Many games are starting to show up in the cryptocurrency world having players rush out thinking they will become a millionaire overnight. The reality is most simply lack the dedication, foresight, and self-control to pull it off.
Transactions Fees: Being Stung A Thousand Times
This is a really easy one to overlook. Most players take into account market fees a game might have when it comes to player trading. They forget when that currency gets sent to their wallet there also going be a transaction fee being taken out as well in most cases.
Some blockchain out there even have varies options in either having your transaction sent sooner by paying a higher fee or later by waiting days or even longer. The issue with this is if you need to sell in-game items to buy other items. You will be waiting days on end just to progress. Unless you are willing to pay the higher fees and that comes out of your bottom line.
What you want to look for is zero or low fee blockchain that is also very quick. You should not have to pay extra anything to ensure your transaction gets accepted right away. Even more so if the game is sending money to and from your wallet.
One possible up and comer to gaming is the Steem blockchain where they have zero transaction fees and it only takes a a couple of seconds for transfers to go through.
You Are Playing To The Game And Not To The Player
Let me ask you a question. If it cost you $9 to acquire an item and you sell it for $8. how much profit did you make? Well, you’re not stupid you know that's a trick question because you just lost $1.
Games can cost a lot of money not only to produce but to keep running. They have staff wages, servers, software, royalties, taxes, and so on. They made the game in hopes of turning a profit. They will do this by having some kind of advantage as a casino would. While you could be one of the lucky few to beat the house chance are you are not.
Instead, you want to play to the player. Now I’m one of those older players who use to play back in the day what we called real cash economy games such as Entropia Universe. I talk about it a little bit here in my posts on Steem First Digital Currency I profited From.
Going back to the first example of you spent $9 to acquire an item and let’s say the auction house and transaction fee take a flat cut total $1. As long as you can sell that item at a markup that exceeds $10 you’re now making a profit in a video game. If you can consistently scale from there you now have a business of selling that item. Just keep in mind profit like that tends to be competitive so you should diversify into a few different markets.
Understanding how to acquire an item and its market before anyone else does is a great way to leverage yours in-game knowledge. While others are waiting for a guide to come out and rush like everyone else. You where there days, weeks or even months before the masses where told got to location A to farm item B. Making it rain in profit.
Back in the day, I use to sell armor because Entropia Universe was huge and had different planets with different gear drops and items. One planet had a dungeon you could run where all the whale spenders where trying to get top tier items to keep up with the other spenders. That dungeon drops coins that you then could exchange for gear.
Most for the longest time had no idea where that NPC was to buy the gear from. So what did I do? I bought the coins from the whales for 110-129% markup, traded it to the vendor, then flew to the main planet Calypso and sold the armor for 300-600% markup. Those whales were also the ones buying up that armor.
Over time the markup increased to acquire as more completion enter the market and people selling finally understand what it was used for. While also having downward pressure on the selling price for the armor since supply increased. At one point I just started selling people this tip since It was no longer worth my time doing myself. Which lead my competition spending time going after the lower profits for this. While I raked it in on other stuff. I also just gave away the tip for free to friends at that point.
If you find anything like that in a blockchain game congratulations you are now playing to the player and have the opportunity to make bank.
Early Adopters Got In Cheaper
Being an early adopter while it has high risk it also has very high returns. Before people had a full understanding of what items should have really cost they were selling for next to nothing. Since there a lot risk of something not taking off or even being a scam.
On top of that newer games that need cash flow are going sell items at a discount to push sales and generate income to fund development. This means people were long before you came long getting free items with purchase, buying things at a discount, or getting other benefits for being an early backer. On top of really amazing deals because the markets were still working out the value of items.
These are the current prices players are trying to sell cards for at the time of writing this post. They are promo cards for the game Steem Monsters (that is an affiliate link) that some acquired for backing the Kickstarter. Yes, those are listed in US dollar amounts. They got booster packs and depending on the tier those cards as well. Try and not remind me of missing out on that one!
While I’m not saying you can’t find good deals in the older blockchain games just keep in mind other players get to enjoy perks like that on top of any item appreciating in value over time from being there as an early adaptor. Which tends to be where most people end up earning profits from. That game shared above is still in beta who knows a year from now where cards could be priced at!
