Is EU's RCE collapsing?

[Rayne Jade]

Originally Posted by Lunar

The market in PE acts kinda like the markets in rl. Ups and downs all the time...

To some extent, perhaps.... In EU it is not actually because of the artificial hand MA plays in it. MA controls drop rates of items and thus they are more valued if rare. It would be like BMW making 10 cars in 2009 - they would sell for a lot more money than normal simply because there are only 10 of them. On the flip side, BMW would be forced to charge more to turn a profit. Starting up an assembly line for 10 cars is not good business sense in any model. The whole behind the assembly line is to produce a great quanity of units to bring the price down. The major difference is that in EU, it is simply pixels and costs MA nothing to allow me to loot a modfap or imk2 or ModMerc. I might sell the item, but that would be redistribution of money already in the game. When I cash out MA would lose capital resourses when they pay me. The same can be applied to mining - if ruga is not in supply to the crafters, those crafters cannot make items that require ruga. Those existing items that were crafted using ruga will go up in value simply because they are no longer in production (just like the assembly line shutting down). In the real world, you can adjust your procurement process to keep a steady supply of the materials you need. In EU, the material is either there or it is not.

[Tseng]

Originally Posted by Thorn

Ditto! That and I believe three malls was just too much for our economy to support in the first place. I was wondering as soon as they announced them and that ais bout what I would expect.

Well three malls wheren't too much do start off...

The problem is that MA decided to sell shops as estates instead of implementing an option to let the mall owner rent the shop to people.

What actually happend:
Most people bought a shop and it didn't met their hope to get the money in, so many simply let the fee expire and wait for better times. The another point are the reseller scum who bought many of the shops only to resell/inflate the price even further and the shops stay unused.

One of the problems i see with the shops is that you have to buy the estate and pay a maintanance fee, which is stupid. Instead, all shop estates should be removed completly and only estate left the one of the mall itself. And all shops should only be rented to certain persons.

So if someone doesn't pay the fee for his expired shop, the owner simply can rent the shop to someone else and will have a constant money flow. Then more people would run shops and the mall owner can even refuse to refresh a leasing of the shop, if the shop is underpreforming (read: The only income from this shop is the maintainance fee but no sales (could be cause of overpriced stuff etc).

So in te long run, only shops with a good turnover/sales would keep survive.

Originally Posted by TimUnleashed

I agree that the malls are completely underused and that plenty of the shop spaces are going to waste. Why would you go to a mall if it's only got one shop in it that works?

One reason why its underused/-populated is, that people often don't know in which of the many shops to go, when they look for something.

As someone else pointed out, Second Life has a nice XML Interface and Ingame-to-Web posibilities so you can sync this with a website. And with recent updates, you can even use the search function, so you can see the sellable objects/items inside that shop and their prices.

This of course allows people to search for a item and directly go to this shop. But as it's now, you have to check all of the many shops (including the ones outside mals as Sakura City, Tressure Island, New Oxford, Genesis and Omegatron Complex Shops).

Even though there are many shops on Entropia Dictionary, not many people are aware of this and still can't see accurate data on what's sold in this shops and its prices.

Originally Posted by Moonfish

What ever we think & what ever we see as not working or failing or succeding, MA will of on the most part sat down and had a serious meeting to disucss what they implant into the game - of cource they will make mistakes, even try to see if a certain inclusion will work or not, later to fix the problem or just leave it and move on to another colourful enticement.

I can tell (and give a 95% garantuee) that MindArk cares a shit about the players of if the things "work" which they introduce. They only care for one thing: Money. The system i mentioned above would be much better. But instead they didn't made it as with every other thing that got auctioned in the past.

They do it so people put more money in and that their money is stucked in items/estates with 0 PED. Money that can't be cashed out. Just look at the banks and shops.

