Who makes money in EU?

[AJack10600]

After yesterday's post about MA funding, this post will show why, as long as players play, this is not really a problem because existing funds will all go into MA pockets in a matter of month.

Who makes money in EU? Well, we all know who is: MindArk.
But exactly how much are they making? The financial reports give a lot of insight on this. For the following analysis, I have used Q3 2008 and 2007 reports (since the 2008 reports gives less details at this stage).

Now a few numbers:
Total funds deposited since 2003: around 500 million PED
Total funds withdrawn since 2003: around 100 million PED
Total player assets as of end 2008: 74 million PED

This implies that MA has pumped out 319 million PED out of Entropia since 2003 or 65% of all fund deposited. Players have withdrawn 20% of deposited funds and their assets are worth (at tt value) 15% of deposited funds (or 19 of net deposited funds = deposited - withdrawn)

Now players may have the feeling that their assets are worth more than that given "mark ups" over tt value but we know that the mark-up only holds as people continue to inject fund in the game. Without new funds, EU is a closed economy and there is just enough PEDs in the game to buy all items at tt value, not more (other way to word this is: there is not enough money in the game to buy all items "with mark-up", new funds are needed for that)

other interesting metric is that, for first 9 months of 2008, net deposits of players were 90 million PED. Which is actually lessthan their net assets
Net assets at the beginning of the year were 60 millions PED. So in 2008: players started the year with 60 million, injected a net amount of 113m and they have 74 million now.
That's a 14 million increase out of 113 deposited. Meaning that MindArk has been taking 88% of net funds injected in 2008
On a gross fund basis:
- 28% of funds have been withdrawn
- 9% of funds contributed to the increase of player assets
- 73% of funds went into MindArk pocket

Conclusion:
- MindArk is eating in-game funds at a very high speed (well, anyone hunting could have realized that )
- Out of the 74 million PED player assets as of Dec, about 58 million will be spend by player in game (decay, fees, etc) over the next 12 months so coverage ratio (as per my previous post) does not matter because soon, all the assets will belong to MA anyway
- Entropia Universe looks much more like a normal MMO that an economy you invest in (given the rate of appropriation of in-game assets by MA)

I don't really get the point you are trying to make...

Firstly you are double posting... we have discussed this issue more or less in the MA Financials tread you started...

Secondly, what is your conclusion or problem in this ? Yes MA is running a risk here but what do you expect MA to do ? If they were to only use the decay that is rightfully theirs, do you believe that they would be able to fund CE2 and buy a servercentre and open a developer HQ in Mexico ?

Now I am not a big fan on how MA make us believe the finances work but on the other hand one has to be realistic... MA is a business and since you claim to be working in investment banking you should know that idle money is money lost...

So what is your point ?

 

[travolta]

I don't really get the point you are trying to make...

Firstly you are double posting... we have discussed this issue more or less in the MA Financials tread you started...

Secondly, what is your conclusion or problem in this ? Yes MA is running a risk here but what do you expect MA to do ? If they were to only use the decay that is rightfully theirs, do you believe that they would be able to fund CE2 and buy a servercentre and open a developer HQ in Mexico ?

Now I am not a big fan on how MA make us believe the finances work but on the other hand one has to be realistic... MA is a business and since you claim to be working in investment banking you should know that idle money is money lost...

So what is your point ?

the point is that MA is making too much money and it's forgetting the players. only money interess to MA. it's guys like u that i like. keep depositing for the mexico HQ. like that MA programers can go to the beach after work...

 

[Noggin]

the point is that MA is making too much money and it's forgetting the players. only money interess to MA. it's guys like u that i like. keep depositing for the mexico HQ. like that MA programers can go to the beach after work...

I think that's a fair point actually. MA do make a lot out of EU - you can tell by their balance sheets. They do put a reasonable amount back into the development of the game. Also, MA's financial health is important for the longevity of the game, which is also important for keeping confidence in the RCE high. It's a tricky balance to master, and potentially one of the weaknesses of this model.

However, it's my opinion that from an entertainment value perspective, EU's been way off the mark for a couple of years, and shows no signs of imminent recovery. The new game engine almost certainly won't be the golden egg everyone's been hoping for, so lets just hope that this multiple planet business will make things a bit more interesting.

 

[Remmie]

- Out of the 74 million PED player assets as of Dec, about 58 million will be spend by player in game (decay, fees, etc) over the next 12 months so coverage ratio (as per my previous post) does not matter because soon, all the assets will belong to MA anyway
- Entropia Universe looks much more like a normal MMO that an economy you invest in (given the rate of appropriation of in-game assets by MA)

Firstly, read the EULA. All of the ingame assets legally belong to MA. Now. Not later. Immediately. Have always. Period. It is their policy and benevolence (and good business sense) to pay out money at the same rate they convert incoming money. But they are not bound legally in any way to do so or even to pay out at all.

