[Update: October 2010]
I recently started playing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Project Entropia (PE) and I want to share my experience with anyone who is researching the game or its creator, MindArk, especially as regards the inevitable labeling of PE as a “scam.”
I’m not affiliated with MindArk in any way. I discovered PE while browsing blogs. Someone had linked to a bbc.com article about the sale of a space station for $100,000US. In reaction to this article, I downloaded the free game and began to play.
WHAT IS PROJECT ENTROPIA?
Project Entropia is a virtual universe with a real cash economy. It is set on the distant colony of Calypso, the first habitable planet mankind has ever found. The players take the roles of colonizers that strive to build a new world together, under the threat from various enemies that wants [sic] to destroy the colony.
What does this mean?
It means that Project Entropia is a large multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The normal way such games operate is by purchasing the client software in a store and then pay a subscription fee every 30 days, while the internal game economy is just that—a game economy.Project Entropia does the opposite! The client software is free to download over the Internet and there are no subscription fee associated whatsoever. The real cash economy means that the internal Project Entropia economy is linked to the real world economy, by using a currency called the Project Entropia Dollar (PED), which have a fixed exchange rate to the US Dollar (10 PED equals 1 USD).
You as a player use PED to acquire virtual land and equipment in Project Entropia to invest in your avatar???s (Player representation in the virtual universe) growth and abilities. A unique aspect of Project Entropia is that a player may elect to transfer PED back into real life currency, thereby enabling them to earn real money while playing an online computer game.
Project Entropia website
I immediately learned that one can get “free money” while very new in the game by gathering and bottling the sweat from live, hostile animals and selling the bottles to other players. This method is tedious and the payout is pennies per hour of gameplay. I played this way for several days to see if the frequent skill rank advancements meant I would start getting more sweat per hour, but I got bored and decided it would be worth the price of a mainstream game just to find out if PE was any fun.
I sent about $22 via paypal to a German outfit for 200 PED (Project Entropia Dollars). Notice that the transaction wasn’t free. Withdrawals aren’t free, either: you pay 1.5% of the amount, minimum 100PED ($10US). With this 200PED I bought a weapon and began to hunt the animals that were so reluctant to give of their sweat. I also bought some armor to cover up the ugly orange jumpsuit that is the only possession of a new recruit.
I soon learned that hunting is a costly occupation at this early stage in the game. My income didn’t meet the cost of ammo. On top of that, the weapon needed costly repairs.
Game fees
Players in PE do not pay any fixed game fee or monthly subscription fee in order to play the game. Players costs are the equipment and objects that they collect as they play and which wear out with use. The players must regularly upgrade their possessions via special automated service stations to retain full capacity.
For example, a hunting weapon wears in relation to the number of shots discharged. The wear level is indicated via status information on the screen and can also be noticed by reduced performance in the object. The normal service fee for an active player lies between 0.5 and 1.5 USD per hour played.
MindArk.com: About PE
That’s what I’ve been paying to play this game, give or take a dollar. Compared to World of Warcraft, an MMORPG that cost me $50 for the software and $15 per month of unlimited gameplay, it’s an expensive game for the average player. Did anyone really expect to download a free game, play it for free and get paid to do it? I hope not. I never read any promise from MindArk to that effect.
There is no shortage of enticement, however. Throughout the game, messages scroll in one corner of the screen to inform me that so-and-so killed/mined/manufactured something “at a value of XX PED!” These are enticing numbers indeed. I am hunting “Atrox Young” (a mini t-rex of sorts) and getting 0-5PED per kill, still losing money due to equipment degredation. I see a message, “X-Y-Z killed an Atrox Young at a value of 84 PED!” so I keep hunting despite the poor returns.
Is MindArk doing something illegal? I doubt they are and I doubt it ever will be illegal to create an online economy such as this. The players are certainly playing at a premium price, unless one deems himself unworthy of any occupation higher than Professional Sweat Gatherer.
Are they stealing from me? No, I’m paying for a unique experience. I had an item disappear from my inventory once but it returned when I logged in the next time. I doubt I’ll spend $26,500US to buy an island like this guy did. Although I did read somewhere that he has already recouped the investment by collecting taxes and selling deeds.
