| "There are 40,663 players on the two SE servers as of June 2006."
SOE Game Card - 90 day from Sony Online Store : $44.99
During 1 year if those 40k players were only paying because of playing on the SE servers, not other servers or other games, they would spend ~$7.3 million on subscriptions. Even if only 1/3 of that is from people who primarily play on the SE servers, Station Exchange is ~11% extra revenue from that player base. What the white paper doesn't describe is the additional expenses in order to generate that revenue. If there is one extra full-time employee with benefits because of Station Exchange there went 1/3 of the revenue.
"Station Exchange is not an extension of game play. It is a utility. It offers a fundamentally different approach to play: a means of skipping the boring parts."
First part is false, the option to purchase characters and coin existed long before Station Exchange. The 2nd part is true, other than re-sellers people are generally paying money because they feel they would need to "work" at the game to reach the point they would have fun and by spending RL money can complete that work in far less time flipping burgers than repetitively killing mobs, harvesting or crafting. | 