Project Entropia's Universe Solidifies

Psyiode writes "Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. If you'll recall, Project Entropia is a MMORPG where everything is purchased with real money and slowly degrades during use. Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?"

Comments

Sliding feet

[nukey56]

Last time I checked the beta out, it lacked certain prerequisites for a good game environment, including the ability to walk. Seriously. The character models had no walk animation, and instead, just slid around. I have serious doubts about this game, mostly because it seems that more effort has gone into the complex systems (read: economy) than into the user experience. Just my 2 cents.

Hyperbole?

[Ratface]

They're saying that they've invested over 15 million USD in the game already and will continue to invest over 5 million USD/year! That sounds like a horrific amount of money for them to try and make back. Expect a virtual cup of coffee to cost 10 bucks real money!

Also, I live in Sweden and work in the Internet industry here and I've never heard of this company. If their investment has been as large as they say it has, I would expect to have heard something about them. (I would also expect them to build a website that *doesn't* crash my browser (IE 6!) every time I visit the site!).

Just my 2 Entropian cents!

Re:cash back

[cyborch]

In game you have a vitual wallet. You are able to make transfers to and fom your real bank account at any time. So if you earn money in the game you are earning money in real life too.

My experience says otherwise...

[raehl]

I played a MUD when I was in HS/college, and I was arguably the best player in the game, and my clan was definitely the best clan in the game. The game also had an outlaw system similar to this one, and sure enough, everyone in my clan had outlaw flags.

However, we wern't outlaws - we WERE the law. If you were nice, you were treated nice, and if you killed and stole from people, we'd hunt you down. Most people gave us a wide berth, but some would think they could take us on, and they'd get beat down too. The rest wanted to join the group.

Not saying it's not possible the top 10-20 players won't form an outlaw group, but it's also possible that the top 10-20 players form a more benevolent power structure.

Why this "economy" will fail..

[danny256]

So I guess every has figured out how it works by now, you buy items and then you kill monsters/other people in hopes of finding more valuable items and making a profit. So there will be 2 types of players in this game, the guys who are really good and make a profit, and the suckers, who lose money while supporting who whole thing. Now how long do you think the suckers are going to keep losing money for? Maybe a month if they're stupid, probably less. This thing is basically like a large pyramid scheme, the only way it works is if you keep getting people who are stupider than you to join in at the bottom, and that's not going to happen forever, so eventually it collapses.

Offices raided by MS

[Cpt_Corelli]

I have heard about them when their offices were raided by 70 officials of the Swedish court, acting on behalf of Microsoft and three other software companies.

Read more on this link.

The other audience

[Snaller]

This is probably going to attract people who hope to be able to make money from the being in the game (we see this in just about all other online games, where they sell items and equipment for real life money) - it may also be a way for nolife nerds to make a living without leaving their sofa!

Re:The other audience

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but in games such as Ultima Online and Everquest you had tremendous potential for the game at the beginning. Then when the servers started being filled up with more and more lamers, the game "sold out". Instead of roleplaying, the games degraded into pure hack'n slash with only out-of-character conversations. Then RL money got involved and the games sold out even more. Now they're so degraded and such sell-outs, all the serious players have left years ago. Only the hopeless addicts are left. They play in order to feel great about themselves, dominate others, etc, which says alot about their self-esteem and self-worth.

It remains to be seen if you can build a world for addicts, with no gain but "make money". If someone makes money, someone else has to pay. But why pay if the game isn't really worth it? It's already a sell-out from its infancy, and this is why I predict this to be yet another bust from the DOT-COM era.

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe it'll be like a game of poker. Players trying to cheat eachother over money, or a giant pyramid game (the older characters sell stuff to newbies who in turn grow older). It's not my type of game though, and sounds like it can become illegal in some countries.

Money laundering?

[JPelorat]

Sounds like a great way to launder large amounts of cash. Rocco spends a ton of money in-game from a non-extraditable country, and 'sells' it all to Vinnie's character, who cashes out, happily legal and flush.