Yeah, because it feels better to tax the player(by selling LAs and such) than to lower your revenue. Those investors should revise their thinking because high cost to play is biggest drag on Entropia`s growth and the reason Entropia stayed some mediocre crappy MMO(perception wise), although was released in 2001. An MMO that very few people have heard of, as most of those who tried it gave up on it and badmouthed it on various forums. You get more profits longterm on lower margins but problem with MA is that they were always thinking short-term and hunted for short-term gains. I alone have brought around 50 players to Entropia, 40 or so have deposited. Out of those 50 perhaps 2-3 are still around besides myself.
If I were an investor in Planet Arkadia, I would be ticked off if the A-team decided to throw away half of the planet's future revenue for fast cash now (aka selling CLDs).
I wouldn't be because it's new money coming in that could spur growth much faster and bring in more profits much faster even with dividend loss. Also, you won't throw away anything because little dividend given away now could mean lots of capital which might more than offset the dividend loss. I'd be more worried about having most of the interesting mining and hunting grounds in taxed areas. I would even consider to offer these investors a "CLD" stake against them agreeing to lower tax to zero on those areas or renounce their property rights in PP favor. The 25% dividend(half the PP income) is not set in stone. They can either offer more or less. 25% is pretty high, have to admit. RL companies that pay so much dividend are very rare cases. They can easily lower that amount to whatever investors feel comfortable with, 8, 10, 12% you name it.
I'm a little confused whether you're talking about Calypso or Arkadia. On Arkadia, there are plenty of hunting and mining areas that are not taxed. There is no shortage of "free" land to mine and hunt. Also, the 5% taxes are set in stone, they're not adjustable by the land area owners.
Judging from what other participants have said, those taxed areas are best in terms of ore and mobs. I was referring to the 25% dividend as not being set in stone. Calypso has 25% on their dividends, Arkadia could set something much lower if they'd so wish. Since you've mentioned 5% tax. No owner in his right mind would set anything higher than 5%. 5% is pretty high compared to Calypso LAs. 5% would be considered high tax on Calypso and it's the maximum LA owners usually go for. I'd say it's a downside owners can't reduce that tax, not a positive.
I wouldn't say that. They have unique minerals and mobs... that doesn't mean they're the best place on the planet to hunt and mine. They are not bad, and I spend a lot of time there myself, but if I were to mine for pure markup, it would not be in any of the land areas. Would I prefer if tax was 1% instead? Sure. Have I ever noticed a reduction in loot due to taxes? No.
