Ok fam, we need to talk. I’ve been watching this Steemmonsters phenomenon for a while now with a healthy skepticism and I gotta say, it smells like Beanie Babies in here. The first red flag for me was how they were selling cards like hotcakes, talking about how valuable they are, for months before there was any kind of playable game. How can you know something is valuable if you don’t even know what it is? I’ll tell you. You just trust the guy selling it to you. Rarely in history has that been a good idea. I was also skeptical about digital products being worth real money, but considering bitcoin, Team Fortress Hats, and World of Warcraft gold, I decided to give Steemmonsters an honest chance.
Everyone on Steem has that little goblin hiding somewhere in the back of their brain worrying this is all a house of cards that can fall down at any minute five seconds after all the whales swim off to the island they just bought with our money. For that reason the Steem community is fiercely protective of our ecosystem.
Shenanigans here are met with great vengeance and furious anger. I don’t know what percentage of posts here are people dissecting what makes Steemit good or bad and offering ideas to correct the bad, but it’s a lot. For this reason too, I was willing to give Steem Monsters an honest chance. Well, the game is out now and I gotta say, it smells like Beanie Babies in here.
I’ve been watching people with sky high reputations and fat wallets jerk off Steem Monsters ever since the idea was born, and more so since the “playable” game came out. I’m not saying they are being paid to hype this game…I’m saying I HOPE they are being paid to hype this game because if this is what honestly passes for a good game to them their heads are going to literally explode when they discover Old Maid.
Lets look at the game.
So our options are: buy cards, open cards, buy and sell cards, look at cards, battle (which is the fifth option, tucked up at the top of the screen instead of the focus of the game), and the leaderboard.
Here is my collection. You see all those numbers and shit all over the cards? Can you guess what they mean? Are those cards good? Fuck if I know. One of them has a 6 on it so that must be good.
Thankfully, after you click the BATTLE button you are presented with a page for the rules.
You are given another chance to buy more cards before you find out what they do.
The rules are: Higher numbers are better than lower numbers. You know, why bother doing what every other successful battle card game in history has done and give some kind of story or description. Steem Monsters is too busy counting their money to come up with back stories for their cards like Magic The Gathering or every one else.
Now you battle. The battle is treated almost as an afterthought to buying cards, because it is.
Don’t worry about keeping track of the vaguely outlined stats and abilities. The game plays itself. In fact, it even gives you the option to not bother watching the match at all. The cards flop around for a minute, giving you the impression that something is happening, and then the match is over and you can buy more cards. Don’t worry about activating your abilities or hoping to have any control or interaction with this game. This ain't that kind of party. That level of development would make this an actual game, which it isn't.
At least Angry Birds had the decency to make a better version of Crush the Castle when it stole every single thing about the game in their horrific, greedy money grab. Steem monsters couldn’t even bother to copy the games it is ripping off. It just heard about tradable card games and used finger paints to slap some shit together to get your money. They already got 5 Steem from me for my starter deck, don’t give them yours. By every metric that people who measure games use, Steem Monsters is a Steeming pile of shit and you shouldn’t waste your money because your beanie babies won’t be worth shit in a year. Seriously, this game is offensive in its level of shameless greed and uninteresting unplayability. If you hear anyone saying good things about this game you should begin seriously questioning their integrity and/or sanity.
$rewarding 56%
Man, it's about a year and a half since I've been accused of scamming people, which was when I started the Minnow Support Project. And look how that turned out. People ruined by my actions... every single day by 800 free votes using 120k Sp bot. I'm so ashamaed.
Or also of the curation group I run, and the way I scam the chain by having a group of people manually curate good content with msp-curation or good people with msp-active. Or how I built an open source broadcast network called msp-waves and upvote the djs selfishly. My record on the chain is in dire need of a put-me-down. Thankfully you're here.
We've had about 70k games played in 4 days. I don't think that people find it a worthless steeming pile of shit as described. Most people describe teh game as highly addictive because they understand it and it's a shit ton of fun even in the very first stages.
What I think you're encountering is that the game is 5 days old and not every aspect of what we envision has been put in place yet because it takes time. I doubt that people feel like their alpha versions of Magic cards are useless and terrible because the game hadn't been as fully developed at that point. Personally, I think people will value these alpha and beta cards more than they did their magic cards.
