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Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

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

#101

Post by vertis »

dexter89_kp3 wrote: post #83
vertis wrote: post #4

I've been playing with https://euphoria.money which is a 'fork' of OHM on the Harmony block chain. It brings back memories of high-yield investment programs (HYIP), which are a type of Ponzi scheme. I don't want to accuse them of anything, but it's a little "if it's feels too good to be true, then it probably is" So much of the DeFI yield farming comes across somewhere between Ponzi scheme and the insanity that prece…

I invested some token money on OHM to learn more about it. The APY figures will come down in 1-2 months based on certain funding/staking levels. I stayed away from all forks of OHM. Lot of interesting projects happening in DeFI 2.0 and DAO space. One example: https://www.klimadao.finance/

klimadao does look interesting, it does have some of the same warning flags (super high APY) as OHM/WAGMI though.

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

#102

Post by acdha »

dageshi wrote: post #75
Ensorceled wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN is very dismissive on these topics. In general, when ever crypto topics come up, the pro-crypto side tends to do a pretty terrible job of establishing that there are "some pretty incredible innovations occurring in crypto, gaming, and defi." Perhaps you could list some and change our minds? I just saw on Twitter how some one is minting NFTs using the art of a deceased artist and their family is scrambling to fig…

I'm not involved in nor have I ever bought anything crypto related. But I'll say this for it, it's the most interesting new tech to hit the internet in the past couple decades. Everything else has been pretty incremental over that time period, crypto is something really new and I suspect that's why its adherents are so obsessed by it.

Bigger than VR/AR, IoT, AI or smartphones? Chaum was talking about digital currency around the dawn of the web so I’m not sure you could say there’s been anything much less incremental there.

The thing to remember is that by now we’ve had over a decade of people making very big, obviously unfounded claims and failing to deliver much of anything. The people in that space trying to recoup their investment even felt the need to rebrand as “web3” to shake the resulting negative reputation. The obsession makes a lot of sense simply as recognition that, having failed to develop public demand, the only way for anyone involved to maintain their current valuation is by selling the possibility of future usefulness to new buyers.

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

#103

Post by reggieband »

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…

> "I thought it was gambling and immoral, but now that it has made billions there might be a point"

That is an inaccurate/misleading summarization of my post. It is a least-charitable interpretation structured to forward your own viewpoint.

When I thought the game was simply gambling I ignored it (and in fact I assumed it was earning high revenue). This financial times article explained that the game is not gambling and instead is something more complex. The mechanic of ownership allowing players to lend in-game assets to free players for the purposes of in-game currency generation is novel to me. The additional fact that the earned in-game currency can be converted to real world cash is not novel but certainly interesting when combined with the former.

Ostensibly, someone can find a sponsor who will lend them in-game assets. They can then apply/increase their skill in playing the game to earn a share of in-game currency. So for zero stake they can earn in-game currency that is convertible to real world cash. That, to me, is NOT gambling.

Another person can invest real-world cash to buy in-game assets. They can then seek out people willing to play the game on their behalf. By finding and retaining the best players they can earn a share of the most in-game currency. That, to me, is close to gambling. It reminds me of horse owners who participate in competitive racing. People gamble on the outcome of races to be sure. But it is a stretch to me to think of the horse owners as gambling. They are investing in the best horses, the best trainers, the best jockeys with the hope that those investments will lead to enough wins to turn a profit.

A growing market, especially on Twitch, are competitive gaming orgs. These orgs seek out the best game players and sign them to contracts. They then turn a profit by leveraging the players success into brand sponsorships. I see a lot of parallels between the mechanisms behind this game and real-world economic activity.

The fact that a pretty prosaic mobile looking game ballooned to such a valuation and attention suggests to me there is something worth being curious about here. It is causing me to think. Apparently it is causing you to turn away in disgust.