Originally Posted by Moonfish

Yes, alot of people agree, there are too many shops, are but if there were too few, there price would rocket and the investers would buy them up like they bought the malls up (malls cost $x - shops sold for $x times 2 & Pa Mall has been sold on now 2 times now & is still doing well)

As i said above, there aren't too many shops. I bet, there would be many shops with good items/prices out there, if the owner would have the power to rent the shop to certain persons (or societies) and refuse others who run bad businies (or doesnt pay renting fees). This way owner of the mall can (in long term) pick up the best shops with the most sales in his mall (this increasing his income on taxes).

Originally Posted by Moonfish

• I would say, for the most part shops are empty for a number of reasons - eg Roar went on Holiday for a few months i think, no point paying for the rent when its mostly empty after selling most items in the 1st month and being unable to restock.
  
• People dont play every day, and so shops sell items and there not replaced as quick as they and we all would like.
  
• I'm sure some people also find out they dont enjoy running a shop, and prefer to hunt all the time and so loose interest

Well, if you go to vacation there it's reasonable to close it. But there are shops which were closed for months now. With a rent/leasing system this wouldnt be a problem. If you talk to the mall owner, then it may be ok to have it closed for a month or two without it being rent to someone else.

And if people are not too serious into running the shop (i.e. logging in once per week to refill the shop), then they shouldnt be allowed to have one (again: With rent/lending system this couldnt happen since the mall owner can decide if he want to keeps this person in his shop ornot)

Same applies for the last point. Such people shouldnt be allowed to own a shop. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by Moonfish

P.S[/b]
What happened to all the ad's on the big screens i never see any, so what happened to the income that was bringing to the game, and whats that button for on the login options window for 'Disable Ad's' What Ad's

I guess the ad system didnt become what they expected :P
Well the adds are currently only used by players for advertisement (of their shops or events). Dunno why you don't see the player advertisements (if we're talking about the same thing), but they work for me. Maybe some problems playing them? (The Video ads are all in Bik Format, maybe there is some problems with it on your pc?)

[thoreau]

Originally Posted by Epictetus

Please look up the size of the U.S. economy compared to the rest of the world, and the amount of gold reserves compared to the world and report back.

<<tin-foil hat on>>

You don't believe there is gold in Fort Knox do you?

<<tin-foil hat off>>

[Ime]

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

So, back to my original statement, EU's economy were to fall, it would be directly related to a total world economy colapse, and we'd all be fucked.

Lol, this is the funniest thing ever.

Just 1 counter example i can think of:
Another company makes a better RCE game with better return. How long you give EU for the economy to colapse ? Is it related to a real world colapse ?

[Dion Red Strike]

Originally Posted by Ime

Lol, this is the funniest thing ever.

Just 1 counter example i can think of:
Another company makes a better RCE game with better return. How long you give EU for the economy to colapse ? Is it related to a real world colapse ?

You would think that's an interesting situation... but it all comes down to customer retention. MA has retained me for over 3 years now... and there ARE plenty of other RCE's out there...

I seriously doubt any other 'RCE' will ever take over PE's market control. Even though they make wild statements about how thye are going to bigger than WoW or SL, the fact is, they are in a different class. It's like comparing an apple to an orange. Both are fruits, both have seeds inside, both taste good, but they are both completely different.

But back to your original statement...

Did McDonalds go bankrupt when Burger King came to the market?

Did Target go under when Walmart invaded every city?

Did Subway close doors when Jimmy Johns came to town?

The answer would be no to each and every one.... So, citing a possible scenario in which a DIRECT 'competitor' makes MA go under is about as ludicrous as any of the above examples....

Nice try tho

Can I have your next example please?

~Red

EDIT: While I was making a typo fix, I made another realization... which I forgot temporarily while typing this... oh yeah...

If you seriously doubt the fixed TT value of your items being able to be remove from MA's grip, then why would you be here?

It always tickles me when people speculate about 'the economy' of EU.... If you think your money is safe, stay, if you don't, get the fuck out and quick. I know if I don't trust my bank, I damn sure am not going to be holding my money there.