Is it possible to make money in PE? Sure, people do, especially the traders. There are online “companies” composed of participants with the sole purpose of buying low and selling high. They don’t use weapons or armor, but their expensive clothes wear out over time just to make things fair. Traders are too proud to wear the orange jumpsuit.
Is Project Entropia a scam? That depends on your idea of a scam. The purpose of the game is to make MindArk money while providing gamers with entertainment. There’s nothing untoward about that. The rules are clear but the formulas are not. I knew that items were subject to entropy (Project Entropia, get it?) before I ever spent a dime on the game. I did not know that it’s impossible to go out there and kill enough monsters to pay for the damage done to my sword every time I swing it, but that lesson only cost me $3.
I am still playing Project Entropia, still exploring and enjoying the virtual universe of Calypso, still dulling my laser sword and still paying for it all. I do this because my hopes to make money in PE were dashed and supplanted by a better reason to play a game: fun.
Hey now, what’s this? Somebody in an orange jumpsuit wants me to buy his hard-earned sweat. That’s a good price, too. I bet I can make a buck here before the night is done. 
Update: October 2010
That trade with the newbie earned me a few pennies of profit, less than the cost of the clothes that wore out during the transaction. I quit playing and deleted my account in 2006. I found other, less costly games less stressful and more fun. However, this article has gathered new visitors and comments ever since. The story remains the same: some people feel cheated, others consider the game a fairly priced entertainment, and a tiny minority claim personal prosperity. I’m curious how the game experience has advanced in years since I last looked. Maybe I’ll give it another few bucks to find out.
this game is pretty alright i started this game with nothing sold some sweat its about using your brain and get a calculator buy anything thats cheapp and sell for more skills are the best way to make money for me thats how i started making money from skills stuff now that are cheap maybe couple months later will be rare depends bout luck and brians
Well… i have been playing project entropia since may 2005, i found out about it from a friend, me being a teenager and just so close to owning a credit card and doing what i wanted, played the game and deposited on my birthday later that month. Since then the game has massively changed, blueprint systems changed, Port atlantis (the largest noob city in the game) changed My feelings for the game changed, my feelings for the people in the game changed, and the people in the game changed. As of august I left on a vacation and came back with 6 days until I had to go back to “learning” I started to play project entropia and blew 60 US$ that I had slowly deposited and earned over the past whole year. A girl offered to marry me in the game if she could barrow 600 ped and give it back later that night. I gave it to her, she logged on once since then and i didnt talk to her, i didn’t notice she was on until she logged off, my only chance at getting my cash back/ gone! Well after that I got kicked from a society, which must have had over 500 people go through it because everyone would say “Vash the (insert society here) hates you because you (insert any “criminal” action that i didn’t do)
After that i started my own new Society. It was made to uphold the justice… a hell of a commitment, every other hour i was messaged by some newcomer that a city had a sniper in it scoping people out, and that he had the longest ranged rifle in the game so you would need an identicle gun to kill him.
More money, every time a sniper would become a terrorist, i would set off a seismic bomb (used for mining in the game but distracts snipers with the shaking) then i cost other people their money, after one of these “attacks” I took off to the largest newcomer city and heard people hiring a work force to maintain a theme park. this “theme park” was really a whole bunch of probes that had been prepared to launch to the ground and had been canceled, because of this they were unmovable by anyone but the person who put them at their spots on the ground.
The owner of this “theme park” scamed many noobs and he had an employee gambling after hours, doing a give me fifty ped for a chance to win 500… I told this guy it was to much and did a (insert crime here) thing.
The old society came back on me hard, they told me i should duel this scammer with my best pistol. I did, he had his men blocking off the exit to the “ring” where we dueled. He shot at me and i ran, this continued for 41 minutes and he then used up tens of US$ in ammunition. To make matters worse he made his buddies some on in and stand on ends of the ring and when i would run by they would shoot, i would lay down and the buddy facing the opposite way would be shot dead, there were 5 friendly fires in this, the gun used over 2 pennies US$ every shot and after a few thousand shots he gave in.
The next morning i gave him a stern talking to. he claimed he had won the duel.
I bought some iron bars today and didn’t check out the price carefully, instead of 5 bars for 10 ped it was 5 bars for 1000 ped. I just about gave up.
The best thing that ever happened to me in the game was Jack, the newest addition, a pet, He was captured by one of my friends and he is a young male snablesnot. (ostritch with no head and a bald body and two elephant trunks emerging above the legs.
