get quite passionate about "issues" like this.

Please do not accuse me of racism - you have completely misunderstood what i have written.

 

[The Mighty]

Please do not accuse me of racism - you have completely misunderstood what i have written.

I didn't say racism. I said narrow mindedness. I do believe there is a difference. Sure there are differences between cultures, but you made it sound like you were not happy about having Asians playing because we all may have difficulty getting along.

 

[Envictus]

Read the whole thread and holy crap....

I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance by switching
to gecko.

 

[Eps]

w00t everyone has gone to bed now and im the only noob still awake, i cant wait to read this in the morning XD

 

[KapokWu]

I spent many hours on asian battlenet and found not only language to be an issue but also culture - what people found amusing in europe was greeted with hostility in asia.

Hey, tell us more! Some examples... Wanna know!

 

[Milkey]

w00t everyone has gone to bed now and im the only noob still awake, i cant wait to read this in the morning XD

I woke up this morning awaiting this to be put on the site. I only had 5 hours of sleep to awaken with 80+ replys lol

 

[Kay-T]

Look - anyone may invest in MA. Just come up with an interesting deal. Stocks are being traded everyday. MA PE AB has dozens of various stock owners today already.

Ok Marco

I have an interesting investment deal for you, Jan and Mindark.
Since it will directly involve and require the help of people who already participate in PE and most importantly Deposit, I am posting this idea here so other players hwo are also members of this forum can comment too.

The idea is simple Mindark emits a limited number of controlling, divident paying shares.
The catch is you must be a depositing participant in PE to purchase them because they would only be issued via the PE offcial auction system(like you do with initial real-estate options). If you have the PE stock exchange functional then perhaps that might be another way to procure them.

It would work like This. A limited number of shares are emitted (say 100-500 shares) Each Share would be placed on auction with a minimum starting bid that is decided on by Mindark management, if they do or do not have a buy out is entirely up to mindark.
Each share would be a 1 instance of a controlling voice in mindark and should mindark be bought out the owners of thse shares would also have ot be bought out. The people who have won the auction on any shares would recieve not only the virtual docuiment, but a real world official document as well. Each share would provide a dividend that is payed out either quarterly or bi-annually and would be payed in PED. The invester then has the option to withdraw his/her divedend via offical channels or use it within PE itself even to include future investment opertunities in Mindark if any become available.

Each person who buys share(s) in this fasion gets a limited say in the future happenings of Mindark and in PE. The ideas provided by these investers within reason are morelikely to be acted on by Mindark sooner and has a slighly greater voice then the playerbase at large. (for example if all the investers agree that all monsters should contain loot and these investers are willing to stake thier dividend on it then that is much more likely to be realistically addressed) The total number of these shares emitted would be a number wich does not conflict with the overall control over mindark that the CEO and other investers possess. A further limitation can be that these shares can only be traded within the official PE channels (say if someone wants to sell they send the real world papers to Mindark and then puts their virtual document on auction, when its sold, Mindark transfers them to the new owner.)

The investers that buy thse shares also get access to greater and more free-flowing information from mindark on the contractual condidtion that they keep it to themselves. This information can be a vote on future implemtation of features within PE, to early opertunities to further invest with Mindark, even more detailed financial information about Mindark.
Basically the same kind of informaton a normal invester can recieve.

How is this good for Mindark and PE?
You will be drawing from an invester pool of people who are already familier with and agree with Mindark, its product, and its vision for the future.
This will garner more good-will with the player community asit will show good faith that Mindark cares about its customers and investers alike by giving us more options to have a say and more open-ness between mindark and the community.
You gain more free advertising by the best source of advertising imaginable.. Word of mouth, as these investers will most likely want to tell their friends, family and anyone esle what a great thing PE is. If not they would not have put thier money in in the first place.
It will allow the people who care the most about PE a chance to be a part owner.

