To be fair, the game looks a lot a like a ponzi, when playing I have asked myself that same question.
What you did not do in your response is explain why it is not a ponzi, or how it is sustainable. I am not sure a ponzi is a problem here, since it is just a game.
Great job on making such a successful game by the way.
My understanding so far is that since resources become more and more expensive, it actually works the other way around in that the big players pay the little ones....
It may be a pyramid scheme but it's fun. I don't know that it has to be a pyramid scheme as that is really up to the developers to decide. Do they want to make big money for a longer period of time or see DrugWars replaced by a sustainable copycat project?
Why it is not a ponzi?
A ponzi scheme is a form of fraud which lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors by using funds obtained from more recent investors. [wikipedia]
As we mentionned DrugWars is a game, not an investment scheme, and since its free to play game, it is by essence the total opposite of a ponzi scheme because it will allways dilutes the benefits of the game to all players...
Each time that you buy something in game, you accept automatically the fact that someone can have the same thing for free, just with some patience. Pretty same when you play any other free to play game right?
The big difference here is obviously the rewards and some people are focusing too much on this. Fortunately, they don't represent the majority of our community and we have plan to give a greater focus on the strategy.
How it is sustainable?
With a competitive gameplay and different revenue stream. But also with different adjustement to the rewarding mechanism, to make the game more attractive for competition and maybe less for investment. We already made an adjustment some days ago and will do it each time that is necessary.
Let be honest games which are played by tons of players are in majority pretty good games. Just to give one name, clash of clan. It is highliy detailled and well made, we cant compare it with DrugWars ofc. But do you think the company behind this game (Supercell) started with clash of clan or with those amazing graphics that you can see in most of their games? I believe that they made many games before that.
Good things takes time, like a good wine ;) and the fact is that you have 2 of the most talented devs of this ecosystem backed by a strong team (in my opinion ofc), working on this project to make it great.
Don't hesitate to join our discord and give your suggestions or feedbacks about the game : https://discord.me/drugwars
Thank you hightouch.
I certainly do not understand the mechanics, but competition makes a lot of sense. I guess when the battles come in this will bring more of that into the mix, i would think.
I am very excited to see a game take off like this on
The game is clever and fun, but I suggest you work on the economics to make sure you can grow to millions of users without the economy collapsing. If you do that then you could do well. Perhaps consider making an SMT of some sort or leverage upvoting?
You could also leverage advertisements to create a profit engine for the game as well. How many people have thought of that?