6 Video Games Guilty Of Ripping Off Their Player Bases
4. Entropia Universe's Digital Space Club Costs More Than Most Actual Clubs
Entropia Universe is a massive online world where players can lose their money to intergalactic space hustlers. It features space travel and variously themed visitable planets. The game's 'Atlas Shrugged in space' business model isn't very consumer friendly.
Entropia has been in the Guinness World Records twice for its absurdly expensive sales. In 2010, long-time player Jon Jacobs broke all previous records by selling his club resort for a total of $635,000. Entropia has created a depressing situation where staying in and playing video games is thousands of times more expensive than going to a bar.
Unlike Second Life, which at least lets you fly across the skies free of charge as an oversized cat, you can hardly do anything in Entropia for free. It's very dependent on you parting with your cash – often huge chunks of it. To begin with, you're spending modest sums to repair gear. As you advance, the costs of maintaining new gear raise exponentially. The price of a monthly subscription for another MMO will be spent in a weekend playing Entropia. There's even the bleak requirement to pay space rent on your apartment.
On the plus side, the game's cash grabbing tendencies are obnoxious enough to ward most newcomers away.