I bring this idea because i would LOVE an opertunity to directly invest in Mindark in a manner more than wich i already do than by converting my money into ped as a customer. Given the opetunity i would do my best to try to get what ever little r/l money i do have scraped together and what ever rescources i have in PE so i could even by just 1 share.
Considering how Loyal lot of participants are. I am sure there are others who will do the same given the opertunity. I am sure there are some weathly players who would buy more than one and those people are Some of the biggest depositers even now.

So i end this post on with one a couple of questions.
To Marco, Jan and Mindark management. What do you think?
To the community. Who would love fot somehting like to happen and would put thier money in?

 

[The Mighty]

Kay-T good thinking.

However, there may need to be some adjustments made to your suggestion.

I would say 100-500 shares would be too few. Rather have more lower priced shares, than a few high priced ones. The share prices need to be standardized, so putting them through the auction will not be good. Apparently the Stock Exchange system was working, but not implemented?? - someone told me this at some point... don't remember who....


(What if the share certificate has a TT value? Imagine that the TT value increases with your dividend payment!!!!!!
You want your money back, you TT the certificate, and buy another which does not include the dividend amount.)

 

[StrongMinded]

Ive now read through the post and just saw the clock... 06:18... GEEEEZ!...

Im to tired to come to any conclusion but if MA gets money and don´t lose the mayority of shares i see no problems. If Bridge wants to invest lots of money in MA, let em do it.

Gnite everyone...

Ps. I wonder how many posts there will be when i wake up this afternoon lol Ds.

 

[Euroman]

Ok Marco.....

----ALOT OF GOOD IDEAS----

THere might be a small problem with this, since MA is interested in getting NEW money to invest with. The money from this idea would mainly be money already inside the game, and wouldn't give MA any new capital to play with.

Let's say for instance that Tigerman sells all his armors and other fun stuff and buys shares for 100K, Deathifier does the same and a few others with a, let's say good CC balance, then MA would have gained nothing but the money being moved from one place to another.

If this was made so that PE players could buy it with RL money, then it would be a better idea, but you wouldn't be able to use the auction then.

 

[The Mighty]

Not necessarily. People buying from Deathifier or whoever would have to deposit to pay for the stuff...
Although yeah I do agree the would need to be an offline place to buy shares too....but specifically for PE account holders.

 

[woodydrn]

Why should PE expand more rapidly?
Why do you want to rush things (look at what happened after the treasure Island buzz)?
What's all this Asia stuff about?

Einstein, who's very confused and worried for the first time in almost 2 years playing.

(deleted a few points from qoute)

THIS is what i'm concerned by too!!! Right now i think PE has the best possible number of players, if too more - man! servers GOTTA get going 99% and ALOT more bandwidth. I don't think MA is prepaired for this AT ALL, just now i get errors all the time, PE even boots my computer for no apparent reason, CTDs.

If we get maybe 500.000 new players joining from asia, well ofcause they're 7-8 hours away from me, so the servers may not be lagged when i'm online, but what about all the other players. Geez, i think when / if asia market comes in, PE will get SLOW - and i don't mean slow slow i mean S.L.O.W!

And about rushing things! This is what Microsoft did, and please notice ALL the problems they have had with security!! It's amazing! I'm not saying that MA will have security problems, but we all know of the errors in PE just now - they HAVE to be corrected BEFORE entering the asia market!

I really don't hope PE will come to asia - sure it's a money making machine for MA, and probably ALOT of money ... but this will be a boomerang, will hit them self by bad lag, no proper gaming ability cause of slow servers. Arghh

 

[woodydrn]

Some1 said some pages back that they regard all of us depositing players as investors of sorts. I can relate to this attitude and also think of all of us as pseudo-investors who can and have made our voices heard via our wallets. However, we must not forget that we are still just players, depositing what we wish to deposit (and what we wish to lose) in order to have fun... we are not actual investors despite the amount at stake we may have.

