When we started out it really seemed like things would be developed faster, I admit I was quite naive but I think the price decline of Hive when other top coins performed well hit many of us by surprise and caused delays/survival mode on. I'm happy we've managed to get a few long-term delegators who will hopefully be well rewarded once things start taking shape but at the same time it's sometimes difficult to understand the lack of support from others when all this time they could've just sold the zing from delegations for a profit as long as the team and development could get funded in the same pace.
It is what it is, though, even if we couldn't get as much support as we would've needed at times it's nice to be able to fund it in different ways now and I'm looking forward to be able to continuously do that in the near future.
Yeah, I guess we've all been taken by surprise by the lack of positive price action of most alts, not just HIVE. I suppose people got burned enough times both on Hive but maybe more often broadly in crypto, to support long term a project they "couldn't see", even though maybe they trusted the core team (and they should have). The deteriorating situation from Splinterlands (but not only them) for a good while probably didn't help as a constant reminder of what could happen with a Web 3 game, even after being successful.
To be honest, I don't believe these alpha vial sales should have come sooner, as I don't think you would have been close to testing the game during the bitcoin halving run, no matter how much funds you would have had. And it is important the sentiment in the crypto markets when you launch, especially now when the narratives shifted away from Web 3 gaming, to a good degree. For that, it is good that you mentioned that the game could work at least partially for the Web 2 players, It is a shift some are trying to make now with a finished product, and it's definitely harder than with a new one.