Staking High Amounts Of Currency To That Blockchain Before Being Able To Participate
Many games out there are being played on slower and frankly blockchain that just can’t handle all the traffic these games tend to bring. Where if you simply wanted to send transactions and play the game during reasonable hours for yourself it's going cost you more then you thought in tied up resources. At that point you are more investing in that currency then you are in that game unless you have a big enough bankroll.
Before you put too much into a game. Make sure the blockchain it’s running on is keeping up with demand and you are the ability to spend more money on the game and not on staking or whatever is required to perform more actions are. Nothing is worse than looking to spend $100 and $80 of that ends up tied up in other stuff.
Lacking Content Monetize Options And Ability
Many platforms out there once you start tossing around the dirty word “cryptocurrency” are not fans. They might not even want to host or support content that is promoting or enabling people to partake. Even worse they might just shadow ban your channel and you may never know.
On top of that in recent times with companies chasing after the all mighty “family friendly content.” Gamers are feeling the pinch. Games for whatever reason are the punching bag for politicians to news companies. So companies could come down harder on them out of fear.
You also have many wanting to play it safe by having requirements for eligibility. That is a lot of work just to make a little off of a game. Not to mention if your content is too niche there might not even be enough total players to even meet subscriber requirements or watch time amounts.
My solution to this was simply finding a platform that is very friendly to cryptocurrency due to that fact it’s one itself. Whether you are finding this post from my Enjar Games portal or my Steemit blog both are in fact within the Steem ecosystem.
While I just write my content there. They do have video options as well in the form of dapps. You have things like Dtube for uploading videos to and a live streaming one called Vimm.tv.
As far as my written content goes for a game like Steem Monsters which I’ve talked about in another section. I’ve had some decent posts and some that never earned much. I had one that paid me out $23 worth of Steem when prices were higher such as First Impressions Of Open Battle Beta. To things more recent Knowing When To Take A Break In 2019 that was $1.75. Unlike many other platforms at least my content is welcome there. I’m also earning in something that I can go buy more cards, or booster packs as well on that game. Since it uses the same currency.
You Are A Lone Wolf Playing An Open PVP Full Drop Game -- RIP
Many games out there want to attract new players on the idea of getting easy money in a full loot system. You loot someone or gank there base and you are rich!!!!! Expect if you have ever played a normal game with full loot and open pvp world you know how it goes. You are on the run being farmed daily looking to hide.
Just think back to playing a game like Ark: Survival Evolved, or Rust or any other game like that on their retail servers. I am so glad those were not blockchain games that I was losing money on from being looted by Alpha Tribes. I would be broke in my first week with nothing to show for it!
While you could be an amazing lone wolf or you team up with three of your buddies. There are that whole expectation vs reality issue here. Your three buddy’s in starter gear vs thirty people who have maxed out gear that one shot you. Loot you for 10 cents worth of currency and curse out your name for wasting their time. They might have even spent more than they got out of it.
Let’s facing camping is also boring. I spent way too many years in games like Eve Online to know that. You could be sitting there for hours waiting for that one guy to come in to loot him. Chances are he know the risk before even coming into your area and was empty or had next to nothing.
Unless you’re the Alpha and get in early to a game while also having crazy player skills. I just recommend staying clear of “full pvp loot” in this space. Not to mention many of these games currently are being created by startups. Do you really want risk losing all your profit possibly by someone who is just running an aimbot? That does not sound enjoyable.
Some Affiliate Programs Just Suck
Many times when people turn a profit in games like these it was due to content creation, asset appreciation, and affiliate programs. On that latter part, not all affiliate programs are equal. Some of them might have a certain currency amount thresholds built into them while others are not even paying out in something you can sell for currency.
Why go to all that work for an item you can’t even trade or has near zero value since it’s a cash shop item? If you have a need for that item that great. Many times you end up with a stockpile of it and no longer ever have a need for it again. Which means any extra sign up you get from your hustle are not bringing you extra value in that game.
On top of that make sure it’s even a game you enjoy and others could as well. Nothing worse than someone trying to push an affiliate link to something scammy looking that no one will ever want to play anyways. You also lose credibility by doing this as well. That not a bright future for all that extra work you put in.
Some Games Could Be A Pyramid Scheme
There are a number of games out there in this space that are more set up like a pyramid scheme than anything else. You have 1% at the top and everyone else is buying from them and lower tiers hoping one day to be that 1%. If you are going in thinking “I already know this” well how many others are just like you? Many. Comment F in the comments below for there lost currency.