Secondly, yes, yes and YES! Entropia is a MMOG! It is not a business venture, it is not a casino, it is not a bank...

Sorry if I come off as rude..

-Remmie

 

[castro]

utter bs..im not pre-gold nor reseller..i just hunt 16 hoursa day..and its almost income like a job,if you cannot profit hunting in pe then you are not using your brain..

Let's go hunt together

 

[Max Pearl]

Dont know if any of this has been said but:

1. Do we know whatMA menas by "player assets"? There are three possible, reasonable, meanings: Players PEDs in pure PEDs, players PEDs+TT-value on their items and last (and probably least possible) players PEDs+TT-value on their items + the markup on items. In what i have read in this discussion, people seems to be taking it for true that MA means players PEDs+TT-value on their items. In my mind it would not be all impossible that it could mean the first alternative: Players PEDs in pure PEDs. Just a thought...
2. Before we start to discus what MA do and do not take their income from we have to realise that there are no "spare assets" in EU. What COULD MA in fact be taking income from? In EU there are only two forms of money:

• Money in pure PED's either on PED-cards or in piles in a storage. This form of money are not possible for MA to take as an income. If so we would experiense that the funds on our PED-cards and in piles in storage would decrease. I have not heard of such an event.
• Money as TT-value in items. This form of money are not possible for MA to take as an income. If so we would experiense that the TT-value on our items would decrease. I have not heard of such an event.

If MA wants to make money out of EU they have to do this as the money leave one of the forms above or when money takes one of the forms above. To understand this better we can picture this as a cycle. MA cannot take funds directly out of the cycle (that would result in the things mentioned above). What they can do is profit from people putting funds into the cycle and when people makes their funds leave the system manually.

• The money takes one of the forms above when: People puts funds into the cycle, when you deposit money. When you do so MA takes a certain fee, a percentage of the amounth deposited.
• The money leave one of the forms above when: People make their funds leave the system manually, when you make your items decay.

In my point of view, there are no other possible ways for MA to take money out of EU.

 

[AJack10600]

the point is that MA is making too much money and it's forgetting the players. only money interess to MA. it's guys like u that i like. keep depositing for the mexico HQ. like that MA programers can go to the beach after work...

No that was not the point he was making...

Don't call me anything mate cos you obviously don't know anything about my attitude towards this subject... read some of my posts on this forum before you call people names...

I don't want to constantly rewrite all I said so just look back to my analysis of the Q4 results and what I said there if you can be bothered...

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/1804223-post63.html

@ Max Pearl

You also might wanna read this link ...

 

[golddude]

MA does

 

[Zefram]

i think we all should do a organized strike for MA realize that need us. the profit that they make is too much and they should give more to high skilled players. if not this is a pure gambling game. what's the point like me being lvl57prosp and lvl 42 attach if i cant profit in loot? if i dont profit who profits?. profits at long term it what u guys speak. but mining 10 hours a day for in end get 100peds profit for me it's not good due the time i spend here. what's the pont of havind 300k in game?

i been always non depositor. MA never got one euro from me! but that's couse i start in a time that was possible to play without depositing.

Whats your f**king point then ???
Who are you to complain about playing a game for free for years already and having built up a small fortune in skills ?!

This is just so hypocritical...

 

[aridash]

the point is that MA is making too much money

too much money? are you a socialist?

its the profit and the large margin that keeps their shareholders happy, keeps the servers on and is the reason why it is relatively safe to deposit large amounts of cash: they aint going anywhere all the time the money rolls in.

 

[Coop_]

If they really take their money from the ingame decay, then their monthly RL income would be dependant from the ingame activity, which is really bad business plan.

I have never understood how so many (naive) people could believe this statement. Just because they said so? Come on, they also said CE2 would come in 2008.

Over the long-haul, MA does make their money from fees (deposit, withdraw, rent, auction, etc.), advertising, and decay, but decay broadly understood.

We differentiate decay from ammo or bombs, but I doubt MA does. When ammo is shot through a gun, the ammo "decays" or disappears as far as the ava is concerned. So what they mean is that they do make their money on a "per-use" basis rather than a monthly usage fee.

If you read MA's response to the issue of gambling, what they say is that the basic model is that people deposit real money in order to buy items, then use those items in exchange for increasing skills or to otherwise improve their avatar (looks, clothes, apartments, etc). Loots are incidental to their basic model of exchange. So when you buy those bombs, you aren't buying lottery tickets, you are buying skilling opportunities. If you get a big loot and can withdraw, that's a lucky freebie from MA--congratulations.

So anything you use up is considered "decay" by MA. They get the tt value, you get skills in return. Just be glad they don't decide to keep all the decay--and are nice enough to give some back in the form of loots

 

[coubo]

Firstly, read the EULA. All of the ingame assets legally belong to MA. Now. Not later. Immediately. Have always. Period. It is their policy and benevolence (and good business sense) to pay out money at the same rate they convert incoming money. But they are not bound legally in any way to do so or even to pay out at all.

