Blockchain Gaming .:. Just a short-term Ponzi scheme?

https://twitter.com/ph1103/status/1371965111867473923

It is actually very easy for someone to think Blockchain games are ponzi, there's money flowing in from here, going out from there, its all rosy in the beginning, but the later seems not as good as the beginning, its common, I know a lot of blockchain games are ponzi, but there are some that only look like that because of our understanding of what is going on behind the scenes,...

Ultimately, the concept of blockchain gaming is still very much in its early stages and many are still carving out a long term beneficial solution that covers everybody, right now a lot of games are still experimenting, eventually some will get it right. That's what I feel, so right now if I find a Blockchain game I like, I have to ask myself, do I enjoy it? That's what is important right now....

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The Thunkgaria/Holybread team agree's with you.

When we took over Holybread it was nothing but a broken Token Ponzi that the early players were milking and the early devs collapsed under the pressure.
(we have seen this from many crypto games across many blockchains)
We revamped the reward system and moved to an upvote system based on ranking as the game was based on Hive/Steem and that is the best reward system we felt kept with the concepts of these blockchains.

This made a lot of the milkers upset as they feel they INVESTED into the game and deserved the profits from new players even tho they were not active and provided nothing to the community.

After the changes we continue to power up all HP earned by the upvote to increase the value for players and our team.
Currently the upvotes are not enough to fund the game so it is a losing $$ game for us right now, but we see a future where it grows past this.

Taking the lessons from this we are building out our new game Thunkgaria and we will be releasing a new way to earn money from playing but are not ready to announce it yet as we are still working on the code base.

But we hope to announce something within the next 30 days.

We are looking at something that works and is not tied down to any blockchain, so players can come from any chain.

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I definitely agree with the sentiment and there are a lot of elements in block chain gaming that make it seem like a Ponzi scheme. I do think that the balance is the key and it is tough to get right. I think changes to make things sustainable are unavoidable. However I think HIVE provides a way to ensure the sustainability and that is if they decide to compound part of the earnings.

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I have been playing the risingstargame on the Hive blockchain and so far it has been a good experience both wise earnings and collecting the NFTs.. cheers

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I think since there is a huge potential for influx of new users we can and should concentrate to get as much publicity for all games on the hive blockchain. I would also love to see new games and developers on the chain. There is so much potential! And project #liotes could benefit from a game built on liotes economy.

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!WINE
!BEER
for you

I hanged around when Liotes was launched asking some difficult questions. The answers I got were good so I bought a few Mills. New topic, new questions.

I know you guys are carefully avoiding the "game" word around Liotes, calling it a blockchain adventure. Fine with me.

(...) dCity... It was a great game, (...)

If your main competitor (my personal assessment of the two, I am invested in both) is a game, can you explain to me why Liotes is not? Dcity is around for a year while Liotes entered the second week so comparing the actual numbers is not a fair comparison of potentials but as you raised the topic, you might want to take a shot at reaffirming me that a startup with one fungible token miner based on loaning out HP at 15 % can compete (coexist?) with a 1yr-old project that uses dozens of class of NFTs (that are essentially as fungible as LENM within their class so the mechanics is comparable) and bases rewards on curating at 20 %. What is your special sauce? I thought it was the marketing skill so I assume you have some twists planned when you start FUDing that broadly within your genre.

Is it possible to create a sustainable blockchain game with sustainable tokenomics?

If you run a game, you do it for free (not-sustainable) or there is money around it that pays for your efforts. It may come from players buying for fun, spectators buying tickets to watch (not to win money), advertisers, losing players that have so much fun that they pay extras that can even support the winners. On blockchain, it might as well come from other token holders curating at 3 % while you can do double digits (provided the meta-game of the chain keeps token valuable). Is Liotes (being a game or not) doing any of it?

I have yet to play a blockchain based game but it seems to me NFTs would be terrific for games like MMORPGs for limited and unique items.

I see two areas that could be looked at in a different perspective:

1. Just because there is a boost from the infusion of new players does not mean that is the ONLY way to get a boost. As with most online games (crypto or otherwise), while most of your players will opt for the free (or cheap) route and progress slowly, some will invest in the game in order to progress faster than others. This is one area where you can capitalize on growth without having to bring in new players. The key to this is to offer various options that can be only obtained with an investment. This could include things like special promotional items that can only be earned by purchasing new packs or participating in special tournaments in which an entry fee is collected. Another obvious income option is periodically creating new sets of cards. I believe all of these tactics are utilized by Splinterlands. Another option to bring in funds is to monetize your website by adding advertising. Most gamers play more than one game and I am sure other games would jump at the chance to advertise on a popular gaming site. Another way is to create new gaming options (like A.I. scenarios) which once again provide special promotions items and have a fee to unlock. Look at games like Hearthstone. They are consistently providing new options and offerings that require additional investments.

2. Regardless of tokenomics and timing, any business ultimately boils down to supply and demand. If your product is good and people want it (demand), value goes up. If you control the influx of new items by limiting items based on your current player base (supply), you can create increases in price. Once again, you see the cards that are in limited supply (GFL) are the cards that retain the most value. And while you can create desire by providing some of these cards in packs, you can also increase income by selling some these cards on the market (like Rising Star does). And really specialized cards (like the STARBITS Millionaire card in Rising Star) can only be obtained directly from the game creators. That is your ultimate control of supply. By determining the limited number of each card when it is created, you can also increase demand as the card becomes more scarce (just like tokens increase as they become more scarce). If the card is very popular, you can always create reprints with similar specifications, but a different image later on. I also like the Splinterlands model of combining (burning) cards in order to upgrade them. This, too, reduces supply and increases scarcity.

The last thing I will say is that there are ways to help increase the popularity of the game, both with existing and new players. But it takes keeping a finger on the pules of the game and making adjustments when needed. I have only been playing these HIVE blockchain games for a few months, but I cannot ever remember a card being revised to improve game play. Some cards just don't work the way they were intended. Others are downright overpowered. Now I have admit, I am not aware of the information that is contained within the individual NFTs and what is maintained by the game, but I would think most of the actual abilities are on the server side and could be adjusted after the card is released. If not, ban the overpowered cards from game play and offer a playable replacement. That way if someone wants to keep their original card, they can, it just won't be able to be used in game play (it becomes a work of art at that point).

As you can see, I can ramble on about possible ways to address some of these issues. If you want to increase the value of your tokens, increase the demand or reduce the supply. Increase the token demand by improving your game and offering more options. When you start worrying about stabilizing token prices over game play, you have lost the whole point of having a game in the first place (stepping off soap box).