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Hermes' Blog

By The Numbers, 7/16/2008

Do you like numbers, but dislike all the tedious calculation required to produce them? Do you like things, especially running totals of things? Do you like minutiae, but never knew where you could find Puzzle Pirates related miscellany? Then you're in luck! It's time for By The Numbers.

PUZZLE PIRATES

  • Average Pieces of Eight earned per hour of Puzzle Pirates voyaging: ~1,000*
  • Average exchange rate** in Pieces of Eight for Doubloons on Viridian/Sage/Hunter as of 1 PM, July 16th: 1,222
  • Average hourly ‘wage’ of a Puzzle Pirates player as of 1 PM, July 16th: USD$0.205
  • Minimum hourly wage, San Francisco, CA: USD$9.36***
  • Amount of time required to earn the equivalent of one hour of San Francisco minimum wage playing Puzzle Pirates: 45.7 hours
  • California Lottery Mega Millions jackpot for 7/18/2008: USD$105,000,000
  • Number of new Mounted Tigershark items winning the Mega Millions jackpot could get you: 6,433,823****

* - Let's say your average pillage can mow through 4 battles an hour, making 100-500 Pieces of Eight per pirate per win. Four battles at 300 PoE minus a 15% restocking cut is equal to 1,020 PoE, or ~1,000 PoE for an average hour of ‘work’. Yes, we could probably go back and forth over this number until we're all blue in the face, but for discussion purposes, I think it works fine.

** - At 1 PM when I grabbed these numbers, Viridian was at 1,192/coin, Sage was 1,238/coin and Hunter was 1,236/coin. Expensive, ain't it?

*** - No, that's not a typo.

**** - Best price I found at a random Furnisher Bazaar on the Viridian Ocean for a Mounted Tigershark at 1 PM, July 16th was 69,173. Combined with the Doubloon delivery fee of 25 and the average exchange rate of 1,222 Pieces of Eight per Doubloon, we get 81.61 Doubloons per shark. Why 81.61? So we can multiply it out by the bulk discount Doubloon cost: USD$0.20. This gets us our answer: $16.32 per shark!

TEAM FORTRESS 2

  • Hours of Team Fortress 2 Hermes has played since its release in October 2007: 270
  • Cost of pre-ordering The Orange Box via the Steam content delivery system in September 2007: USD$45
  • Cost per hour to Hermes of playing Team Fortress 2: ~USD$0.17
  • Approximate value of Doubloon earnings if Hermes had played Puzzle Pirates for an equivalent time: USD$55.35

All this in a season where movie ticket prices are typically pushing USD$10 and gas prices are hovering around USD$4/gallon. Stay home and play video games, kids! Your savings account will thank you.

ROCK BAND

  • Total number of downloadable Rock Band songs available as of July 16th: 172
  • Total cost to download all available Rock Band songs as of July 16th onto your Xbox 360: $299.50*
  • Approximate number of 'taps' required for Hypnos to drum through all available Rock Band DLC songs: 103,200**

* - Complete breakdown is 2 free songs, 7 $1 songs, 59 $2 songs, 1 $3 pack, 15 $5.50 packs, 2 $10 long packs, 2 $15 albums, 1 $19 album and 1 $20 album. That's a lot of music. I'd probably enjoy it a lot more if my Xbox 360 hadn't red ringed. Alas.

** - Using ~600 taps per song as an estimate. Even then, this is probably on the low side. Check back next week for a scientific analysis of exactly how many 'taps' it takes for Cephalopod to go crazy and hunt down Hypnos with a gigantic Nerf gun!

Comments:

Posted by Hypnos

That'll make 'em think twice about telling OMs that they want to "play video games for a living"!

July 16, 2008 at 03:12 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Shannal, Midnight Ocean

Hermes, all this number crunching makes me think you're a nerd. <333

July 16, 2008 at 04:24 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Donall

The flaw is your calculations, Hermes, is that if you tried to put even $1 million worth of dubs onto the in-game market, the price of dubs would crash from the current relatively high position. I suppose for argument's sake, you could eke out selling your dubs over a long period of time to maintain the value, but it is highly unlikely you would get 1,200 poe for each dub selling so many. I do like the implicit minimum wage argument for purchasing dubs with cash though. However, it doesn't take into consideration the additional utility of playing YPP for an hour compared to working a minimum wage job for an hour. I know what I'd rather do with that hour.

July 16, 2008 at 05:21 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Hermes

The Mounted Tigershark figure was for amusement purposes. There are *way* sillier things involved with the purchase of 6.5 million stuffed sharks than the simple fact that it'd crash the doubloon market. Besides, if you came to us wanting to spend $105,000,000 on doubloons, I'd be totally willing to bend on a few things. I'd even name a new stuffed shark item after you. And give you a million of them on your own private server. Oh, and I'd probably fly you your own personal Cephalopod to amuse you while you play. Whether he wanted to go or not.

July 17, 2008 at 12:15 AM PDT | permalink

Posted by Sweetiepiepi

$105M, you say?

July 21, 2008 at 07:57 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Remalle

If I had a $105mil (if I had a $105mil) Well I'd buy you an estate (I would buy you an estate) If I had a $105mil (if I had a $105mil) I'd buy you furni for your estate (maybe a nice sofa or a stool) And if I had $105mil (if I had a $105mil) Well, I'd buy you a sloop (a nice reliant vessel) If I had a $105mil I'd buy your love...

July 30, 2008 at 01:49 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Bennyboi

Hermes, have you got Xbox Live? XD It sounds to me like you have. What would I do with $105 mil (About £52.5m to me) Hmm. I think I would buy loads of doubloons, and attempt to crash the doubloon market. Though we know thats not going to happen. XD

August 08, 2008 at 08:04 AM PDT | permalink

Posted by Addihockey of Sage

All of those numbers.... 1+1=3?-Addihockey (Confused by Hypnos)

September 07, 2008 at 07:52 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by 194.60.106.5

can haz 105 mill Pl0x? kkthxbai

September 11, 2008 at 09:20 PM PDT | permalink

Posted by Pygo

/me blinks.
/me frowns
wait, what?
Hermes, I don't like numbers, and that, my dear, was a lot of math.
/me goes to the other window, which contains Puzzle Pirates.

September 19, 2008 at 05:30 PM PDT | permalink

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