Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom • Hacker News Board

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#91

Post by Karrot_Kream » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

igorkraw wrote: post #57

reggieband wrote: post #20

> Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency fund made one of its largest investments to date in Sky Mavis, leading a $152m financing that valued the company at $3bn. > Sky Mavis, which takes a 4.5 per cent cut of transactions within the game, has made about $1.2bn of revenues I mean, say what you want about this being a scam, ponzi scheme, etc. That is some real cash. I saw this game popping up on Twitch a few months ago…

This is such a Hackernews take "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point". It can still be gambling and/or a Ponzi schemes. Adding obfuscation over methods to tap into greed and gambling euphoria does not technical innovation make. Cryptocurrency already attracts people who like to gamble and want to get rich quickly, so this is just docking onto a natural pipeli…

Not every person or every culture has the same sets of values around gambling. Not every ethical philosophy thinks of gambling the same way. In many developed countries gambling is legal and regulated in many forms. Governments around the world spend a lot of energy deciding what the lines for regulating gambling is. When I see ethical takes like this, I feel like I'm missing a _lot_ of context. The Islamic world for example sees consumption of alcohol as a sin. Is this a Christian ethical take? What's the difference between markets and gambling in this ethical philosophy? Islamic states see any form of interest as sin after all.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#92

Post by acdha » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

delaaxe wrote: post #47

armchairhacker wrote: post #46

Look at how addicting Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Genshin Impact, etc. are. Now imagine games like these but you have the ability to win real money. Or imagine a digital casino, because that's basically what this game is. I'm surprised these games aren't more popular. Maybe because if they truly become mainstream, they're basically guaranteed to be shut down or heavily regulated. Either that or millions of people wi…

Your grandparents used to say the same thing about the stock market

Quite the opposite, at least for mine: it was known that some companies were risky but that was why they referred to people pushing investment scams as conmen and supported regulation. Solid stocks and their dividends were a key part of a lot retirements, even if they couldn’t afford that many shares.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#93

Post by stavros » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:19 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #91

igorkraw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a Hackernews take "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point". It can still be gambling and/or a Ponzi schemes. Adding obfuscation over methods to tap into greed and gambling euphoria does not technical innovation make. Cryptocurrency already attracts people who like to gamble and want to get rich quickly, so this is just docking onto a natural pipeli…

Not every person or every culture has the same sets of values around gambling. Not every ethical philosophy thinks of gambling the same way. In many developed countries gambling is legal and regulated in many forms. Governments around the world spend a lot of energy deciding what the lines for regulating gambling is. When I see ethical takes like this, I feel like I'm missing a _lot_ of context. The Islamic world for…

You can think that gambling is moral. You can think that gambling is immoral. To think that gambling is immoral unless it's earning a lot of money is... something.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#94

Post by adnzzzzZ » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

sailingparrot wrote: post #84

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors also buy tokens because they think it will go up, not only people playing the game. Yes, people will lose if it goes down, but that's what it's like with everything. Some players will win, some players will lose, some investors will win, some investors will lose. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. This is how the world works. If people think the project has value then it will go up in value and if…

Because that's actually not how the world works. With traditional company, some consumers are paying it for a service. Apple is making 300B$ a year because a lot of people are willing to partake large amount of money in exchange for some good that they (think they) need such as a laptop or a phone. The consumers have no expectation of getting that money back later, it's a trade. If you think Apple is a good company a…

>Axie is very different, the price of the token only rise because of investors (here players)

There are players and investors who actually only buy the token and don't play the game. These are different people. Here the "external" source of money for players would be the investors who don't play the game and for investors it would be players playing the game because they think it's fun. In Axie's case that's probably a minority of people, but that's obviously not the case for most games, you only need to look at games like Genshin Impact to see that people are willing to spend tons of money on good games just because they want to spend money on it.

So yes, in this particular case it's a bad business, and I agree that the same is true for most other crypto games right now, but there's zero reason for it to remain the case in the future. Nothing about the setup fundamentally prevents people from spending real money on real games, and from the token's value to increase as a result, like any normal company.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#95

Post by timmg » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

From a big-picture perspective: people quitting jobs to "grind" through a game to "win" tokens makes no sense. There is literally no productive value from it. I don't understand how it can be anything other than a ponzi scheme.

Playing games as entertainment is totally fine (and worthwhile). But if people in poor countries are quitting jobs to do this -- to "make money" -- it is a real tragedy.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#96

Post by Karrot_Kream » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #93

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every person or every culture has the same sets of values around gambling. Not every ethical philosophy thinks of gambling the same way. In many developed countries gambling is legal and regulated in many forms. Governments around the world spend a lot of energy deciding what the lines for regulating gambling is. When I see ethical takes like this, I feel like I'm missing a _lot_ of context. The Islamic world for…

You can think that gambling is moral. You can think that gambling is immoral. To think that gambling is immoral unless it's earning a lot of money is... something.

I mean sure but that's not what GP is saying. GP is purely laying into gambling by itself.

> I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer

That's where my question arises.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#97

Post by ajot » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #85

himlion wrote: post #51

I'm heavily invested into axie (5 figures), happy to answer any questions.

Did you pay the $1,000 entry fee yourself or did you get a “scholarship” like the article mentions? How does one invest more than the $1,000 entry fee? Do you sponsor “scholarships”? How long ago did you start playing and how much time have you put into the game? What return (if any) have you made on your time/monetary investment? What return (if any) do you expect to make and over what horizon? Thanks for agreeing t…

Not OP, but about to enter and give a scholarship to a friend. There is no 1kUSD entry fee. What you need to enter is to buy three Axies/Pokemon. The starting point for this is nowadays near 300 USD, but buying a decent team is around 500 USD.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#98

Post by himlion » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #85

himlion wrote: post #51

I'm heavily invested into axie (5 figures), happy to answer any questions.

Did you pay the $1,000 entry fee yourself or did you get a “scholarship” like the article mentions? How does one invest more than the $1,000 entry fee? Do you sponsor “scholarships”? How long ago did you start playing and how much time have you put into the game? What return (if any) have you made on your time/monetary investment? What return (if any) do you expect to make and over what horizon? Thanks for agreeing t…

Yes, I have about 100 "scholars" from the Philippines working for me. I put in about $30,000 a few months ago. Return has been 300%+

I'm also involved in breeding new axies which is more complex and time consuming. The return of that varies a lot, but can be very profitable, very hard to put a number on that but I'd say las few weeks it was probably 250% APR if you didn't get too unlucky.

I would probably cash out a lot of things, but I feel bad for making 100 people suddenly unemployed, so I will probably stop expanding but not actually selling off all my things.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#99

Post by stavros » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #96

stavros wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can think that gambling is moral. You can think that gambling is immoral. To think that gambling is immoral unless it's earning a lot of money is... something.

I mean sure but that's not what GP is saying. GP is purely laying into gambling by itself. > I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer That's where my question arises.

Are you talking about reggieband or igorkraw? I was referring to the former.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#100

Post by Karrot_Kream » Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #99

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean sure but that's not what GP is saying. GP is purely laying into gambling by itself. > I have nothing but disgust for these types of games, even without the block chain veneer That's where my question arises.

Are you talking about reggieband or igorkraw? I was referring to the former.

Igorkraw