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

#104

Post by bob29 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #86
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…

> Or imagine a digital casino I find pretty much every casino game beyond incredibly boring. The only appeal seems to be greed-- if you take that away (or decide you don't value it), they lose all luster for me. I know this opinion isn't universal - some people will play simulations of those games for hours with no real money on the line - but I can't be the only one. There are so many much more enjoyable games out t…

The more modern digital screen slot machines I've played now have 2 buttons, one that selects how many paylines, and one that selects how much money per payline you bet, and have rewards that can trigger minigames. I wouldn't say they're more engaging or fundamentally different than classic casino games, but I think for casinos there will always be an incentive to design games that can be optimally played by any drunk player.

On the flip side, as someone who used to be an obsessed video game player, behind all the fancy media assets, all I see in most videogames is running through a maze and watching the output from pseudorandom number generators.

To make a casino game that is actually fun, by gaming standards, I think it would look like World of Warcraft with an in-game integration of marketplace for gold and items instead of going to ebay.

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

#105

Post by roywiggins »

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…

I imagine ATM fees on casino floors are pretty lucrative.

Skimming a percentage off every transaction to make a profit is what casinos do. Of course it's possible to make money this way. It's not gambling when you're the casino. It's still gambling for everyone else.

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

#106

Post by himlion »

bogwog wrote: post #77
simias wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're bad, grindy games. The appeal is specifically that they reward with crypto-tokens that can be traded on exchanges for real money. It's basically just a way to work around regulations. Technically the game doesn't deal with a real currency, but they give fungible tokens that can be relatively easily traded on third party exchanges. The financial aspect of these games makes zero sense, as is the whole concept o…

Can you even call it a game? It seems like work more than anything else. Its a shitty boring job where you’re paid less than a contractor to do work that is completely meaningless and unproductive.

Have you ever played it yourself? The game is better than the majority of mobile games.

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

#107

Post by roywiggins »

simias wrote: post #67
f00zz wrote: post #52

> Axie, which is loosely based on the Pokemon franchise, rewards players with tokens for winning battles and completing quests. So I looked for a gameplay video on YT, and it looks very much like a typical free-to-play mobile game. I'm guessing the difference is that you can exchange the in-game currency for actual money? Not sure why you'd need a blockchain if that's the case... Also, are these games actually fun? O…

They're bad, grindy games. The appeal is specifically that they reward with crypto-tokens that can be traded on exchanges for real money. It's basically just a way to work around regulations. Technically the game doesn't deal with a real currency, but they give fungible tokens that can be relatively easily traded on third party exchanges. The financial aspect of these games makes zero sense, as is the whole concept o…

> It's basically just a way to work around regulations. Technically the game doesn't deal with a real currency, but they give fungible tokens that can be relatively easily traded on third party exchanges.

so, pachinko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko#Prizes

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

#108

Post by denton-scratch »

slfnflctd wrote: post #86
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…

> Or imagine a digital casino I find pretty much every casino game beyond incredibly boring. The only appeal seems to be greed-- if you take that away (or decide you don't value it), they lose all luster for me. I know this opinion isn't universal - some people will play simulations of those games for hours with no real money on the line - but I can't be the only one. There are so many much more enjoyable games out t…

When I was a child, I thought wine and beer were boring. Some people have to practice quite hard, to get into problems with booze and gambling.

I dislike the custom of using the word "addiction" to describe gambling; but it certainly shares many features with chemical addictions, including the role of habit.

I'm suggesting: for some people, being dependent on something is a goal in itself. Actually, I'm not suggesting; I'm sure it's so for my personal microsample, which is entirely based on chemical dependencies. But I believe it might also be true of various psychological dependencies, like gambling. I've just never known anyone that had a gambling dependency.

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

#109

Post by igorkraw »

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.

I'm specifically laying into people getting rich off of other people gambling and making a business out of it. If a group of friends wants to play poker, or if the Axie platform was a co-op owned by all of the players (and no 20% dev stake like most premined cryptocurrencies) I'd say "eh, it's their choice". But making money off of hooking into and pushing our vices is something I personally disagree with.
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