We actually calculated how much sP was taken out of the system by users purchasing the items, and it was much much greater than 50 million per item :)

During Peka-Boo, we set the percentage of the SP profits as a prize because we predicted (based on statistics of previous items sold in any way similar) that an amount of items would be sold that would amount to /maybe/ up to 100 million. When all was said and done, our users purchased the CW contest items to the amount of around 400-600 million sp's worth, PER item. This was way over what we had predicted, but we'd already promised the prize.

Doing it this way, even if 1/5th of the same amount of items sell as did during Peka-Boo, it will still work as an SP sink.

As to the number of winners - we have not specified how many winners there will be, because I'd like to see how the entries go first. As said, we will likely have more of an idea when we get to the voting stage. I don't want to say there will be 3 winners and then there are dozens of amazing entries, or that there will be 10 winners and we don't get 10 entries that are up to standard. (Something I very much doubt will happen, but we'd like to prepare for that just in case!)

As to this competition only being for a select number of people - these are items that are being drawn BY our users FOR our users. Users are drawing things that they want to see on the site, and other users get to vote. We are continuing to set up competitions of all kinds for all kinds of users. If this one isn't for you, hopefully a future competition will be! (I do want to do a 'design-an-item' competition soon, I do love that idea)

This wouldn't be anywhere near a permanent solution to the sP flow issues that the site has, it would be a blimp the size of releasing a new set of SBQ items. This isn't a step back, it's rewarding users who have creative talent, and we aren't losing anything by giving them 50 million sP.

If we have ten winners that's 500 million sP, and that's honestly a drop in the bucket of the amount of sP that goes out daily. Yesterday was a day where we had less user activity than usual. 8,645,121,062 was the number of sP given out from various parts of the site. 500 million sP isn't a big deal.

I appreciate the feedback of the users on this thread, but we're the ones with the numbers. 500 million is a drop in the bucket, and we'd rather reward users for winning a competition than worry about how much damage a small amount of additional sP is going to hurt the system.

Obviously, like always, we'll be watching the value of sP when the prizes are handed out like we do every day and make changes around that but it's very unlikely a one time 500 million payout will have any actual chance of making change to the economy versus things like daily quests.

It's a little bit of a messy number because it includes any time sP is put into the system from an outside source that isn't another user, so it includes points like grabbing sP out of your shop till, out of your vault, etc.

Putting sP in those places gets counted too (when you put it in it counts as "exiting the system") so it's not like one number is just crazy inflated over the other, but it's much harder to track "moving sp" vs in/out.

It's easy to say that without knowing how much sP we take out of the economy every day, too. On a day with 8.5 billion going in we can/do take out 6.5 billion.

There is, we also watch the fluctuation of on site sP, fluctuation of sP held by active users, sP in vaults vs on hand (more volatile and likely to be spent quicker), etc. We have a lot more numbers than just "sP entering the site every day" and we're pretty happy with the changes we've made to bring that number more in line with the amount of sP exiting the site through sinks every day.

Also: That number is never going to be 1:1 and it shouldn't be. This is a game, not the real world. We can control inflation and supply in a way that doesn't exist in the real world and one of the things that drew people to Subeta is that it's easy to earn a bunch of sP and buy the things you initially want pretty early on in the game. As you play longer you realize there are things that cost a lot more than you can earn in a week, but it's not unobtainable. If we aimed for a 1:1 in/out sP ratio that wouldn't be the case at all.

How does an additional 500 million sP in the system change how you play the game?

There are two points to that thread, and getting suggestions on sP sinks. One is to actually remove sP from the system.

The second (and more important, in my opinion) is giving you things to spend your sP on. The amount of sP removed by people purchasing additional treasure slots, a very requested feature on that thread totals 433,600,000. The point isn't that we removed 433 million sP from the system (although that is good) the point is that we added something for people to spend that much sP on, and they did it because it was something they wanted. That's more of what I'm looking for from that thread.

Otherwise I'd just put a tax on user shop purchases equal to the amount we want to remove from the system daily, add inflation back to the main shop at how much we want to remove daily, remove the 15% buff, and that'd be that.

Like I said, last time we took way more out of the system via these items than they gave out in prizes (and last time they gave out way more in sP, we were really foolish). It's still going to be way more sP taken out of the economy than put in via the prizes :)

Who knows what Louis will do this year :)