And, from another post of mine...
Becoming Dissenchanted

Originally Posted by me

Now, ask yourself, what are you paying MA for? (This is where you hear me tell you to quit) If you are paying for MA to entertain you, and you are not entertained, then leave. (This is where you hear me to tell you to shut up) If you are here for MA to be your savings account, and you are spending more than you are saving, then shut up. (This is another part where I tell you something interesting) If you think things are too expensive to get (i.e. a mod fap, or 15k skills), then don't try to get these things, or make more money on Earth. If I want to own a Ferrari, I need to make more money. I don't try to disillusion myself by saying that I drove a Ford for the last 5 years, they should give me a Ferrari now.

[BrianMik]

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

I seriously doubt any other 'RCE' will ever take over PE's market control. Even though they make wild statements about how thye are going to bigger than WoW or SL, the fact is, they are in a different class. It's like comparing an apple to an orange. Both are fruits, both have seeds inside, both taste good, but they are both completely different.

But back to your original statement...

Did McDonalds go bankrupt when Burger King came to the market?
....
The answer would be no to each and every one.... So, citing a possible scenario in which a DIRECT 'competitor' makes MA go under is about as ludicrous as any of the above examples....

I completely agree. A competitor that took a big chunk of the base would possibly deflate prices (temporarily?) but that has even been considered a good thing. The only things besides complete RL economic collapse would be if MA makes the game unappealing to all or many governments ban EU.

So, although its on faith that those 2 things won't happen, I think Dion could be correct that only a massive RL economic collapse (Or Global disaster or War) would destroy the EU economy.

[Dion Red Strike]

Originally Posted by BrianMik

I completely agree. A competitor that took a big chunk of the base would possibly deflate prices (temporarily?) but that has even been considered a good thing. The only things besides complete RL economic collapse would be if MA makes the game unappealing to all or many governments ban EU.

So, although its on faith that those 2 things won't happen, I think Dion could be correct that only a massive RL economic collapse (Or Global disaster or War) would destroy the EU economy.

ooOoo... I never thought of banning by government... that would be the only other possibility of a complete market crash.. and it would hafta be every government... whew... has my heart racing for a minute there... if my government bans EU, I'd move

~Red

[BrianMik]

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

ooOoo... I never thought of banning by government... that would be the only other possibility of a complete market crash.. and it would hafta be every government... whew... has my heart racing for a minute there... if my government bans EU, I'd move

~Red

LOL...im sure you wouldn't be alone. What does that say about our love for EU...or addiction?

Surely those that have much invested would take a vacation in an EU friendly country long enough to recover their funds.

[Carl]

nope....in simple terms its survival of the fittest
look around in rl entropia is becoming what it said it would be
look at your local town shops shut down newones open
if all shops would profit they would be 100000 each lol

such is life im afraid

[QuintusMagnus]

Originally Posted by Carl

nope....in simple terms its survival of the fittest
look around in rl entropia is becoming what it said it would be
look at your local town shops shut down newones open
if all shops would profit they would be 100000 each lol

such is life im afraid

Meh, the sorting process, economic's version of "natural selection" progresses on everywhere that there's a (kind of) free market. Those who didn't compete on volume (narrow margins, easy-access shop placement, large amounts of relatively common goods) OR didn't specialize (the "Rolex" dealers of EU, the ones with rare items, high markups, and an ability to sit through a couple weeks of 0 profit for a couple big-bang sales to keep things going) generally got phased out, pushed out of business, transitioned into one of the aforementioned, or quit playing.

Of course, as I've mentioned in other threads, I feel like all the non-sold pieces of real estate in game should constantly be on auction, to make real estate, shops, and ergo business relatively more accessible (yes, it will create some failures, but will also stimulate business and streamline shop ownership while getting more people "involved" in the game), BUT, as the wa