Posts

Mobile MiniGames: Play & Earn | How & Why The Game Economy is Collapsing!

avatar of @costanza
25
@costanza
·
·
0 views
·
11 min read

I continue to play and grind my way up in the Mobile Blockchain NFT Play2Earn Game Mobile MiniGames while keeping up with the development. In this monthly update, I will be addressing the game economy which currently in somewhat of a collapse...

IMPORTANT: This post is just my personal take of the situation and while things right now are not looking the best, I am quite sure that everything is done with good intentions without wanting to scam anyone and they continue to work hard to improve things. I am personally invested but I understand the risks and am fine regardless what happens even though things really suck right now. That being said, this is what I currently see going on...

Game Economy In TheorySo the game economy works with a dual token system, PRPS is the main token which they have been putting up a sell-wall for that always increases each time a level is sold out. They also allow the main in-game currency Crypton to be cashed out at a value of 1000 Crypton = 1$ worth of PRPS at Sell-wall value. The 2nd token is DUBI for which they provide a buy-wall at the same price level as the sell-wall. The only way to mint DUBI it by Locking PRPS. Locking PRPS for 1 year instantly gives 4% of DUBI.

The main way for Crypton to enter the game economy is by players buying boosts which makes it that all the outflows should be backed by real revenue. On top of this, both PRPS & DUBI can be used to buy boosts at a favorable -30% Price compared to the sell & buy-wall prices and these tokens get burned.

Current Game Economy Situation

The game itself still runs properly and both PRPS and DUBI can be used to make in-game purchases at a 13$ and 26$ value (they doubled the value of DUBI in the game to incentivize it being used and burned). However, they are unable to fund the 10$ DUBI Buy-Wall right now and stopped providing it which in a way is equivalent to FTX, Celsius, and BlockFi halting the withdrawals. Right now it just comes down to supply and demand with very little to no liquidity while the trust in the team from investors and players is at an all-time low.

This has caused the price of PRPS to go down to 1.7$ and the price of DUBI to 3.3$

The main things that support the price right now is investors not willing to sell at a loss and players buying PRPS and DUBI for in-game purchases.

What Exactly Went Wrong?They had always a strong belief in their game fueled by the numbers they were getting and aimed to grow things aggressively not shying away from taking calculated risks with things not working out as anticipated which now is backfiring. They however did never take up a loan as the risk was simply too high and they were unwilling the compromise everything. However, what they did do is kind of take internal leverage against future revenue by fake buying up many levels of the sell-wall to the point where they thought they could handle providing the buy-wall at that price.

This started first in June 2022 where they increased the sell & buy-walls by 1 level for 100 days pushing it up from 93 (3.47$) to level 193 (6.31$), At the start of 2022 they went ahead to push the price up in 1 go to level 270 (10$). This equals roughly 2.6 Million PRPS or 26 Million value at the 10$ highest Sell-wall price.

In theory, it kind of made sense as this gives them a lot of PRPS to give out as future payouts at a price that is lower compared to what they give it out for. At the same time, they made the crucial miscalculation on the crypto bear market for some reason not expecting everyone who had PRPS and minted DUBI to sell it into the buy wall. So they had to use all the profit they made aside from the operational costs to buy all the DUBI until they were depleted and no longer had the budget they counted on the run advertisements and were forced to pauze the buy-wall with a result that the economy of the game started collapsing.

After that they did a fundraising on their stream with an eye to get money to run ads in anticipation for the crypto land expansion release. They gave 1 DUBI as an 'appreciation token' for each 10$ donated thinking the crypto land would spark the demand which it didn't seem to do just yet. They raised ~400k dollars from the fund raise giving out the DUBI doubling the value it could be used at in the game. In a way this put fuel on the fire as there seem to be more people that donated that wanted to sell compared to those that were buying to use in the game dropping the price now to 3.3$ with as a logical result that PRPS trading at around half of that price.