Jack can sniff out hundreds of ped in minerals loot, (still in the animal) and food~he likes food.
hi all !
in my opinion pe is a realy nice game ,a captivating one ,belive i play almoust 10 hours per day if i have the time .the only problem is money ..you can be a trader if your in game for money or you can be a hunter ,miner,crafter ..but all of this will spend all your money (exept trading ) ..i cant do trade all the day i will miss all the fun the game can provide …so the best ideea is to make trade and a part of your profit spend on hunting mining etc …. HAVE NICE FUN WHIT THIS GAME PPL (escuse my eng im not that good at ):P
I have been playing PE know for two months. Yes, I have made deposit(s) and yes I have spent some time on this game. I think like anything else in Life, play this game in moderation and have realistic expectations. Expect the following if you play PE on a regular/semi-regular basis or more.
1. You will spend PED. You will make PED. Understand that you are playing a game that has the ability to pay some lucky individuals much more than they put in but most people deposit US dollars and use as much as they want to complete in the game. Doesn’t cost you very much if you only sweat and it’s free right? On the other side costs you 1,000′s and 1,000′s if you get a home, nice armor and weapons and tools. All depends on how much you enjoy the game. I just hit a 2120 Atrox Old Hale of Famer two days ago and things are looking good.
2. Play the game as you would to have fun and do not play for PED. This is the wrong way to play and you will eventually feel bad as you ahve been ” losing lately. Expect that if you break even or make a little at a time then life is good. I was getting a little upset as I deposited about $125.00 in this two month period, I have about $100 in armor now and weapons ( good buys plus about 9 globals ).
3. Important as mentioned above are the skills and that they help in every way. The more skills you ahve in anything, crafting = more success = more ped return on material investment. Mining = same as above = more return on investment. Hunting = can kills more guys and harder guys easier = well here it can be hit or miss really with the decay on higher end weapons being so great. In the end, you can extract your skills to a chip and sell them. Take this into account as many people that play this game and quit, just let their skills get deleted along with their accounts and *poof* there goes their hard-earned ped back to MindArk. Not MindArk’s fault, just someone who didn’t take the time to understand
In summation; I play quite a bit, I love the game and I understand that it costs me only as much as I want to spend. Play for fun, join a good society that helps with tips and each other for materials and other items. You will find the game-play and hunting with your fellow memebers that much more enjoyable.
Feel free to message me under the society terminal in ” DARK FORCE RISING ” add me as a friend and if you have any questions feel free to ask. Also, accepting in-game disciples if anyone is in need. I can usually be found hanging out at Twin Peaks
Happy playing and Hale-of-Famers to you all!
Stones Abracax Gonderlin
Leader Advisor
Dark Force Rising
I’ve been playing PE for sevaral days now, and decided to deposit some money for the first time – beause sweating all day long is getting boring. Anyway I think that my sweating-phase was not wasted time, because I was able to buy some cheap weapons, armor and mining equipment from my hard-earned sweat end experiment a little bit iwth hunting and mining *before* I decided to invest real money. Now I have gained some basic skills, made up my opinion about the game and willing to invest. I figured out that in PE you really pay for entertainment – in other words: the more fun you have (running around and killing monsters) the more you’ll have to invest – otherwise if you spend a lot of time doing rather boring things like trading or sweating you really can gain com PEDs. Mining and crafting seems to lie between these borders and therefore should turn out mith a mor or less break-even.
In a reply to Vash: Are you sure that you have ever played that game? You are talking about Snipers, and you needing to have loger-ranged rifles and so on – excuse me, but there are just 3 Player-against-Player zones on the main continent therefore you cannot be killed by a sniper or any other player outside of them. And I also want to state here that from my point of view the community is *very* friendly and that a lot of people are willing to help and assist noobs – i found an ingame friend running around and sharing his loot with me in a 50:50-team even though i didnt even have a gun and therefor dindt bring in any loot into that team. Finally i really recommend any newbie to really read the forums und tutoials. If you do this nothing can surprise you and you exactly know waht to expect from the game (btw: If I promised to marry you in real life – would you give me your credit card without even knowing my name? – dont blame others for your stupidity)
To sum it up: Read the forums and tutorials, decide if you want to have fun or if you want to make some Cents in working hard for hours and enjoy being satisfied.
Happy playing to all of ya!
Behdahh
Hi for all wishing to check out this game and specifically the new resort that was bought for $100,000 then got to
http://www.RealityPORT.com
and download PE there that way you will spawn at the space station and not on Calypso the mainland.
As many will tell you it cost 20ped for a trip there if you are on calypso so spawning straight there is much easier allthough not fully noob friendly yet as few traders exist up there, but check it out you never know ;~) you might like it
I look forward to seeing some of you up there RottenICE
hey all. i played PE a year ago for around 3 months, i shared an account with a friend coz he was the only one with a comp good enuf at the time, we both put in around $450 each and we had an awesome time, we bought some wicked guns etc, did lots of mining and it was great, after the long summer holiday we sat down and thought wait a sec.. this is costing us a hell of a lot of money – coz we started with 20$ each, then 40$ then 80$ each etc until we had put around 450$ each in.. we realised that this was going to be rather expensive so we sold everything and cashed out. we both lost around £80 each so thats like 140$ at the time and was a bit annoyed, but the game is SOOOO addictive. i SOOO nearly joined again yesterday, coz i thought u cld still get some land if u paid like $1000 for it, but i found out that was more of a 2.5 years ago thing, the cheapest i could find now was $20000!!
and that was a quite a small plot of land too! so probs wouldnt generate much hunting revenue! the only people who will make real money out of the game are the people who own the big places – treasure island/space station. the rest of us are just the people who feed the richer people. they dont even have to do anything and they make a profit from taxes, so they are the only real winners.
this game is just a pyramid scheme really, early people pay a small amount in and get HUGE revenue, the newer people put in small amount and lose it all, the only way to get the money would be to stick like $500,000 in, but then the taxes from the game back wouldnt cover it, so theres no winning expect for jon jacobs eh?
Ok, it;s now January and I’m still playing this bloody game and still depositing!!! (hooked big time!)
Still yet to make a global or HOF since the first one, spent over $350 since mid november and still making big losses (I have about $50 worth of items in my inventory). Skills have gone up a lot, no doubt I’ll still keep playing.
Hint to people wanting to minimise losses, think very very carefully about how you play this game, come up with a strategy otherwise it’s a bottomless pit, you need a good strategy to last without depositing megabucks, personally I’m a sucker and can’t be bothered and would rather just keep blowing my cash on mining and hunting
As for Neverdie Space Station, it’s not bad, decent mining (ample and above) some nice mobs to hunt even for my skill levels, but it’s too damn expensive if you don’t hit anything!!! you got to pay to get there and back :p
Hmmm, buyer beware. It’s not really a game and is targeted at entry level users. Keep in mind that more experienced players want you to play and deposit so they can have a chance of recouping their losses. Anytime a game (with it’s massive overheads) says it’s free, but oh yeah, you can deposit, you should probably start checking for the exit doors. Not only is the developer wanting your money, so are the landowners and more experienced players.
I’m in PE for the long haul. I started playing in August 2004 (17 months now), am a tankin’ hunter, and armour crafter. I also collect full suits of armour.
As in most of these messages, caution is a virtue when playing PE, but I can relate the amounts of money I’d waste in RL on entertainment, on my game time in PE. Same difference.
I had dozens of Hall of Fame mentions to date, but struck it lucky on a team hunt recently our beloved soc leader and I had looted 2500 PEDs from Atrox Mature (hint: It’s a good day to hunt Atrox, ask anyone!). For some players, 2.5K is not much, to me, it’s a nice reward.
Socially, PE has been more rewarding to me than any of the other virtual worlds or MMORPGs I have tried. The PE community hails from all over the world, with players from each continent, even mine, Africa.
About spending money in PE, I used to have trouble gauging the market price for items in game, and had originally made two or three silly mistakes when purchasing necessary tools. This lack of street-sense, led in the development of new tools (by myself and others) for the PE community. Several websites now provide trusted ‘indicators’ to guide players in what other players are routinely paying for items and resources on auction. This now is busy transforming my my website to become a Consumer Price Index for PE.
In fact, the market has been maturing so quickly, that several instances of morally negative influence has occurred in the last few months for some game items (the game has over 3000 game items and resource types). But, as quickly as manipulations appear, so quickly does the community detect and rebel against manipulation. This is certainly an exciting time for MMORPG economies.