Secondly, yes, yes and YES! Entropia is a MMOG! It is not a business venture, it is not a casino, it is not a bank...

Sorry if I come off as rude..

-Remmie

This does not come off rude at all On the contrary, very valid points.
This reflect, as usual, that the reality of the "service" MA is providing is very different from the way they advertise it: "RCE" and "Investment in avatar" bullshit. Even the way they call putting money in the game "deposit" is a mis-statement. It's not a deposit, it's giving money to them according to the EULA

They lure people in with this marketing and some fake promises of returns. It's likely the only game in the space where you will find people spending several hundred of $/month to play, or even more to buy virtual property that do not even belong legally to them according to what you say.


To the ones asking that the point of the post was: there was not specific point, just giving some numbers around overall return of the game and in-game appropriation of PED by MA. I believe it is a useful refrence as many people are not really realize which % of the money is returned to players and how much MA takes (at least I found this data interesting when I saw it, sorry if this feeling is not shared )

 

[Remmie]

This does not come off rude at all On the contrary, very valid points.
This reflect, as usual, that the reality of the "service" MA is providing is very different from the way they advertise it: "RCE" and "Investment in avatar" bullshit. Even the way they call putting money in the game "deposit" is a mis-statement. It's not a deposit, it's giving money to them according to the EULA

They lure people in with this marketing and some fake promises of returns. It's likely the only game in the space where you will find people spending several hundred of $/month to play, or even more to buy virtual property that do not even belong legally to them according to what you say.


To the ones asking that the point of the post was: there was not specific point, just giving some numbers around overall return of the game and in-game appropriation of PED by MA. I believe it is a useful refrence as many people are not really realize which % of the money is returned to players and how much MA takes (at least I found this data interesting when I saw it, sorry if this feeling is not shared )

I will be the first to agree that MA has all the marketing and PR sense of the previous US president. I will also be the first to agree that MA's choice of marketing firms recently has been "flawed" (to greatly understate it) and that they would have been wiser to choose a more responsible and shall we say ethically minded and less aggressive marketing firm.

That all being said, the world we live in abounds with scams and tricks, not to mention the world we live in is one where it is normal for advertising to make outrageous claims to which the reality must later be discerned from reading the fine print on a contract. In this particular case the EULA is the contract and they were very nice to NOT mince words, make the print tiny, bury the language, obfuscate it in legalese, etc, etc, etc which are all acceptable normal practices (buy a new car lately and look over the financing and warrantee contracts?)

So, my point...

Anyone who wishes to function as a member of the global society of humanity at some point needs to learn to take responsibility for their decisions and to always read the contracts they sign and/or agree to. Hence, I have zero, I repeat, ZERO sympathy for anyone for gets their nose bent out of shape because they didn't read through an agreement and just dances through life expecting everyone else to fix their mistakes and intentional ignorance.

Perhaps that makes me a b*tch, if so I apologize half heartedly.


-Remmie

 

[Brooklyn]

Perhaps that makes me a b*tch, if so I apologize half heartedly.

-Remmie

Aplogies accepted...

Some people (not You) have hard time reading blog much less a legal document...and all contracts depend on good faith that people to do the right thing...without it no contracts in the world is enforceble as any good lawyer will tell you...you can have empathy you know without sympathy...

 

[Karmic]

Stop feeding the trolls! alt account created only to complain about MA by misrepresenting data. BTW, when I started I was told you can't make a profit as a non-depositor either without reselling, but, I have. 100% of deposits in other games go to the company, but at least they whine just as much or more on their messageboards.

 

[billairboy]

Most online games takes 100 % of the money i pay them

 

[saintvio]

Most online games takes 100 % of the money i pay them

i can play any game on the market for 15 bucks a month at the highest possible level all day everyday if i like.

are you claiming you do the same in EU?

 

[jod]

i can play any game on the market for 15 bucks a month at the highest possible level all day everyday if i like.

are you claiming you do the same in EU?

No what i think he is saying that with other games (subscription based) you will never see your $15 again so he's perhaps used to it by now.

 

[Lefty]

As Maria said on Page 1, "House always wins".

Also, MMORPGs are very lucrative, because they are well advertised, addictive, and fun. I think MA would do well to add more fun to their product, and continue advertising it aggressively. But it does need more fun.

Addz:

Sooooo.... anyone that's good at coding want to start a new RCEMMORPG?

I've been working on that longer than I've been playing EU. The design framework is entirely in place, the platform is fully functional, the coding language is more than halfway learned, and then I will start implementing and debugging it. Better physics, different graphics, RCEMMORPG, hunting, ever so much better crafting, much better story, no auctioneer, no tt (revive, soc and storage will be similar; entirely different systems for crafting and repair). Automata will be available. Worse PVP overall - I'm not breaking myself to make anything over beta-quality PVP. And it will support, and even encourage, trade in user-written enhancements and components.

