MindArks earnings on "houses for everyone" campain - Truth and lies?

Entropia Universe Economy General Economy Discussion
1

Yesterday MindArk released a press release stating that they had earned 135.000 USD on the “Home for everyone” campain launched in 7.2.
At my initial glance I thought 135.000 USD.. cool.. But a split second later I thought.. “Thats a lot”.
So I did some quick math. We know that MindArk has a maximum of 3000 apartments “build” inside Project Entropia.
So if they were to earn 135.000 on 3000 apartments the average value for each apartment would have to be 45 USD (450 PED).
Now.. we know thats the price for large apartments, and not all apartments were large.

At this point I knew that the 135.000 USD were a false value of their earning’s on apartments alone..
So I wanted to see how much they could earn on apartments alone.

We know the ratio bewteen the apartments (from the clientloader)
on each floor there is:
1 large.
2 medium.
5 small.

There is maximum 3000 apartments.

so there is:
375 large.
750 medium.
1875 small.

Hence they can maximum earn:
45 x 375
35 x 750
25 x 1875

= 90.000 USD (Which is kinda nice)
90.000 / 3000 = 30 USD (Average price for the apartments)

So what do we know now.. We know they said they have earned 135.000 from the “House for everyone” campain.
We also know they can MAXIMUM earn 90.000 from the sales of the apartments.
That leaves (135.000 - 90.000) 45.000 USD un accounted for.

But we also know not all apartments have been sold yet.

We know that when they launched 7.2 there were 99 pages of apartments with 15 apartments on each page.
thats roughly 1500 apartments or 50% of the apartments.
If we assume they have split the ratio on half that gives the maximum earnings from the initial sales to 45.000 USD.

But lets do a “best case” senario.
Lets assume all large and medium apartments were in that batch.
Thats 1125 apartments. (375 + 750)
That leaves 375 small apartments in the initial batch of 1500 apartments.
Today at 1.02 PM there were 34 pages left of apartments.
Thats 510 apartments.
Lets assume all the large and medium ones were sold.
Since we are asuming that ALL the medium and large ones were in the initial batch the math is not right, but this math is not a representation of the reality but a representation of the best case senario.
By this math there should still be 135 “bigger than small” apartments left in the auctions.
Lets assume the apartments that are left are the medium ones since they give the smallest profit for MA.
That leaves the math as this:
375 Large has been sold.
615 Medium has been sold.

(615 + 375 = 990, and there is 510 left.. 990 + 510 = 1500)
(This math works on the premis that the second batch of apartments hasent been released yet)

This gives the total income for MindArk purely on apartments to:
(375 x 45) + (615 x 35) = 16875 + 21525 = 38400 USD.
Remember this is the BEST case senario, if ALL large and ALL medium apartments were in the initial batch. And only one batch has been released yet.

Now. MA claims that they have earned 135.000 USD. We have just prooven that MA can MAXIMUM have earned 38.400 USD from the apartments.
That leaves 96.600 USD un accounted for.
Lets try to figure out where those 96.600 USD are comming from.

Did “Marcus the callendar estate broker” offer a lot of houses. I dont know this but lets try to see how many houses he should have offered.
Pricefinder dictates that the average selling price for estates are arround 400 USD, based upon sales for the last 14 days.
Lets assume he were lucky and sold for 500 USD pr house.
He would have had to have sold 194 houses then.
That dosent sound right, does it?

One could argue that MindArk are also factoring in the furniture in the 135.000 USD.
But MA isent earning anything that can be calculated on specific furniture. Except the 1 PED auction fee.
So that leaves me to belive that the 96.600 un accounted USD are either their total income from the periode since 7.2 .. Or just a random number..

But if its their total income (beside apartment sales) since 7.2 I dont think they can attribuate it to the “houses for everyone campain”.

I dont know… Im confused as to how they could come up with that number.. Only way I can do it is by saying 3000 x 45. (Total number of apartments x moste expensive apartment)

If you are gonna lie to us atleast make it belivable…

1 Like
2

Well its actually a bit of Political Spinmeistering and they haven’t really lied. For a start note that in the article they do not say, the apartment sales generated US$135,000.

In fact the title dosen’t say apartments:
“Project Entropia Generates Over $135,000 From Online Virtual Property Sales”

Further quotes where the figure is used are:
“Currently, the total revenue from the virtual property sales topples over $135,000 and growing.”

I think they are actually counting all total property sales to date.

PS I think you had on PERC some figures about Housing Sales to date. Something like $70,000 from November 2003.

UPDATE
Found the article on PERC (Hope you don’t mind Starfinder :wink:
http://www.perc.info/index.asp?page=112
Written in August 2004. So $70,000 is from Nov 2003 - Aug 2004. Add that to our estimated apartment sales and we should have a ballpark figure.

3

maybe count the 10 ped fee * x month

4

Maybe they count the rent also…I dont know about you guys but I payed 2 months rent raight away :wink:

Dreicc was first :slight_smile:

5

there are 3 medium on each floor C,D,H and i payed for a years rent might make the numbers add up a little :girl:

6

jena–> nope it wont.. since in my calc not enough apartments have been sold yet to “empty” the pool of medium apartments :smiley:

Only if there were 2 large or more on each floor would it be wrong…

Azi–> good point.. I think thats the moste plausible explanation…

They just dont really “imply” that in the press relase.. but I guess thats what they do in PR.. “spin” you arround

7

The usual MA spin…adverstising, marketing…gets ppl talking about the product :wink:

(as we are here :eek: )

8

I still want someone independant to go through the actual revenues to get a exact figure :rolleyes:

9

also don’t forget that not all apartments were made available to us - there were free ones given to pre-gold players.
I’m not sure how many that was, but i was one of the first to log in that morning and didn’t see 1 top floor large apartment even offered.

