One of the main advantages of purchasing stocks based on dividends over share price is earnings stabilization.  Because I’m invested in stocks that consistently provide great dividends even with flat share price trends, the growth of my portfolio is very predictable.  Note that the angle of rise in my portfolio value is consistent except for extrinsic events, like selling investments to purchase upgrades, having shares for sale, and receiving refunds.  There is very little cyclical variation in my portfolio value because I have enough variety of stocks that share price variation among them is essentially random.

The downside for many people to this strategy is that predictable returns lack excitement.  As a game, knowing that I will make the same percentage return every week does not provide the thrill that gambling on a share price increase does.  If everyone followed the dividend maximization strategy, Empire Avenue would probably fail as a game because it wouldn’t provide much more excitement than a chat room about social media influence statistics.

Basic tools that one might expect to monitor dividends and earnings are missing from the game and graphs are deliberately manipulated to emphasize variation over stability.  These are features that I would like to have in Empire Avenue to maximize dividends:

• View Earnings History without having to purchase stocks
• Graphs of Earnings History and Dividends paid per day
• Dividend per day, week and month clearly stated in the profile
• Graphs display statistics from start of account, not just 1, 7 or 30, preferably with selectable dates
• Graphs origins at (inception or first chosen display date, 0), not (first display date, first display date quantity)

However, the Empire Avenue developers probably choose to obfuscate earnings and dividends to maximize the gaming atmosphere.  A basic problem with the game is that the Eaves currency is not useful for much more than making more Eaves through trading stocks.  Perhaps when more extrinsic rewards exist in the game, like real rewards one would use regularly or being able to purchase something other than just stocks and upgrades with Eaves within the game, i.e., a virtual environment like a company headquarters, the developers will be willing to provide these features.