Over the next two months we'll be releasing tournaments that are perodically level capped so players without much stake have a chance to earn. We'll be introducing daily rewards, and we'll add more variability and chance for interaction along the way. There are a handful of decent criticisms in your endless rant here, but mostly it's just asinine and impatience.
I think your readers will be disappointed a year from now when the cards have substantially increased in value because of the design of the combining features that decrease supply over time as more players are added. I know players who have already seen their cards increase in value by 50%. That's one of the best returns anywhere in crypto right now.
Personally I think you've done your readers a disservice by turning them off of a promising project at an early stage.
Anyway, best of luck on Steem, I'm sure how you approach and review new projects on the network will provide you tons of support and fans.
I think you will eventually create new and new cards. New game cards will always be slightly stronger than old cards. This is very noticeable if you do not go into the game for several months. Because of this, old cards will always depreciate and weaken before new ones. Tell me I'm wrong.
true
$rewarding 75%
The reward of this comment goes 100 % to the author aggroed. This is done by setting the beneficiaries of this comment to 100 %.
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That was a very diplomatic and even toned response to my vitriolic hit piece. You have my respect for that.
I sincerely hope you are right and I am proven wrong in the end. Scam isn’t the right word I should have used. I don’t think there is any malicious intent to defraud people, but there is a dangerous amount of hype inflating the perceived value of thes cards, which is certainly being encouraged. That hype is the driving force behind the game’s popularity. Magic the gathering was a solid game first, and became collectible much later after it had been an established institution. SteemMonsters boasted the value and collectibility before it was even a game. That should concern people. Any time I see something at the store with “collectors item!” Pasted on it I am skeptical. My concern is that by putting the hype before developing a more polished product you have created a bubble that will pop before you have the chance to make SteemMonsters the game it should be. If that happens, a lot of people are going to lose money.
Aside from calling the game a scam, most of your criticisms are spot-on. It was developed by two guys in their spare time over a few months. We were abundantly clear that the fighting would be automated from the very beginning, so if anyone is surprised by that, that's on them.
We are definitely taking advantage of the general hype around anything crypto/blockchain-related to raise money to do something that we would likely never have had the chance to do otherwise.
The game is poor at best right now, overly confusing, lacks any sort of help or tutorial for new players, and has no way to move up other than buying cards. We get that. The "bet", by those who have invested, is that it will improve in the future, dramatically.
Will it? I don't know. That's for each person to decide. All I can do is promise to do everything I can to make it happen.
I hope the development can catch up to the hype before people start getting burned out on the gameplay. You are obviously aware of the issues the game has. It seems like y’all got swept up in the excitement and put out the game before you should have.
Gamers are excitable but they are fickle and lose interest quickly, especially casual gamers. This is compounded by Steem being such a small community with new users not pouring in, and even then they take a while to build steem to invest or even fully understand the platform. You have a short window to make this game what it needs to be to be sustainable. MySpace was a global juggernaut one day, and forgotten the next.
On a side note, y’all seem like sincere guys so please don’t take my shit talking personally. I stand behind the points I made, but the bombastic vulgarity is just kind of my schtick.
Like I told aggro; I hope I’m wrong.
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So glad to see someone stand up and cry "Bollocks"!
It is mind boggling that more people aren't saying this. Thank you for standing with me on the side of reason.
Ten points to Gryffindor for using the word Bollocks.
Never mind the Bollocks, here's the... wait yeah nah not a relevant time to bring up the Sex Pistols.
Great post tho', love your thing... the thing where you ughh put letters together to umm make words and form sentences... yeah.. your writing style and attitude! Way to go!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Come back often. We have a pot-luck luncheon every Tuesday.
Some years ago I was reading HELLBLAZER like a crazy addict, and every time J.C. said "Bollocks!" I secretly smiled in my heart :)
Highly rEsteemed!
To be fair, old maid was a great game.
Bahahahahahahaaaa!
This is the first I've heard of it and man am I glad it is. This post was hilarious. I'm sorry you lost 5 Steem on it. Thanks for the laugh!
At the time of writing this comment the payout for this blog is 7 steem, so I guess my 5 steem was a good investment. Also totally worth it to hear I gave someone a chuckle.