The Situation NowThey have a solid game that works and that gets people to buy deals that generate enough revenue to cover all their operational costs but not nearly enough to also provide the buy-wall or run big advertisement campaigns which are needed to grow the player base. With the economy now being broken, this makes it extra hard since fixing it with the funds they have leaves no room to grow while pushing it all into advertisements brings new players into a game with a broken economy which kind of feels like a big Play2Ern scam.

All this while players and investors getting frustrated by the situation and are losing confidence and the game not really being in a state where content creators want to have their name linked to it. The current crypto bear market and the state of the economy also don't help but at the same time, it should not be something to blame for the position they are in now.

How To Fix This SituationThe reality is that it's not going to be easy to get out of this current mess easily anytime soon unless a big investor comes in which is just not going to happen. Some things I personally believe could be done to move back in the right direction...

1 Fix The in-game PRPS Price and Chart.

In the game it still shows that PRPS = 10$ and a fake chart that seemingly only goes up which is just a complete disgrace. This basically scams all the players that come in and buy deals in the app store who believe 1000 Crypton is actually worth 1$.

The chart in the game also makes no sense whatsoever only trying to insinuate things go up.

Instead what should be done is either change the price to price range 2$-10$ or an indication at what price it can be used for in-game purchasing power which isn't a blunt lie.

2 Focus on Getting DUBI Price Up. While PRPS is not designed to be stable in price, it is designed to get fixed returns to investors from minting DUBI. What I think I would do is focus everything on DUBI and even stop allowing PRPS for in-game purchases for now. This makes it so that all purchases with crypto have to be done with DUBI increasing the demand while giving those invested in PRPS the returns they were promised. I get that it is impossible to right now offer a buy-wall at the 10$ price but at least start using a fixed part of the earnings that come in to buy and burn DUBI at the market price which should help to also get the price up again.

3 Buy PRPS for Cashouts. Right now, I believe that the PRPS given to players that are cashing it out from the game comes from the huge stack they have further increasing the supply and putting pressure on the price. Instead, there should be a price point for PRPS when if it is trading on the market at a price below that, the team is using profit from the game to directly buy it from the market to pay it to those cashing out.

4 Liquidity provider Rewards Right now PRPS & DUBI are trading on Dubiex and Quickswap but there is almost zero liquidity which makes it a complete joke to serious investors.

If anything Splinterlands devs much more understand the importance of this and they provide big rewards for people that are willing to provide liquidity in different pools (Link) which combined have a value of 6.7 Million dollars into it.

Something that could be done once prices are more stable is to give people that provide liquidity to the PRPS pool on Quickswap the 4% Yield paid in PRPS over time that would otherwise get for locking it. So at any time, they have it liquid while earning a bit on it at the risk of getting hit with some impermanent loss. Regardless, the 24k liquidity pool right now is a complete joke and the aim should be to get that a lot higher.

5 Further Improve the game making it less Free2Play Exploitable. Right now when you know what you are doing, it is fairly easy for players to just extract value from the game without any intention to grow your account or spent money while at the same time the incentives to get to higher levels just aren't big enough. This is pretty much the same problem Splinterlands has been solving these past years quite successfully. There are many things I see that can be changed but I will leave those for another post.

6 Offer in-game Flash Sales at DUBI/PRPS Prices This was suggested by someone on the stream and I thought it was an excellent idea as a way to possibly get players that just use credit cards better deals. If devs buy a batch of DUBI or PRPS on the market when someone is dumping cheaply, recalculate the price based on the taxes and app store cut that needs to be paid and put up flash sales for players to buy at a nice discount this would allow them to increase the burn and support the price of DUBI/PRPS.

Where I am Standing on the Economy SituationHonestly, the situation I would say is pretty bad in the short term and I don't see an easy fix. While I don't doubt the game is really solid and worth much more compared the market cap and also still have a lot of faith in the intentions and the work that the team continues to put into it. My confidence in the competence right now is a lot lower than it used to be. The constant overhyping on the stream has gotten to a point where it is borderline delusional based on the facts and how things have played out so far.

