Opinion: dCity, a good game with bad economics
Remember when dCity was the hippest Engine game around? Yeah, I remember. It looks like the game came to a halt after the lackluster release of third edition. Some may blame the lack of marketing. Some may blame high taxes. But, the core of the issue is the fundamental economics.
Before I offer my unsolicited opinion, let's take a look at the upcoming update.
As promised, Central Banks won't be available to craft in a few days. So, grab yours today! As to whether how valuable the banks would be in the long run, who knows? All I can say is that Laboratories seemed pointless until third edition went live. They are now a major component for combining buildings.
The upcoming replacement seems to be a parody of the real world. It even shows in the stats! Less jobs, more money, and not popular among people. However, for bigger cities combating unemployment, it's not a bad acquisition.
In fact, Central Bank and Farm Corporation might be the rarer buildings out there when it's all said and done.
Speaking of real life parallels, Church giving you tax refunds. Was this change the direct result of high taxes? Coincidence? Not that it matters. Like the labs, a simple change made this card more valuable to the players.
Of course, the upcoming governance update could give current SIM holders some amusement. As you can see, SIM holders will be able to affect income tax levels. To clarify, the price of SIM affects the income tax percentage. At the time of this post, The question is, will most SIM holders choose to offset the taxes?
The holding rewards will be twice as much, but is it worth it?
Looking at the memo, it's about as dismal as the staking rewards of holding HP, assuming the APY uses the 0.005 peg. If it is, then the actual return is much higher since SIM price is so low. It'd better than curation and be at least double with the new update. And guess what? Only 40% of the stake chose holding rewards currently. So, the upsides are greater depending on how the APY calculation works. If the calculation is not using 0.005, then double that holding reward won't do much. You are better off powering that HIVE up and start voting.
Would the higher APY attract people to buy SIM even if they don't want to play the game? It could. That is, if we let more people know about it.
The price of SIM has fallen a lot from the intended 0.005 HIVE peg. The fallen price is the reason for the insane high taxes players have been experiencing. Even a 2000 HIVE buy-in won't push the price too far. That's about $900, and I doubt anyone with that money right now is not buying into other crypto projects. This segways into the problems with dCity's economics.
The Issues
Ponzi-like setup
Let's be honest with ourselves, dCity's economics is set up nothing short of a Ponzi. Without new players buying in with HIVE, there is no reward pool. Sure, @gerber could finance it with other means, but the players fund majority of it.
Because of this set up, plenty of players who got in early are selling as fast as they can. This put up massive sell pressure on the token. Not to mention, since all the cards continue to generate SIM income, the pressure carries on. Then, taxes get high enough to stop the bleed for a moment, but doesn't do anything to the price.
Rising HIVE prices
When dCity started, it was in the depth of the bear market and hostile takeover. SIM pegged to a $0.10 HIVE is very different to a $0.40+ HIVE. Since the price of a single card is at 4 HIVE regardless where the token is at, it becomes pricey and a barrier to entry.
Imagine if HIVE pumped to $2+. Most people here would be making a mad dash out the door instead of spending $8 on a card that may not generate any ROI.
If the prices were more focused on the fiat value, then we would have more dynamic pricing in HIVE or SIM. As SIM continues to fall, it made sense to have cards cost more than 800 SIM each. But, at this point, it most likely wouldn't make a difference. Don't you wish HBD actually worked as intended so we didn't have to deal with high volatility?
The Hive demographic
When we tie to the general demographics of Hive, the number of people willing to spend is even smaller. When people are only staking 36% of HIVE's total supply, I don't see them keeping their tokens for dCity. Once again, everyone wants to sell SIM as fast as possible for those HIVE.
It's no secret that Hive usually doesn't attract people who has money to invest. This is not an attack on community members with less fortunate circumstances, but it is a fact. You can't market products to people who are depending on selling the few HIVE they have to eat. They don't have that disposable income.
What are your thoughts? How can players and enthusiasts help making a pastime more sustainable and more fun? It's always easy to say "more users", but how do we get there? If there are serious flaws in the economics, what could the dev team do to incentivize SIM purchases?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
