Can You Really Make Cash Playing Entropia Universe?
If you’ve seen Entropia Universe ads you know it touts itself as a platform where you can make real cash playing a game. This is a true claim but it really isn’t as simple as it sounds. This post will try to address how it is true, but also make you aware of the catches, and layout the best strategies to proceed if you want to start making money in Entropia.
The Pros and Cons
Pros
The truth is that you can withdraw in-game currency (PED) from Entropia as real-life cash that goes into your bank account. No under the table shady dealings, no risk of getting banned. This is an intended game feature and as such is treated as an entirely legitimate process.
EU has no subscription fee. This means it’s really a game you can pick up and play when you want and not have to worry about if you’re wasting your sub fees when you aren’t playing. This is a really great upside if you’re looking to make a profit. It means anything you do that earns a profit is profitable. You don’t have to meet any monthly quotas to break even with a sub fee.
Likewise, the game itself is free to make an account on and you’ll even get a bit of free stuff to get your journey started when you do so.
Cons
So to start with there is a 5% tax on withdrawals from the game.
The real concern though is that this is the hardest game ever to make your playtime profitable. Gear repair and ammo fees in this game are substantial. The vendors you use to repair gear and get more ammo require PED. This means repairing your gear is always going to cut into your profits. Realistically it will cost you more than it earns you early on. If you want to level to the point you can make the game profitable it may require hundreds of dollars of investment beyond your time investment.
Beyond that, if you ever want to make the game profitable you’re really going to need to work the player market. You can likely never turn a profit selling things to vendors. However, you can mitigate losses and eventually start profiting via player to player trades.
Making Some PED
Stay Focused
Like any RPG Entropia allows you to progress in your skills as you play. Higher-level characters do things more efficiently than lower-level characters. This means if you pick something and focus on it you’ll be able to turn it profitable faster. Given leveling takes PED this means less ped expenditure before you can start earning PED.
Fruit Walking and Sweating
There are two ways to earn PED that don’t require a PED investment.
Fruit walking is scouting areas that contain fruit and grabbing it as you see it. It can be a bit unreliable at times, does nothing for your skills, and doesn’t really earn that much.
Sweating is extracting a material called vibrant sweat from creatures. The tool used in sweating never loses durability meaning this process can be free. Sweat is a material used in crafting ammo for the game’s magic system so there is a constant demand for it. However due to the many people attempting to profit from sweat the profit-per-hour is quite low. One major benefit of sweating is it involves being hit by the mob which raises defensive skills. Sweating goes faster if you kill the mob once it is drained of sweat though this ads some cost into the sweating process.
Trading
Trading is probably the best way to make money if you have the time and talent for it. The trading market of Entropia is very competitive and obviously having more funds increases how well you could potentially do but it is probably the fastest way to start seeing major profits as a newer player. One thing you should be aware of before starting your trade empire is moving goods can be a process especially if you are going from planet to planet. A beginning trader may want to focus on a single trade hub to start.
Entropia Partners and PED Flow
Entropia Partners and PEDFlow are third party sites that provide ways to earn PED you can have transferred to your in-game character. Some of these methods require a fair bit of effort but some can be mostly or even entirely passive.
Entropia Partners
Entropia Partners offers radio, videos, CPA offers, and investment opportunities among other things. Bringing up the radio/video on a browser you don’t generally use, muting that browser in your sound mixer, and occasionally checking in on it to make sure you are still earning can be a good way to get fairly effort-free money.
The CPA offers earn much bigger payouts but can require a lot more involvement. The biggest free CPA offers are things like installing an app on your phone and reaching a certain level within a certain timeframe. Some of these can be quite difficult to do without in-app purchase. Others require a purchase and may be worthwhile if it’s something you might already purchase.
Entropia Partners also offers the opportunity to invest in DEP, a kind of stock that pays out daily dividends. It can be a good passive earner though it’s price has risen over time. That may be a good thing though if the trend continues and you’re want to resell them at some point.
PEDFlow
PEDFlow is very similar to Entropia Partners. Infact it’s video service (HideoutTV) is the same meaning you can only claim the credit on one platform or the other. It also has a very similar CPA program. The radio is separate and stays running for a very long time without the need to refresh more than once every day or two. This makes it one of the best things to do if you use both platforms.
The big advantages of these platforms is that they are free and can earn you a lot of income especially if you play Entropia casually. The downside is they do have to be maintained a bit, and there are similar opportunities that earn cash or equivilents. For instance HideoutTV also has partners that allow you to exchange points for things like bitcoins.
Deeds
Deeds are something generally more focused upon by established players but may be something you would want to consider earlier if you’re a casual player as they are fully passive income. You purchase a deed for something such as Arkadia Underground and then it pays you a portion of the loot value people earn hunting in that area. This is paid directly in PED.
Conclusion
Entropia doesn’t have a bad monetization model. If you’re looking for a sci-fi sandbox you can play casually it’s going to be cheaper than many alternatives. If you enjoy trading and have some talent for it you may even be able to play for free or at a slight profit. But if you’re looking to become a full time professional gamer overnight this really isn’t what you are looking for.
I’ve personally played around with PEDFlow, Entropia Partners, and deeds more than the actual game and it’s a fun little side thing. It’s not paying any major bills anytime soon though.