I see your point - but that's in the mind of a business man, if i was the one who made the last statement how this should be done - then i would look at the people who have done most for PE and MA, then give them a good deal ... Here i mean us players. This is the correct way in my mind, i hate unfriendly business just to make a buck, amazing people can do this! Although we're "just" the players, we're the ones who made it possible.

 

[woodydrn]

2) We don't consider it "rushed". We consider it the next natural step.

The concern sensed here is heartwarming, but does the owner structure of MA as a company have such impact on things? It never has before? Why now? The company is adding new funds by increasing the ownership, like any business does in the situation at hand. It is not the same as MA is being sold to another company. The majority owner in MA is both the founder and the CEO and will be so even after the investment round.

What are you afraid off?

It IS rushed - if it's implemented before you guys fix the bugs. Producing new code before reparing old is always a bad thing - and it's the first rule you should know if you're a coder.

The problem is:
The code will build up, getting bigger and bigger - and as a coder, the project leader has a new thing you have to implement. This new thing needs a new way to control some part of the game, but this requires some old funciton needs to be changed for it to work. Now, the old function is used all over PE code - so they do a hack (code around the problem) - cause you always have deadlines in coding, and you don't have time to fix all the other code.

And this is BAD, cause at some point you HAVE to change the code - resulting in months and month of coding. So .... when asia market comes in, smack - delayed, people thinks the game is just bugged, stops playing - new advertisement ruined.

Please fix the code before moving on And i'm affraid that the game will be even more lagged and bugged thou would love to lean some asian language

And ofcause we're concerned it's a amazing game!!!!!!!!!!!! i don't even care about loosing peds anymore

 

[Ironheart]

OK, I had to skim some of the posts, but as far as I can see there a couple things missing from this discussion :-

1. What exactly are Bridge getting for their money, what % of the company will they own, what are the terms they have agreed for a return on their investment, and over what timescale?

2. What happens if actual returns returns do not match projected ones, have MA agreed penalty clauses, can Bridge withdraw their investment?

3. What would happen to their investment if it turns out that it has been made with 'illegal' money (ie they are a pyramid scheme). Do MA retain the money, or will it be sequestered and returned to the individual 'investors'.

Without answers to these questions, I dont see how anyone can come to a sensible conclusion as to where its good or bad.

Not that I expect to get answers to commercially sensitive stuff like this ....

 

[gurkha]

OK, I had to skim some of the posts, but as far as I can see there a couple things missing from this discussion :-

1. What exactly are Bridge getting for their money, what % of the company will they own, what are the terms they have agreed for a return on their investment, and over what timescale?

2. What happens if actual returns returns do not match projected ones, have MA agreed penalty clauses, can Bridge withdraw their investment?

3. What would happen to their investment if it turns out that it has been made with 'illegal' money (ie they are a pyramid scheme). Do MA retain the money, or will it be sequestered and returned to the individual 'investors'.

Without answers to these questions, I dont see how anyone can come to a sensible conclusion as to where its good or bad.

Not that I expect to get answers to commercially sensitive stuff like this ....

well, you pretty much answered all the questions yourself

And, by the way, read the thread, I've allready explained most of this about twice before.

1. They're buying shares, there's no timescale or anything of the sort, they buy a part in the company, value of company increases, so does the value of their shares, not difficult...very simply actually.

2. Like I said, they're bought shares of Mindark PE AB, they can't 'withdraw' their investment or anything similar, whatever you may think.

3. No idea, that's dependant on swedish law, and I'm not a swedish lawyer, although I'm pretty sure that MA will keep their money and the investors will keep their shares, just if Bridge does fall through, and the deal hasn't gone through yet, the deal falls through...

Like you said, commercially sensitive info, and I don't know what's going on between MA and Bridge, and info of that detail frankly shouldn't be realeased to us (afterall, we're simply the people who play their product...), and most of you wouldn't understand it anyway.