RE: Steemmonsters - Burn your (worthless) cards and get HUGE upvote!
First this "rant" isn't intended at you... I love what you are trying to do.
I like the idea to get rid of the "worthless cards", but its a shame that there are "worthless cards" in the first place... I place the responsibility directly on the shoulders of SM, who @aggroed said he would make sure to "match the amount of supply to investor demand". Obviously their calculations were "off", but instead of stopping the overproduction by limiting the amount of cards to say 25% of what they optimistically intended, a much simpler solution would be to NOT OVERPRODUCE THEM.
Overproduction leads to loss of faith... And when faith is all you have to value things in the longer run, then wasting it by sticking to a bad forecast is not only stupid but destructive to the long term health of the market.
The thing that gave SM potential was that it could be for players and investors alike. The disregard for overproduction speaks loudly for how they feel about investors.
ps... its not only reward cards. The fact that betas continue even though CLEARLY the demand is satiated, not only hurts betas but alphas too. (since most betas are recycled alphas)
I think that we're looking this from a small prisma of time, that cards are right now worthless but they're actually very useful and valid cards in some cases and formats of the game. It's not therefore imo an overproduction of cards but a lack of players, this could change a lot over the time. I'm almost sure that those cards will get a lot of value in the near future. I mean look at the Sea Genie is a very useful card and a great choice in blue but is valued at 0,02 dollars. I see there an oportunity of bussiness not a waste of cards.
I agree completely with you on the value of the cards in gameplay. I haven't sold one and continue to add on a daily basis. I agree with you about the opportunity and I'm not walking away from the game at all.
My point is directed at the time-tested rollout of anything that starts from scratch and you want it to trade fairly. Matching demand and supply is important. If there was more players, then more numbers of each card would be vital. But there isn't, so keeping the supply and demand in balance is important if you want investors involved. If you don't care about investors buying and holding cards, then overproduction is fine. There are tons of great players in sports that had rookie cards issued 30 years ago that still are essentially worthless because the card companies decided overproduction levels would dry up. (note: they didn't and are still out there today)
The problem with that is it unneccessarily pushes people away that feel "burned". I'm not one of them, but I can tell you of many that have left over this issue. I'm not mad about it, I realize it is what it is; but its a shame that we don't have them around anymore. Its ok though, in the long run it will just mean higher highs and lower lows; as they just have to cycle through more people til they find enough mass for this game to go viral. I do believe it will happen, and frankly it is them suffering the most as they have lost tons of pack buyers that no longer participate anymore because they lost faith. The good thing is those people will be back, it will just take the right corrective measures to be put in place!
My impression is that is the game what should be in discussion, and not the value of the cards. I see a lot of frustration in the leagues although the matching system and the ranking points have been updated with success imo. The bots issue is no longer a major problem right now but I see lower rankings of the highest players, and of course those who are in lower levels also are decreasing their ranks.
This situation makes that people who doesn't invest enough to see their rankings improve loose their interest in the game and the lack of incentives is worrying when all they have to play are the quests and the season's league for them. The tournaments aren't an incentive to the rookies because there is very low chance of winning something.
I think that the proposal of burning cards is a good measure, but not enough to make the game attractive to the new users. I will never be tired of saying that a game that wants to succeed has to be played a lot.
Has to be really addictive and imo, Steem Monsters is failing in this, there are still few game modes, no team play, no arcade game. I don't want to blame of course to Yabapmatt or the team for it, they haven't enought time to develop these things and I'm sure that they have in mind these issues. Maybe it's a matter of time and patience with the game.
Meanwhile we can enjoy with a game that I personally adore, even with those mentioned problems.
Thank you for the well reasoned answer is always a pleasure to discuss these things with you ;).
Thank you as well. And I do think they will find the solutions at some point, and hopefully they take all the feedback as something positive. After all, we all want the same thing: to have fun and have the game be a success. If that eventually happens, then of course we will certainly forget all about this. And your very first point is very relevant, this is a small prism of time! ;)
Take just a second not thinking of price or value in a selfish manner, just do it for others for visible value for people outside. It doesn’t harm you or someone. It’s the opposite. Just do it right now and you’ll see what I mean. I continue my daily proof of burn.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Yes overproduction is definitely a problem at the moment. I remember the purpose of introducing rewards cards was so that players can sell them and buy the better Beta cards. But looking at the market, these rewards cards are worth close to nothing, and players can't sell them, and so no buying of Beta cards.
My idea is pretty simple. Since players can't sell on the market, sell them to me. By burning. Of course I will not want to pay from my own pocket. So I am using Mavericks entitled votes to buy them, since I am not using it anyway.
This initiative is more towards tackling the abuse of steemmonsters upvote service.
I think you are handling 2 aspects with this solution and I commend you for coming up with a very creative solution to problems you see. Its very clever! :)
See? Genius.
Yeah, I bought the cards in hope that they would be worth something someday, but instead they have gone down in value because there so many of them. It would be nice if they would stop saturating the market.
Yes, you are making my point. There are many many people out there that would "collect" the cards thinking the game could take off one day and they could make a profit. But because they are ignoring the "real demand" and instead producing to their "anticipated demand", they are in effect making people that invest bear the brunt of their gamble. If the game takes off quickly then they will make a good bet, but the problem is if it drags on slower than anticipated, then they lose people in the process (its been happening for the last few months).
The good companies will do their best to meet demand with supply. They won't "anticipate" so enthusiastically, and they damn sure won't continue when they see demand doesn't materialize as planned. In the real world people lose their jobs if this happened, and rightly so. Almost all, successful companies that have outside investors (ie stakeholders like our cards) will have to respond to real supply and demand or they will be out of business.
I don't think they are doing anything intentionally wrong, I love the game myself and think they have put a lot of sweat and money in too. But the fact that they didn't listen (and continue to stubbornly cling to their "we will build it and they will come" mentality), just means they are making a serious mistake. It is creating unnecessary churn of investors and players alike, as in the latter's case people quit playing quests to spend 30 min to make 4c.
I am holding my cards and add to them as I get spare change though, the main reason is I think they will eventually get it right. It is a self-inflicted wound that is fixable, and frankly I wonder why it is taking them so long to see it.