Entropia Universe Withdrawal — taking your money back from MindArk!

Be ready to argue with their support, because getting your own money out is rarely simple.

My 5 Withdrawals: The Real Numbers

For Your Information: this article was last updated on July 15, 2026, Revised and Corrected by Claude.

First of all, you should know that I've managed to withdraw 5 times since I started playing EU:

1. 2022 – 1,000 PED (resulted in €79.46)
2. 2022 – 3,000 PED (resulted in €262.72)
3. 2022 – 4,000 PED (resulted in €369.56)
4. 2023 – 2,000 PED (resulted in €173.94)
5. 2025 – 3,000 PED (I finally got it after 176 business days 😑)

Here's a screenshot of my very first withdrawal, back in March 2022.

And I guess you'd assume I made a profit from EU, right?

Of course not! 😏 As of 2025, I'm at a loss of ~€2,000 — which, spread across the time I've played, works out to about €37/month. But that's fine: I've accepted that EU is a casino, and the house always wins.

I could actually have reduced that gap, since I recently landed a HOF of 8,600+ PED (~$860). But instead of withdrawing it, I chose to have FUN with the game — buy gear and hunt even more. And of course i lost it all, thus proving the mechanic of the "traditional casino"...  If you win too much the house will take it back on the long run, that's what happened.

At least I know exactly where it went: entertainment, not investment.

Why Entropia Universe and Not Another MMORPG?

I think I already asked this at the very start of the guide.

If you've read the previous chapters, you know it comes down to three things:

1. Real-life money
2. Gambling and its addictive pull
3. The ability to withdraw

If there were no real money involved, no carrot to give us hope and keep us hooked like a casino, and no way to withdraw our hard-earned invested money... we'd all be playing something else. Without these 3 factors, EU would have died long ago against the fierce MMORPG competition.

I even created a poll on the official forum back in 2021...

asking players their core motivation to keep playing EU — and I got more funny than honest answers 😏 The honest ones boiled down to: addiction, and "because this game is unique." The tongue-in-cheek ones claimed it was all about "the friends" and "the wonderful people" — a virtual universe "filled with hope and friendship" 🤣

If there's one place, real or virtual, where you should NOT expect to make genuine friends, it's anywhere money is involved. Real friends are made in FUN places — and EU could and SHOULD be a fun place. Unfortunately, behind EU stands MindArk, a company that too often operates like the cold back-office of a casino. You can't just withdraw your gains freely, and when problems arise, you're expected to keep quiet and not rock the boat.

The "Yes Men" and the Fear of Withdrawing

That's why there are so many "Yes Men" on the official EU forum. You'll spot them easily: the moment you question or criticize MindArk, they rush in to defend the company, praise the support, tell you to go check the EULA next time or just that you had it coming, and tell everyone how happy they are with how EU is run.

Many of these players are, in my view, simply too invested to turn back — they've put in so much time or money (or both) that admitting a problem would be too painful (Sunk Cost effect syndrome). So their mind chooses to accept it and hope for a better future. Hope — even false hope — has always been the engine of life.

The ugly truth is that most players are scared to withdraw, because there's a real trust issue with MindArk. And this isn't just my opinion — it's documented all over the community.

A player who owns 4 shops... withdrawing for the very first time 🤨

It's genuinely unsettling for a casual player like me to see people who've invested a LOT of money — shops sell for thousands of dollars — attempting their very first withdrawal only years later, just "to see if it works the other way too". That single sentence says a lot about how deep the fear runs.

And I noticed one of them describing it as "only making a very insignificant withdrawal" — almost as if apologizing in advance for the audacity of taking their own money back. "I'm sorry MindArk for reclaiming 0.1% of my money, please grant me my request" 👍 That mindset, right there, is the whole problem.

This player has been in EU since 2005, and only realized in 2022 that he could withdraw...

I didn't add a smiley to that one, because it's honestly just sad. It took this person 17 years to try — and note the word he used: it was an attempt. In EU, we don't simply withdraw our money, we attempt to withdraw. There's no guarantee it'll work — and that says everything about the trust problem.