The payment model is flat tax on all trades. The base platform is Cobalt, info is at opencroquet - which means the game will not require fandcy hardware or even Windows.

For all your entertainment,
Lefty

 

[Karmic]

i can play any game on the market for 15 bucks a month at the highest possible level all day everyday if i like.

are you claiming you do the same in EU?

No, you can't. There is a significant time investment for you to do so, and depending on the game you can max your character and still not be able to see all the content. Why do you think games started doing instances? because some of us were locking down all the top content.

 

[Dr.D.C.]

mindark and neverdie wins, possibly deathifyer too

your list is very too short

 

[billairboy]

i can play any game on the market for 15 bucks a month at the highest possible level all day everyday if i like.

are you claiming you do the same in EU?

No, most of us can't. But most players just play for some hours when we are home from work and a bit more on the weekends. And don't forget, some plays without depositing, they play for free.

We can hope that EU grows in the coming years and MA gets a bigger playerbase to pay for there expensives, then perhaps the players can "keep" more of the money.

 

[trung]

lets rock

MA is eating machine..............

wait a minute why all of us still playing this worst game and paying to greedy guys

They create new planet - place us can burn more our money

I wish I get big HOF to buy big ESI to chipout my skill and withdraw.............


oh damn!t, hope Marco doesn't read this thread if not..............

 

[Pauhe Gunor]

mindark and neverdie wins, possibly deathifyer too

why these 2 tho, Because these two invested a lot and took a gamble, if these guys had of fell flat on their ass i bet there would of been thousands of people laughing at them, these guys took a big risk and it paid off.

i think these guy's are the ones that run the show in EU not MA, MA are just the monkeys pulling the strings keeping the show rolling so to say

 

[Rentonx]

I think its time to let out a something which not many people know.

I once made a thread which discussed why there was so much negative opinions on other mmo forums. One comment i made was:

I was actually quite suprised as 90% of the things that were being said were total lies, "such as the people who earn money from the game are on a contract with MA etc... etc...".

[the full thread can be found here https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...5-bad-rep-entropia-universe.html#post1608394]

Then a few days later after the thread had grown i recieved a message from Qetesh.

You start to wonder now, after playing the game for so long what other things are happening behind closed doors that the EU population don't know about...

 

[Max Pearl]

Im not sure if it brakes any of the forum rules to publish a personal note... frankly i do not care here. A comment from Qetesh would be nice, will we see that?

 

[Tracer-Bullet]

I think its time to let out a something which not many people know.

I once made a thread which discussed why there was so much negative opinions on other mmo forums. One comment i made was:


[the full thread can be found here https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...5-bad-rep-entropia-universe.html#post1608394]

Then a few days later after the thread had grown i recieved a message from Qetesh.

You start to wonder now, after playing the game for so long what other things are happening behind closed doors that the EU population don't know about...

That's quite a bombshell I'm now intrigued as to what Qetesh thinks she knows.

~Tracer

 

[Brooklyn]

That's quite a bombshell I'm now intrigued as to what Qetesh thinks she knows.

~Tracer

Not a bombshell IMHO just usual Bullsh*t and why would anyone want to believe it...without any real to evidence to back it up...You have to wonder why half these posters even play this game...if it's such a rip off and MindArk is nothing but a bunch of scamming, incompetent Swedes... and...blah...blah...blah...blah...it's really begining to annoy me...

So let's demand Qetesh put up or shut up...

 

[NicolePink]

You have to wonder why half these posters even play this game...if it's such a rip off and MindArk is nothing but a bunch of scamming, incompetent Swedes... and...blah...blah...blah...blah...it's really begining to annoy me...

maybe because, like a majority of the players in EU they have hope inside of them, and belief that Entropia Truely does have some potential... thats why they stay and play - thats why i still stay and play.

Still doesnt help the fact how most of the time MA don't listen to their consumers, and its quite plausible that some people may be on contracts. In this particular case, Qetesh doesnt seem to have no reason to Lie, he owns like over 10 different Land Areas. Its not like if MA revealed fullout to everyone that individuals ingame are paid to promote EU using contracts is good rep for the game - is it now, even within the community (as some may find it deceitful). So coming up with full on evidence (as in a detailed confession from Qetesh) aint gonna look likely is it

 

[fluske]

i have profited very much in this game hunting...and i have lots of people in my fl that never deposit yet have an ha of between 5-8.5

really..the whiners should look in them selfs for faults..not at ma

rethink how you play this game and if you keep losing..do it an other way..it aint that hard

ps; to the guy that posted the pm for qetesh...its PRIVATE message