If I wasn't already heavy invested at the moment, I most likely would be willing to take the gamble at the current prices. That being said, if things within the next couple of weeks for some reason would recover, I most likely will run to the exit and just dump a large part of my holdings as trust for sure has been broken to a certain degree with how things have played out. I do still enjoy the game and see others enjoy the game and am still in it for the coming 3+ years building my community and in-game assets anticipating that they eventually get the economy to normal again. So at current prices I will put some more in to get more NFTs getting me going there also leveling up the Crypton Crystal.

PRPS & DUBI Update

MonthPrice PRPSDUBI APY
November 20216.31$+6.33%
December 20216.32$+6.33%
January 20227.65$+5.23%
February 20227.01$+5.70%
March 20229.53$+4.19%
April 20227.01$+5.70%
May 20226.59$+6.07%
June 20225.85$+6.84%
July 20224.81$+8.31%
August 20223.71$+10.08%
September 20222.70$+14.8% *
October 20223.72$+10.75%
November 20221.70$+23.53% *

(*** Naively assuming Buy-Wall will be put up again as it has been down for 3 months now with the gap growing to a point where it's not realistic to come back anytime soon)

These are the Token Contracts

PRPS (Polygon): 0x972999c58BbcE63a2e398d4ED3Bde414b8349eB3 DUBI (Polygon): 0x950e1561B7A7dEB1A32A6419FD435410daf851B0

a full overview of on-chain activity can be found on prps.moe

  • PRPS Level 270: 1.70$ (Dubiex) [Last Month 3.72$]
  • DUBI Price: 3.60$ (Dubiex) [Last Month 8.83$]

Personal Clash Of Streamers Game Progress

Not that much progress was made last month as there weren't that many big event to give a lot of Legendary Stars. I'm mostly still trying to make sense of the Crypto Land Expansion and am exporting a bunch of Level 1 heroes to put on my land which so far only has 31 out of 100 plots filled. I did see a big jump in my community members from 120 to 183 mostly thanks to the Crypton Crystal and the land expansion.An overall value of in-game assets was added to the game calculated in crypton at market prices and for me right now it is sitting at 5.8 Million which ranks me in place 59 worldwide. I assume it's calculated in a very generous was and when wanting to sell I could more or less only get 65% of that out, combined with a 1.7$ price if PRPS it only gives my account a value of around 750€ not counting the spellbook, the crypon crystal Mine and the 2 NFTs I have.

ProgressJuly 2022Aug 2022Sep 2022Oct 2022
Account Level174183195211217
Account Trust287M303M325M353M363M
VIP Level77777
Strongest Heroes8x L118x L1110x L1114x L1114x L11
Strongest Pets8x Max Level8x Max Level11x Max Level14x Max Level14x Max Level
Gems Balance1.0B1.5B1.2B845M1.3B
Spellbook Heroes10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)
Spellbook Pets10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)10000% (Max)
Crypton Saved1M+1M+1M+1M+18k
Sale Points Saved361304318267209
Pet Luck+727%+745%+784%+817%+823%
Campaign ProgressPrestige 69-1228Prestige 70-1274Prestige 72-1312Prestige 75-1362Prestige 76-1375
Community Members99108118120183
Export Discount6.4%6.6%7.0%7.4%7.5%
Total Money Invested1580€1900€2250€2400€2700€
Exported NFT Pets22222
Exported NFT Heroes000022
Exclusive Skins-201315430451
Account Crypton Value----5.81M
Total Estimated Account Value2500€+2000€+1500€+2000€+1200€+

Conclusion

Previous MoMi News & Progress Report Posts

October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021

More Info & Guides For Mobile MiniGames (some things might be outdated already)

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta