Entropia Universe: BAD? Battle Arena Deeds Announced...

Roughly about 3 years ago, I made a tiny post to comment about this groundbreaking "Citizenship System" that Mindark introduced, called the Calypso Land Deed or more commonly known as a CLD.

It was the very first brainchild of hers which focused upon the theme of "co-ownership", by numerous participants, of an "investment-class" item within this game we called Entropia Universe.

It featured the release of 60,000 of these so called CLDs, each costing about 1000 PEDs to acquire (or 100 USD, in real cash sense), for a total worth of 6 million USD, into the in-game auction system for the players to buy.

Lulled by the promise of a weekly payout, citizenship land grab as well as a comprehensive political voting system, its launch was pretty much a huge success...with even an "unknown" player acquiring as many as 25,000 of them in one shot, marking the highest point.

Now, a hundred and thirty weeks later, or approximately 2.5 years, the so-called "Citizenship Land Grab" and "Comprehensive Political Voting System" is still yet to be seen.

But luckily though, each standing CLD has kept its promise of delivering a weekly payout and produced an outstanding 561.35 PEDs to date, according to this player-made excel tracker (found here). And so its nearly paid for 60% of itself, producing an annual return of about 22.45%. (Though failing to hit its expected mark, but still impressive nonetheless.)

Markup-wise, the CLD's price within the game has seen marked ups and downs throughout the same period. Starting from its initial pricing of 1000 PEDs, it was seen to have climbed steadily up to the regions of 1400 PEDs (in player-to-player exchanges), but have also fallen down to the currently observed pricings of 1150 PEDs.

But all this? Its just me trying to bring you up to speed with things.
Its not the main purpose of my post to be honest.
However, I'm not quite done yet with my update...

Just two months ago, Planet Arkadia, a Planet Partner (PP) of Entropia Universe (exists as a planet within the game which players can visit, play and spend money there), recently launched its own version of this "investment-class", "co-ownership" thingy, termed as the "Arkadia Underground Deed" or AUD.

Quite unlike the CLD though, this AUD does not bestow a citizenship status to their owners, nor boast of including any political voting system. Instead, it involves a portion of the game world (upon the planet) being sold, in the form of 200,000 of these AUDs, at a pricing of 50 PEDs (or 5 USD) each, for a total worth of 1 million USD. And this portion of the game world was given the name of "Arkadia Underground".

Players visiting this Arkadia Underground, and spending money hunting, mining and perhaps crafting there, will be hit with a 5% tax, of which will be evenly split amongst the owners of AUDs...on a daily basis...if and when there's sufficient amount to pay out at least 0.01 PEDs (the smallest currency denomination within the game) to every owner.

Sad to say...performance of these AUDs, thus far, have been lack-lustrous (in comparison with the CLDs).

According to this tracker here, since its launch, each AUD has been noted to pay out a revenue of at least 0.01 PEDs to 0.03 PEDs on a daily basis. However, due to its reliance upon players physically visiting this area to generate that revenue, days whereby it had 0 payouts were also observed to be seen.

If these two months of tracked payouts are anything to go by with, then in terms of annual returns, the AUD's expected 9.04% performance is seriously eclipsed by the 22.45% from CLDs.

As a result of this, since its launch, the number of AUDs successfully sold have been unknown, but there is reason to believe that a good supply still exists in the hands of the NPC broker (found at the entrance of Arkadia Underground close to the teleporter within the game), at the original selling price of 50 PEDs.

However word is, out on the streets of Calypso, AUDs have been known to exchange hands at around 48 PEDs each, going as low as 46.50 PEDs even. (Which is way different in behavior compared to the CLD's markup when it was originally released.)

Nope, I'm not done yet...but nearly there...

So with things as they are, and the AUDs yet to be completely sold...Mindark now hits us with yet another of this "investment-class" item, coined the "Battle Arena Deed" (BAD).

With this, the plan is to release 200,000 of these BADs, at a pricing of 100 PEDs (or 10 USD) each, for a total worth of 2 million USD...together with some "Web-Based Battle Arena" feature.

In this battle arena, players can acquire, upgrade and customize their pets for battles against the pets of other players. It is also mentioned, in the article, that there will be a wide range of offensive and defensive pet buffs and upgrades along with customizable attack and defense profiles. Furthermore, this feature is said to be multi-platformed and would allow for players to connect via the web and even on mobile devices, without having to install the actual EU game client.

However I must caution that all these are just talks on pen and paper, for the moment. It is only "Planned for Early 2015 Release". A lot of things are still fuzzy and details on it, yet unknown.

How will the battles be done? How will revenues from these battles be generated? How much of an attraction will it be for players to partake in these battles? None of these questions are clarified yet. And so I must urge caution and take things with a pinch of salt.

What's more? Will the EU economy be able to "stomach" all of these releases? Will there be even more of these new "investment-class" items in the future?

Only time will tell I guess...

Posted in: Entropia Universe