About crypto-based games and how to avoid Ponzi, and make them last

Hello steemians,

After testing a number of crypto-based games I thought it would be great to share some observations.

All of them supposedly give value to the assets you earn there.

Valuation means: that you can "invest money", become stronger, and gather more of these assets.

And you can later sell these assets for a gain.
And earn money.

Investors, but also gamers are there

This attracts our investor spirit but also our gamer spirit.

Many steemians are great gamers, good strategy gamers, or good investors, or just have some spare money every month.

Some even have all of that together.

I think these communities of players are very positive, they all want to contribute to the game's success, and also made of great people.

This is a very good trend.

I also love this 21st century where we can supposedly earn money from home and while playing good games.

I made some articles about Splinterlands (formerly Steem Monsters) where valuation is still kept and an objective for the whole team.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the trend of some other games I have tested - which instead all want to Ponzify.

Why so many Ponzi schemes out there?

Many of these games favor a Ponzi scheme.

You come in Day 1, then you'll have your bucks back.

You come in one month later, or even two or three weeks, then it's often already too late!

Two months later, you - and all resources you invested - are just prey to the sharks out there.

For some reason, you'll see some founders favor this scheme outrageously.

There has been old games, like Drugwars.

Why do I say old?
This game was released what, in january? february 2019?

Yet it's already too late.
Wow!

This one was promising, but only over the last month has divided its Steem output to players by 50 or so. That's a lot!

It left almost all of it to switch to its own non-steem currency; even after promising that it would never be the case.

The developers are very available to talk about it and explain their decision. But the motive behind it remains obvious. And I think once the situation will wear off, then a new plan will be out.

You may think "I am good gamer, I should come there and earn my money". But timing is important in ponzi-based games.

When you hear about it, then it's often too late already.

Other blog writers have written great articles about it, explaining ROI when coming into the game. They were alerting us about it.

But even the best articles ended up wrong - the game output was even way below it.

There are still these posts from 3 months ago, when the game distributed 3000 STEEM every day. Now charts show 50 STEEM only, the rest being in a new local currency. And there are more players, more armies, more complex situations if you even want to reap this amount.

Do you really need to spend your time trying to earn 0.05 cents a day?

When the game left STEEM payouts for its own non-STEEM currency, not only was the community that launched the game dismayed, but the payouts disappeared.

This was a sad moment.

Now let's speak about new games such as NextColony.

I loved the promise of this game.
A race for space! A race for our planets!

But the reality becomes different.

Having even one explorer ship, for a newcomer, takes at least 24 days or so. This is because you need top techs to produce your first ship and having a top tech level needs time.

Old-timers have plenty of ships, and in a game like NextColony they even can see whatever you have in storage anywhere in the world.

As much as I would like the game to succeed, having a young alliance there and all; I can only advise to not come there, because it is just too late. You'll just end up as a prey with no way to protect you effectively.

There was a poll to decide about how many resources should be protected in your storage.

Many voted that 60 % or more resources should be kept safe.

And the developers, instead, decided that only 20 percent should be safe from attacks. (15 percent on this picture)

And that's 20 percent with a TOP LEVEL defense building! With 0 if you have none.

This means that sharks will have a lot to eat and stuff their bellies.

With 20 percent resources left, or even 40 percent if the sharks waited before coming back, there is no way you can upgrade your technology and continue your progress.

You won't be able to fight back. There is even actually no incentive to fund this bunker - it will not be enough.

And if you are on the sharks radar, then it's game over.

I believe the purpose of such decisions is to make players spend money, be dismayed, and leave - thus leaving planets open for loot for other sharks.

A new player costs nothing and the hardcore base needs to be fed with easy resources.

I am sorry for the picture, but these players need to feel rewarded.

They need to come to the top 100 leaderboard and think they have become geniuses and have bettered Genghis Khan in the art of looting and conquering.

This is the only way they can improve compared to other sharks and players.

Whereas, gamers just left the game in mass, making easier targets.

In reality, Ponzi games - which is a new layer above Ponzi - need to attract more players, keep some userbase, but do not care about keeping people once they have paid what they could.

They generate leavers because by game design, they need leavers to feed the sharks.

So you should not even expect a great game situation, or a great social situation.

The promise was good, but the game was not... sadly :(

So where is your valuation?

If you collected a rare planet, does it gain value over time?

I have a question to ask:

Where would be the buyers, when they can loot so much on leavers already for free?

I am not one to criticize any mistake.
All people make mistakes.

Also, this is my experience, my opinion, and my own disagreement with the situation.

These communities are made of great, very intelligent and very welcoming players. Even the founders are often like that. It is possible there just was not any other example to follow.

Some will try to make better games with their first experience.

If they do, I'll be the first to speak positively about them!

Some will actually think that Ponzi is the way to go, and invent another way to Ponzify.

There are two conclusions I wanted to bring.

We need New Games!

First, we need new games.

It's great to have buildings, production, units.
And permanent assets with valuation.

No more PONZI!

These games need a way to avoid being a Ponzi.

Of course I will share more about this!

I am currently working on my own Steem-based games because I have been inspired by the community, by the success of these games, by other good and honest examples such as Splinterlands.

I want to go in, and have an opportunity to work on Steem-based games.

But I don't like Ponzi, and I want to avoid making a game like that.
I want to deliver a sane place to play.

I think we can have games about conflict which still avoid to be Ponzis.

I wanted to share my thoughts about all this.

Please don't be mad at me - I am just a messenger.
And I hope this article will also help us.