Withdrawing after 18 years — let's see how it goes... 🤨

Here's what a well-known veteran with 3,000+ forum posts wrote: "I've been playing since at least 2006, and I've just done my very first withdrawal, just to see how it goes."

!! Veterans of EU !!

You all complain about the lack of player retention — that newcomers don't stay long enough. But how do you expect new players to stay when they read posts like this? If I were a newcomer seeing that, I'd close the window immediately.

Picture the conversation:

— So, did you give EU a try?
— Well, I went to their forum and saw that people are afraid to withdraw money...
— What? You're kidding! Everyone online says you can get rich!
— What I read on their own forum says otherwise — it's like there's no guarantee you can withdraw.
— Oh. Then I definitely don't want to spend money if it might get locked away...
— Yeah. Let's find another game. You can't trust these RCE promises.

Withdrawing Should Be a "Best Practice" for Every New Player

When I came back to EU in 2021, I knew from the start that my goal was to "test the withdraw button". Because otherwise, why play an RCE at all? There are 100 other great MMORPGs where the FUN factor is EU × 100.

It should be basic logic: if withdrawing money doesn't interest you, what are you doing in a Real Cash Economy? You could be playing Everquest, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, or any other MMORPG where the pure fun far outweighs anything EU offers. The ONLY rational reason to choose an RCE is the intention to withdraw at some point.

I recall some other players saying that EU was a better place for their economies than a real life bank...

Are you serious ? A place like MindArk where it takes 2 months to withdraw, and where everyone is scared to do it is for you a "Better place" than a real life bank ? I don't know what these people who said that are smoking... But could you please provide me the address of your Weed provider ? it seems to be 100% genuine stuff! 🤣

The only message that these posts are conveying to the people outside EU is... Stay Away while you still can !

I don't know for you guys, but when i am going to my bank there is not a doubt in my mind that i will be able to withdraw ! I know the money is available for me at all times, because IT IS MY MONEY ! I am not going to say "I hope that i'll be able to withdraw" !! It's really scary to see this kind of mindset in many Veterans on Entropia Universe.

That's the message you receive when a Withdrawal is successful...

Do you read the same thing as i do ? Your request has been approved !

Yes you read it right ! On EU a withdrawal of your own money is not a right, it's a request and it has to be approved ! The money you invest / place in the game is not yours anymore ! It's their money from now on, and if you behave nicely enough... They might allow you to get a portion of it back ! And remember to say "Thank You" ! 😅

Again... Who could trust MindArk seeing that ? Who could think it's better than a real life bank ?

That's exactly why I say what I said on the forum: testing the withdrawal process should be a best practice for every new player, as early as possible — just like finding a Mentor, it's a MUST-DO. Test it while your investment is still small, so you learn how the system really behaves before you're in too deep.

Before my first withdrawal, I'd read forum posts warning like "they'll ask you to justify why you're withdrawing PED" (a Yes Man replied that this was nonsense — he was wrong), and another post later, removed by a forum admin, warning that "support will try to push you toward admitting a fault". I was skeptical, but I'd soon find out for myself.

By and large, players in EU are encouraged to deposit but discouraged from withdrawing.

As a result, many long-time players simply never withdraw — because for some, requesting money has been the beginning of account problems. There have been stories of accounts locked after a withdrawal request, so plenty of veterans sit on large PED balances they'll never cash out, too afraid of losing their avatar.

So they just keep playing with it, quietly forgetting that EU was originally sold as "get paid for killing monsters" 😏

My First Request: When Support Felt Like an Interrogation

So I didn't want to wait years to see it for myself:

• I requested a withdrawal of 1,000 PED on January 2, 2022
• On March 9, 2022, I received a message from Technical Support

They were asking me to file a support case about the pending withdrawal (ID 14844355) 🤔

My first reaction: why do I need to file a support case? They know it's a sum of 1,000 PED — not even $100. They already have my bank details, which I'd double- and triple-checked. And still they wanted me to open a case about it? Even French banks, known for calling you over large movements (€3,000+), had never contacted me over such a small amount.

For context: I'm with two French banks, and I had the means to invest in EU at a serious level. But after everything I witnessed, my original intention to invest heavily was swept away by the lack of communication and trust from MindArk. And in the end i just let my real life financial assets where it was really breeding children... In real life banks ! 😅

I actually knew why they were contacting me, and I was ready to address it head-on. Here's the honest background: I have skills in IT — that's how I earn my living in real life. Through the game I met several players from abroad, and one of them, a native Russian speaker, needed an English-language website built to reach an audience outside his country. His English wasn't strong and he didn't know how to build websites, so I offered my professional services. Rather than paying me in the usual way, he chose to gift me PED in-game for the real-life work — and that was fine by me 👍

So I received several thousand PED from this contact player account, in exchange for genuine professional work.

There's nothing wrong with offering a service and being paid in PED — in fact, on the official forum, well-known players (Like Xanato with his renting service, R.I.P as he passed away) have openly requested the very same kind of web service without ever being sanctioned for it. I won't disclose the details of my work, because I spent years as an IT analyst in demanding professional environments, and I keep to a strict code of confidentiality and ethics.

On a personal note: I firmly believe you can't judge an individual by their nationality. I've always refused to hold an entire people responsible for the actions of their government, and I've said so publicly on the Calypso Forum. I'll work with, and shake the hand of, decent people regardless of where they're from. I speak of this as my contact was Russian, and the Invasion of Ukraine had just began at that time, and MindArk decided to block Russian players from accessing EU...

To think this global situation had an impact on my withdrawal is not a delusional one...

So I filed the support case, and I'll be honest — I went in ready to defend myself.

Why on the defensive? Because I expected a pointless question — I expected them to push me, maybe even to hint at money laundering. And because I'd seen too many veteran players fold instantly when facing MindArk Support: people who'd played for years, terrified of losing their account, as if their virtual avatar mattered more than their own dignity.

I expected a pointless question... and a pointless question is exactly what I got 🤨 (Murphy's Law!)

Yeah thank you as well for wasting my time !

Who are they ? the Police ? And where do you think i got those Peds from ?!? From EU ! Okay let's cut the crap... I am not going to answer several questions, i am not playing since Years, i can afford to lose my account, i don't care...

As you can see, my name isn't blurred — I have nothing to hide: I'm Marc Boucher. I've worked in IT for years, and I don't intimidate easily (thanks to years of Boxing). But let's be clear about the principle: it IS unsettling for technical support to ask me to justify where my PED came from. Does that mean every single time I withdraw, I'll have to keep a diary of all my in-game trades to justify why I won more than I deposited? In that case... It's Interrogation Universe not Entropia 😕

My honest answer to them was simple: I earned that PED partly through gifts for real-life professional services, and partly by winning more than I lost in-game — including two recent Hall of Fame globals worth 7,600+ PED. None of which is against the rules... But the problem i wasn't aware of and became aware later, was that some players in EU were actually forbidden to withdraw, because of their suspicious activities ingame... And if you trade with them, it's like a disease spreading to your account, without you being aware of any future consequences... Until you press the withdraw button 😕

• By the way here my first HOF here
• And my second HOF as legit as the first

Maybe this Russian person had been dealing in shady things ?

But in that case it's MindArk duty to enforce what's going on with their accounts in EU. Can you imagine if several people are trading with a "flagged" account... Are all these players going to be "flagged" as well as potential suspects ? MindArk should put a warning "don't trade with this person, otherwise your ability to withdraw in the future will be forfeit" !

There is also a Loot theory where your future HOFs depend on your deposit amount... Meaning if you deposit $2000 so the equivalent of 20000 peds, you might have a big chance to win 20000 peds in a HOF in the upcoming weeks, provided you hunt the right mobs. Like a nice incentive to make you think you did good by "investing" in the game, but the loot mechanic will of course take this back from you on the long run.

But that's another story...

Radio Silence, and How I Finally Got Paid

After my explanation... it went to radio silence for hours, then days. And unfortunately... that's quite common with MindArk Technical Support — cases can sit untouched for weeks, months, even years, with no one answering. Meanwhile, they hold your money on their side. There has been plenty of cases, just do a search on the official calypso forum for the keywords "case" and "withdrawal", you'll find plenty of proof with complains for one or the other.

Being transparent, I laid everything out in detail across a few messages.