10

[QUOTE=Starfinder]

Azi–> good point.. I think thats the moste plausible explanation…

They just dont really “imply” that in the press relase.. but I guess thats what they do in PR.. “spin” you arround
[/QUOTE]

After 8 years of Labour Government here in the UK you get use to it :wink: too many spin merchants bending the truth to suit the politicians. MA and other corporations do the the same.

I think for me, my question would be, where did the money go? Back into the game or into MA?

The Pre-Gold Beta apartments seemed to have been medium sized, I received mine about a week or so after the VU was launched. I don’t think there were many and according to some other Beta Players, not many actually got them in the first place :frowning:

11

I"m sorry but i wish ppl would stop scandalizing everything all the time and just PLAY THE FREAKING GAME!

I have a ton of fun in PE and it cost me and my wife less to play PE then it would if we where to play ANY other game.(except the other free ones that i’m not interested in)

We have been playing for a year and a half now and i’m still enjoying it and have very little times of not enjoying it. and thats probably becasue i focus on having fun and dont care about these stupid issues that realy have NO effect on my game play.

I havn’t even hof’d yet and i’m still think PE is great. But i’ve had some great experience and made some great friends.

4 Likes
12

Also they caould have counted the resales and even the furniture sales, as the press release is made so loosley.

I don’t even see the point in this thread though. Are you unhappy MA is trying to improve the game by Press Releases?

I just don’t get this at all…

DD
:evilking:

1 Like
13

I dont think Starfinder is trying to whine at all here, but it is in the human nature to be sceptical.
When a number just doesnt add up your bound to wonder where that extra money came from or if they were there at all. Dont shoot him for sharing his thoughts on that.

14

[QUOTE=Skam]
Dont shoot him for sharing his thoughts on that.
[/QUOTE]

:sniper:

My point is this…

What good does it do to bring this sort of thing out in the open? Especially the final statement of (If your going to lie to us at least make it believable…).

DD
:evilking:

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[QUOTE=Skam]
I dont think Starfinder is trying to whine at all here, but it is in the human nature to be sceptical.
When a number just doesnt add up your bound to wonder where that extra money came from or if they were there at all. Dont shoot him for sharing his thoughts on that.
[/QUOTE]

I think my main point is that everyone (i’m not picking on starfinder at least he gave some numbers to his theory) picks on MA about everything they say. Then ask that they want more info. Well when ppl pick apart and put some negative spin on the info EVERYTIME they post something. It’s only gonna make them more carefull and post less info. MA sort of has a greater wisdome over things. Sure they take into consideration of player feedback but only they know what the big picture looks like we only have piesces of the puzzle. If we just focus on the fun then we’ll have fun. If we focus on trying to crunch MA’s stats and numbers it’s only going to take away from our fun.

We all come up with these theories and guesses when the fact is only MA realy knows whats going on behind the scene. We do not know exactly how the loot system or any other system works fully it’s all just guess work. So what gives US the right to judge MA and what they say or do when WE dont have full knowledge of how they operate and work everything. IMO i’ll take DD’s side and figure that they are not just factoring the one time sale of appartments but ALL the factors that appartments created. and that it is no doubt simply an estimated figure.

So many people spend all there time trying to beat the system and figure out stats and everything like crazy when they are missing out on just having fun and making some friends.

For example a soc m8 of mine has been wondering about buying Ghost armour. Now me and him could have spent hours crunching the numbers as there are MANY factors when it comes to armour. What protetion you need and what your paying for and what mobs your gonna hunt. But because we’ve focused on making friends and allies. A person in our alliance offered him to borrow his Ghost armour and just test it out for a week and see if he liked it. Now instead of spending time crunching numbers he’s been having fun hunting and PLAYING PE and everyone is happy.

(sorry for blabering on)

16

[QUOTE=Spider]

I did the math on the average buyout price and given the average MA stands to recirculate 1,050,000 ped initially.
[/QUOTE]

My estimate would have made it $105.000, damn, I was close :slight_smile:

17

[QUOTE=RexDameon]
. Sure they take into consideration of player feedback but only they know what the big picture looks like we only have piesces of the puzzle.

[/QUOTE]

True, but since we only have the pieces, we can only wonder about the big scene. And we can either think about it alone, or share it, as in a forum.

18

[QUOTE=Skam]
True, but since we only have the pieces, we can only wonder about the big scene. And we can either think about it alone, or share it, as in a forum.
[/QUOTE]

But their press release, whether true or false, only helps us the players. By making a post calling MA liers, Starfinder only hurts us the players.

Again I ask, what good does this post do?

DD
:evilking:

19

LOL relax relax guys.
I don’t have a problme with Starfinder running through the #s, they are intriguing. But I do not think it’s some kind of MA conspiracy either :wink: Perhaps the numbers add up when taking into account all housing sales (as some1 else suggested).
In any event, on this forum we are all fairly intelligent compared to others… I doubt any among us would jump to any conclusions among these findings… hopefully :wink:

20

i rely on people always calculating the numbers.. if MA gets too greedy, people stop playing.. then MA puts a lil back in the loot pool to see if people are ready to come back, etc.

i’d love to see mindark pe ab inc’s year end balance sheet though. :wink: