The Stone formerly cost a one-time fee of about twenty U.S. dollars. This fee paid for the pendant (zinc sealed with plastic), booklet (black or white) and all external packaging. The pendant packages were available at the Museum Company and various toy shops. They were also available for purchase from the Abject Modernity company website: Abject.com. At one time, Abject Modernity was offering silver Stone pendants, earrings and various other toys - mostly children's games modeled after The Stone.
Abject Modernity was then hit with some financial woes. During their times of trouble, they stopped releasing puzzles with the same frequency and vacated their former company headquarters in Canada. The was no word from the Stonekeepers for a number of months and for a great lenght of time there were no new puzzles, which caused some of even the most loyal players to quit. Finally, there were some sporadic signs of life (a few cases ofcensorship and an updated welcome page). A few puzzles were even released, though controversially, one of the puzzles was simply a rerelease of a free sample puzzle.
With the resurfacing of the Stonekeepers (or at least some of them), there have been some changes in the style of puzzles being released, as well as in the fee for entering the game. The puzzles have become in a lot of ways more vague, but at the same time easier. The thread connecting them to the metapuzzle, which may or may not have even existed, is no longer as clear as it once seemed to be. The newly released puzzles don't require the same amount of digging through the facts as most of the earlier puzzles did. If anything, they are simply a way for the Stonekeepers to prove to the players that they are still there.
It is no longer a single fee to buy entrance to the Enigma. There is now a yearly subscription fee of nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. Anyone coming into the game now will have to renew their membership each year, while veteran players (who entered the game using the code on a physical pendant) still have lifetime membership. There are still pendants for sale in some locations, and current players of the Stone eagerly buy them up for friends and family.
As of 7-3-02 The Stone servers were moved, and the Commons were repaired, but there still has been no word from any SKs or Rod. The last puzzle released was Company.
As of 8-15-02 The Commons have been dead for a long while, and error messages abound during login (if you can even manage to login). No contact with the SK's has been had.
2003 Update:
There have been a number of new puzzles released, the bugs on the site seem to have been fixed and the Commons is once again jumping. Though I've checked repeatedly, there hasn't been any IRC activity to date, though the Uncommons is still regularly used for player to player communication outside of the site itself. I was recently in touch with Rod, and he is well and obviously contactable, so if you're excited about the new puzzles, drop him a line and let him know. Happy playing!