When I saw the battle is automated
Thank god I'm not alone here.
It is, for now, but that is set to also change in the future and be more engaged.
I hope they can do it in time. Promising a product, delivering a bad one, and telling people it will get better is a bad business model.
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I wouldn't say that a "bad one" has been delivered. First of all, it was made pretty clear that there are many adjustments yet to still be made. People were anxious to play more than I can even describe, they put out the version that is currently available, most of us love it. Yes, it could be better, and it will be. I have all the respect in the world for the developers of this game, they have been there asking questions and listening to feedback from the community all along. The biggest reason this game will be successful is because of that, because it gives the players a chance to be a part of how the game is actually developed, which is incredible to me!
When someone just hands me a game and says "Here, play it." I see all kinds of things about it that I wish I could change, but I'm unable to since the game is already made and the developers couldn't care less to hear my opinion about it. Steem Monsters is the complete opposite! If you think there is something about the game that could be better, or needs to be fixed, you can speak your mind and actually be heard! This is beautiful! I don't think you realize just how much potential this game has because of this one simple aspect of it. To be honest, this game could turn into the best game in the world, because it's basically being created by everyone who invested in it.
Many of whom are avid card players, from poker to MTG and beyond, we've got them all in our community. The game has progressed incredibly fast considering the amount of work left up to mostly @yabapmatt and @aggroed and I commend them for the incredible job they have done when it comes to delivering on what they have actually "promised".
Hopefully one day Steem Monsters will change your mind and you will come back with your woes and tell your story about just how wrong you were, and I'll be looking forward to personally welcoming you into our fun and what has been a very family-like community.
One last thing, if there is a way to maybe change the title of this post so it doesn't say scam on it that would be great because I feel like it's pretty harsh considering the amount of work being put into it daily by many people (myself included). Thanks!
Take care!
I was on the band wagon. I did and still do want this game to succeed. I'm not just hating for the sake of being a troll. Games are a great way to expand the block chain and make it accessible to everyone.
The problem is, every game gets feedback and input from people. That's what beta testers are for. I have no problem with putting the game out in a beta testing version. My problem is the aggresive fashion that it has been pushed as an investment. A lot of people lost a lot of money last year because of people screaming, "Blockchain, Crypto, Invest" because of hype with little substance. I don't think these guys are lining their pockets and laughing, but they are playing a very dangerous game with other people's money. There are cards up for sale on the market right now for thousands of dollars. The fact that the developers aren't stopping that is irresponsible and reckless.
I would encourage anyone reading this to show the game to someone who has no stake or opinion on Steem, let them play it, and then ask them if they would pay $1000 for one of the cards.
Again, I'm not just some hater on the internet. I am concerned for people who are putting their hard earned money into this game because they look at it as an investment. People lost a lot of money in the 90's investing in new comic books because old ones were valuable.
Now I see people investing money in this card game because other old ones are valuable. People invested in beanie babies because they were told they were valuable. This worries me greatly because I don't want to see people get hurt. This should not be being sold as an investment.
The game has a limited amount of replay value. People will get burned out and stop playing, then they'll sit back and hold on to their investment cards. With fewer people playing, fewer cards are sold and used. Cards are valuable beause people want them. If they aren't using them, the demand disappears, along with the value. Then people are stuck with thousands of dollars worth of cards that nobody is buying, making them worthless.
Yeah sure, but you can't use comic books to win tournaments with, daily, weekly or monthly. Not to mention pvp comic books? Beanie baby tournaments? I suppose it's possible, but has nothing to do with Steem Monsters.
As for the prices, nobody is asking you to buy their $1,000+ cards right off the bat. Newcomers are steered toward a starter pack and maybe some booster packs.
Steem Monsters is not selling cards for $1,000+.. Individuals are. And that's perfectly fine because it's a commodity much like many others and they have the right to list their hard earned cards on the free-market for whatever price they think is reasonable.
The cards are almost impossible to get in some cases, many people spend thousands of dollars just to get them, why wouldn't they ask thousands of dollars for one? I can tell you one thing for sure, with the plans set for this game, I wouldn't sell any of my gold legendary cards yet. (If I had any, I stupidly sold my only one I somehow got lucky enough to get.) Why would I, if I can use them soon to win tournaments?