PE is a fun game, it is not intended for kids (the EULA stresses that quite heavily), and involves real money. But be careful, with real money, comes real crime. Players get scammed, sometimes even by people they thought they knew. Almost every member of my society (and our members are long term players) have been affected by a scam at one time or another. However, just dust off your lapel, and get back into the race. Be vigilant, but have fun!
The Calypso economy is feeling bullish!
I’ve been playing for a while now, probably about 7 months, I have never deposited money into this game and the value of my “Avatar” has risen too about $200 USD. The game is fun but must be taken for what it is, a game, and a game where you can and people do lose thier money very quickly.
If you intend to make real money from this game I would reccomend just taking the $50 to a casino instead. If you are looking for a fun game to play then this is the one.
I heard somewhere once, Nothing in this life is free.
Hello, I am currently downloading PE, and I must say, it looks like a fun weather or not you make money at it, looks like it has a large world map, good graphics, and all the fundimentals of a good MMORPG, and i must say to you all that try to “put down” the ways of playing a game for long periods of time. . . . I have been playing Rune Scape, a low quality MMORPG for about. . . two and a half years, now thats a long time, and durring that time, i have spent about 70 bucks on just the members accoutn status, 5 bucks a month to play on a server that gives you more control over the game. And now i find a free game, and read about it, reserch it, and so far, all i have found is a bunch of baby’s that are all sad because they didnt make money playing, and its annoying, its a game people! a GAME and at that its a MMORPG which for the most part means, “huge waste of your life, because all mmorpgs are addictive” which they realy are. . . I guess all i am trying to say is, if you dont like playing a game, because its a game, dont complain about how you didnt make money. . . . .
Jman420
Congratulations to all you ppl reading all of this blog (I am to congratulate myself as well:).
I really liked the Vash story about snipers and that thing about getting-married-scam….:) Don’t know but I have a mental picture of Vash looking something like this: http://static.flickr.com/28/48188365_89dba5fe00_m.jpg
The addiction for me comes when I start thinking of various strategies, like where to hunt & mine, what to buy at the exchange, etc.
I’ve been playing for a couple of weeks now with $40 in and being left with about half of it worth of virtual stuff. It’s about right that it costs me a $1 an hour. But I still hope that with XP points comes bigger rewards, getting global and HF and getting dressed smday like those super-uber nursing chicks that look so delicious (on some occasions those have been healing me while I was trying to get some atrax or so down).
I know, $1 even per hour is quite much, but hey yesterday i looted a generic implant with tt value of 0, which is why i still haven’t been global, but now i am selling it for over 70 ped.
Hurray for sexy virtual nurses!
P.S. By the way there’s been this urban legend story that WoW programmers got a ferrari or something as a bonus. Don’t know if it’s true but I for one would like to get employed by MindArk. You rich (smart) bastards!
hi everyone, ive been playing project entropia for about 1 week only, and im really enjoying it. in my opinion, people who are not happy with this game are the people who are only attract by earning money in game. Those who tried it with this way of thinking are totally wrong… if you want to earn money, get a job, dont play a game because as the name say it, its just a game… Ive deposited 20usd and my aim is not to make it fructuate but just not to lose too quickly so that i may be able to enjoy it for a long time… the aim is just to find a good balance between activities that costs money and activities that dont… I’ve not earned any money but i didnt lost any either.. and i’ll go on playing it just because it is fun..
I think project entropia is fairly good game,although just starting there th controls are to confusing but after you get used to it the game is not all that bad.although most of the responses to to this game may complain about how long the sweating takes if you join an society which is fairly easy to do because soc leaders always want to boost there rank in all socs by having more ppl in their soc.society leaders will even go as far as to give u items to get you to join.if u can’t join a soc then ask aroundd the towns you find if you can become a student,and pretty soon some one will come up to and ask you to become their student.Then wa’ll you sweat you can talk to ur mentor.eventually you hopefully will get a HOF hall of fame in hunting,mining… you can also ask ppl to be ur friend in the game and when you go to ur friends list it will have a list of ppl you can im.i still haven’t traveled the entire world of pe because i’ve only been playing about half a year but even if i do exploring pe mind ark will always have updates with new creatures items and music.