They tend to work like this. You start off the game and to progress you need Item A. You can either buy item A from the store or at a discounted rate from another player. Then you get to level 2 of the game and suddenly you need item B to progress under the same scenario. You keep doing that going up the pyramid. Note to self I have a million dollar game idea now—joking!
Sometimes you need that item for fuel to move forward or other times to craft upgrades on items that have durability. Either way that item is getting consumed so you always have a need to keep buying. If you don’t have the ability to turn a profit from trading with other players you really need to be careful. They tend to start off really cheap at level one but by the time you’re getting closer to the top, it’s really starting to add up.
You might also notice they have quite a few updates. It’s almost like every time a certain percentage of the players reach the higher and best loot another level or more items come out. Which means if you’re coming in late you’re always going be coming up short of when “profit” is supposed to be. If everyone making a profit off a game “who is paying for it?”
Massive Time Gates
Some games like to have time gates that are just not needed. You might die and have to wait an hour to revive. You might be building a town and suddenly you have to wait one month or longer for it to finish. There also could be items with durability that are time locked by long crafting times.
These things are pain points that people know no one wants to wait around for. If they have an option to pay to skip that time gate then the chance is someone will be willing to pay to advance faster than anyone else.
If you’re someone who does not like to wait around then these kinds of games are going costs a lot in the short term. Many think if they spend $5k to get to end game in day one they will make a return on that investment. Well, most of those items if they have requirements no one can even use for a while unless they did the same exact thing as you did. So people end up rushing to the end and now have nothing left to gain like double building weekends and other stuff developers toss in to keep the lower spends playing.
In this case, if I thought it was worth some money to advice a little faster than everyone else I would only spend a little bit. You won't be ahead enough to make profits but not too far ahead that no one is slightly trailing behind you. They are miles away and unless that game is a full loot pvp one. That is just wasted money.
You Lack The Bankroll
Many just don’t have enough of the game's currency to take advantage of item markup, dealing with bad RNG for days to months, holding onto items expect to appreciate in value and so on.
Back when I use to play Entropia Universe the rule of thumb for my level of play was 10,000 PED (that’s $1k worth of Project Entropia Dollars). You would go out and stockpile crafting items in the short term while selling off any armor right away.
You see you would go out hunting or mining and say spend 100 PED on ammo or mining probes and get 50-90 PED worth of loot back. Most of the time you did not get enough of all the items to list them for 130-150% markup. Instead, maybe you could only do 101-123.55% because you were short enough of the item to say competitive so you could either take a loss or list it too high in price.
Also with such a small bankroll, many would not get much gameplay out of it so they would sell to a reseller for quicker turnover. The reseller is playing to the player and making a profit. The guy selling at that point is just playing for fun and going lose money, in the long run, most likely.
Bad RNG will also get you. Depending on what you where farming you could be down 500 PED for a day or a week and then you got that needed item to turn a profit. If all you had was 100 PED it is long gone before your chance of getting what you wanted unless you really lucked out.
You also might get an item worth a lot but it’s slow to sell. So people undercut and sell at deeply discounted rates. Many times people buying at lower rates are resellers. Since that player needed to sell that item to keep playing. They were willing to take whatever they could today and not a week from now when a real buyer looking to use that item came around.
Not Everyone Finds It Fun Playing For Profit
Many people think they are going get a massive jackpot, the best item drop, whatever in their first week and it’s going be so ohhhhh so AMAZING!!!!!!! Those same people I suspect also buy lottery tickets and are more of an adrenaline junkie than someone looking to turn a profit over the long run.
Playing a game for profit can take the fun out of it in some ways. Instead of just enjoying the game as a hobby and tossing $20 at it per month. You’re now investing, keeping track and engulfing your life into that game trying to staying ahead of the markets and other players.
You tend to leverage your understanding of economics and accounting. That means charts and excel sheets for looking at the data! You could also be keeping track of inventory, ROI, turnover rate, item values. supply, demand and any other data they can get your hands on.
You are also spending a lot of time doing research, conducting testing to gather data. Building relationships with whale spenders who are just there for a good time. Working with resellers, setting up shops and the list could go on and on.
These days I just prefer the more content end of things. Staying up till 4 AM to make an item trade with someone in another time zone for a couple of bucks is long behind me.
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Screenshots and content are written by @enjar.
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