Entropia Universe: 1 Million Registered Accounts !?!

The last few press releases announcing new planets dating from 31 August to 3 November all mention that Entropia Universe "more than 950,000 registered accounts":

• File:Beladcom to launch the region's first virtual world in partnership with MindArk.pdf (31 August)
• File:SEE Virtual Worlds Teams With The Estate of Michael Jackson to Publish Online World, Planet Michael.pdf (21 September)
• File:SEE Virtual Worlds Secures Deal to Publish Themed Virtual World Based on the Universal Monsters and Van Helsing.pdf (28 October)
• News:Arkadia Studios Developing Treasure Hunting Mmo Planet With Real Cash Economy (3 November)

So does EU have 1 million 'Registered Accounts' yet? If not it should happen very soon.

I tried to document the increase of accounts over the years but I failed: Entropia Universe Registered Accounts.

There are numerous figures available but they are somehow contradictory.

The Annual report 2008 (page 16) contains exact numbers for 'newly registered customer accounts' per year for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the Semi-Annual Report Q2 2009 (page 9) contains detailed numbers for Q1 and Q2 2009.

A press release dating 1 April 2009 (Virtual World Developer MindArk to Use Latest HP Technology for CryENGINE2 Upgrade) mentions 820,000+ accounts. Calculating backwards from 820,000 with the figures from the financial reports would lead to 126,000+ accounts 1 month before EU became Gold...

But when celebrating 1 Year after Gold MindArk stated 85,000+ accounts (Project Entropia News).

And when taking the figures from the counter on the EU website as of 31 Decmber 2005 / 1 January 2006 (http://web.archive.org/web/20051231071803/http://www.project-entropia.com/ and Project Entropia) =~353,000 as a base for the calculation... well, you get a third set of figures.

Considering that MA always published the correct figures... where is the flaw?

 

I checked at least half of those available at archive.com but they do not match the numbers given in MA's reports or MA's news posts.

I would consider the statement they made on 30 January 2004 containing quite an exact number suiting to other figures given before:

I would also consider the numbers of new accounts given in financial reports being exact (because wrong numbers in financial reports... mh...):

2003|2004|2005|2006|2007|2008|Q1 Q2 2009
76,476|76,495|133,265|145,698|125,38|114,655|44,715


But considering the above numbers are correct would mean the ones in press releases are wrong.

 

I'm sure they do. I'm sure they also count "terminated accounts".

MA considers accounts inactive after 300 days of inactivity. MA terminates inactive accounts after another 450 days.

 

The basic questions is: How many registered accounts did PE have on 31 December 2002 or when it became Gold on 30 January 2003?

Any Pre-Gold players out there?