Like on the 10th of March in the evening...

I didn't expect any positive answer from their side though, and so I accepted the fact that i would maybe never see the color of my 13000 Peds value on my account (peds received from Russian work + HOFs).

But at least i didn't wait for years to find out the ugly truth...

The support came back with the same question... along with the classic "to prevent fraud attempts" line, the very same phrasing real-life banks use when they'd rather you didn't withdraw. 😅

Okay i had already answered to that... I said i had offered Real Life services to Entropian Players !

It felt like the interrogation-room technique

keep repeating the question, hoping the person eventually contradicts themselves or "confesses" to something — even when they've done nothing wrong. I was almost grateful: learning the ugly truth early, while my investment was still small.

Also to be clear about this sentence: "to prevent fraud attempts" has never been about Your Security... Nobody cares about Your security, that's just processes we put in place to protect the company we're working for, to protect the company against prosecutions, leaks and so on... Let's not be Naive. That would be like believing the HR department of a company is built for the rights of the employees... No, it's not... That's why we have trade-unions in each countries.

So as they asked me the very same question again... I gave them the very same answer 😅

The Cat and Mouse game continued... As i repeat myself, i had no expectations from MindArk Technical Support...I had even stopped playing Entropia Universe since 3 days, and i could certainly continue to live without it.

At least now i had the proof that withdrawing from MindArk was for sure the end of the entertainment part 😕

⚔ PLAYER BUFF AVAILABLE ⚔

Partner link · Lien partenaire

I kept the case updated, trying to stay calm and transparent...

I had nothing to hide, which is exactly why I could push back with a clear conscience.

50, 54, 176 Business Days: The Withdrawal Delay Problem

On March 16, 2022, worried my case had sunk to the bottom of the queue, I used the Live Chat on the EU website.

A support agent named Loki told me my case had been forwarded to MindArk's Economy department — in other words, it was "under investigation" 😏 and so he couldn't give me any more details...

Then, exactly 5 minutes after that live chat ended, I got an email: my support case was now closed! I logged in, and found the message that my explanations had been deemed satisfactory.

The withdrawal was still "pending", but it was a big step forward.

I wasn't going to jump of Joy because my Withdrawal was still in Pending State. I guess they needed time to send it, but it was already a big step ahead to know that my request to withdraw had met a Satisfactory ending.

The timeline from there:

• on March 18 I received a "Withdrawal Committed" email
• and on March 21, 2022, the money finally landed in my account.

All in all, that first withdrawal took around 54 business days

— for 1,000 PED, minus MindArk's fee (1% of the amount, minimum 100 PED / $10). I'd chosen Euros as the payout currency, because French banks add extra fees on USD wire transfers.

It was never about the money. I just wanted to test the whole process: would support ask questions? Yes. Would being paid in PED for real-life services look suspicious and attract attention? Yes. Now I had all my answers — documented.

To stay Fair, here's the fact-check that confirms this isn't just bad luck: MindArk's own official FAQ states that withdrawals are "handled manually in order of submission" and paid "within approximately 50 business days" — they justify this by the risk of credit-card chargebacks (which can occur up to 6 months after a deposit). So the ~2-month wait is by design, written into their own policy. On top of that, the "Committed" state is supposed to reach your bank within 3–5 business days.

But at the same time... The community's frustration is well documented: on Trustpilot and Steam, players repeatedly report waits of 50 to 60 business days and even more (2–4 months of calendar time), describe the delay as benefiting only MindArk, and note that deposits are taken instantly while withdrawals crawl. One reviewer summed up the asymmetry perfectly: the company takes your money the same day, but paying it back takes 4–5 months.

And my own 5th withdrawal in 2025? It took 176 business days — because I'd helped a Ukrainian refugee playing to Entropia Universe and again i was gifted in Peds. That's a whole other story that i encourage you to read.

So there you have it. You CAN withdraw from Entropia Universe — I've done it 5 times, and every euro eventually arrived. But it's slow, it's manual, it can feel like an interrogation, and the trust is fragile. Go in with your eyes open: test the button early, keep your conscience (and ideally your trade history) clean, and never, ever treat EU as a bank.

Final part: Should You Play Entropia Universe?