Owned Strategy Guide
Owned! is a game found on Facebook as well as a standalone game site. Players buy and sell pictures of other players for profit (play money) in an effort to accumulate wealth as rapidly as possible. (And of course it has the titillation of "owning" attractive people, in a virtual sense.)
Profit table
To keep the economy boiling, the game automatically sets a mandatory minimum profit for each sale. As soon as a buyer pays for a photo, the minimum price for the next buyer is automatically bumped up based on a secret rate table. Based on observations within the game taken in July 2008, here is an attempt to reproduce the rate table.
| Buy price at least | And less than | Profit bump |
|---|---|---|
| $1 | $848? | 10% (min. L$50?) |
| L$1,216? | L$9,217? | 15% |
| L$11,132? | L$90,498? | 20% |
| L$109,749? | L$965,591? | 25% |
| L$1,117,581? | L$3,326,795? | 35% |
| L$7,015,932? | L$7,015,933? | 40% |
| L$11,110,668? | ∞? | 50% |
(Highest purchase price discovered was L$2,139,686,298. Computer geeks will note that this is very close to 2,147,483,648, the largest number that can be represented as a signed, 32-bit integer--thus suggesting an upper cap on Owned prices, intentional or no.)
Random notes
As stated on another strategy page (I still have to dig up the link), it is possible to shortcut to higher profits on a photo by re-buying it from yourself. This can be a risky strategy for a couple of reasons, though: (1) It relies on the difference between your purchase and re-purchase prices. If someone buys the photo before you re-purchase it, the advantage of this can be nullified. (2) If you re-buy it from yourself at too high a price that no one is willing to take, you may be out more money than you would have been if you'd simply found the photo at that price already.
On July 23, 2008, it has been observed that recently-purchased photos [what is the time limit?] appear to be unavailable for direct inspection; if this is intentional by design, it is an effective limitation on convenience of the re-buying strategy noted above. (But it also helps protect the player trying to use this strategy from risk number 1 above.)
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