It seems really early to be saying some of the things you've said, again, in my opinion. If you don't want to spend a bunch of your money, then don't. But like many other games you will find on Kickstarter, this one is still in the works. Unlike many other games on Kickstarter, these guys have come through.
If they can make this game the way it is and implement the ideas thus far, what's to stop them from making all the necessary changes? Just a little time is all. I know it seems like a long time coming but it's closer than ever.
I think you are looking at a fetus and wondering why it's not a fully functioning adult yet. It's just not possible, give it a month, maybe two, you'll see. There are many plans on the roadmap.
Let the game grow up a little bit, it's a week old. This isn't Magic the Gathering yet but (in my humble opinion) it has the potential to be even better. With your support and constructive criticisms there's a good chance the game could be even better. I'm sure you have some great ideas too, why not share them?
I don't know if it is a scam or money grab, but as a game it is not a big deal. It is a bit addictive at first but only for a couple of days. Then you realize that it is as Pay2Win as a game can get. The only way to get better at the game is by getting better cards, as the only thing that matters is the higher numbers and the better effects. And the only way to get better cards is to buy them with money from the marketplace;
if you have the money you can get the best cards, and that's it. I don't like this design at all.
And combat is automated, for crying out loud!
If it was an actual fun, playable game that would be one thing, but it's not. You can play a hundred games like it online for free that are better. If the game isn't worth playing, people won't play it. People are only buying the cards because they think they will be worth money. As long as there is hype, they will be worth money. With no good game, people stop playing, the hype goes away, value disappears, people are left with worthless ones and zeros on a server somewhere.
I'm kicking my self for not thinking about the pay2win aspect when I was writing this. Thanks for pointing that out.
Yes, yes... now drop it, you are in fact pitching Old Maid, right?! :) Seriously, design-wise, kids at a high-school project should do better.
That’s hilarious. I commented on one of the Steemmonster pushers blog that it looked like a high school class project. I guess that means we’re best friends now.
Thanks for that post. I was suspicious from the very beginning. But even now, when the obvious is coming out, noboby (except you) is talking about it. Unlike all other aspects of Steemit which are inflationary repeated over and over. This tells a lot.
It has been really weird how everyone is rallying around this game. I've seen people get worked up into a mob over a lot less around here. I didn't want to be the first person to break out their pitch-fork because I didn't want a bunch of whales flagging me, and drama isn't really my thing, but it's just been bugging the shit out of me so I figured, fuck it. Something something quote evil is when good men do nothing.
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Thank you! I’ve been waiting for someone to notice that. I probably spent more time on that than actually writing the blog. I was giggling like a schoolgirl the whole time. Also, I was drunk.
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I was literally crying when I saw those tabs, couldn't even read the post until I stopped laughing
Those kind of comments are what keep me going. Thanks.
5 steem?
You actually did it?
Forget that, I have a rainbow going cheap - with colors!!! - for only 230 steem..
...bless.
lolol
(followed)
Honestly, I was hoping I would get a "rare" card that I could turn around and sell before everyone figured out they were buying smoke.
You need a rare rainbow, my friend....step into my office...
What an amazing opportunity! If you also have an opportunity for me to generate income selling essential oils too, then it's my lucky day.
Then it is indeed, your lucky day...at the end of each rainbow (at both ends!!!) is an essential oil , pump- you can bottle your own! (all of them are available)
agree on the unplayebilety still now evan in beta
Glad it never peaked my interest. 5 STEEM saved
They have single cards going for a thousand dollars. God have mercy on the soul of anyone gullible enough to buy them.
JFC I feel the same way about "Steemonsters"
Never had the inclination to look into it deeper; happy to hear it's a card game.
Please comment on a recent post of mine - happily I'm a legit @madgoat fan so this ain't wannabe clickbait. I maximum upvote this post, but won't because it's past the payout phase.
"Steemonsters!"
Probably stupid bullshit, but I have a life, so I legitimately don't care.
Thank you for voicing my feelings. 🙂
I bought theBeta Pack only and I'm reluctant in buying more because I fear I can't regain that money. :(
Save your money bro.