Steem Monsters: A business case study in the value of the Steem ecosystem
So, a few days ago on the Steem Witness Forum @andrarchy spoke a bunch about key value propositions of Steem to businesses. So here are the two big ones. A fully functional blockchain to build off of and an active community to draw from. These two things are absolutely critical to the initial success of Steem Monsters. We're at around $12k in packs sold in 10 days. I mean... that's a dream come true for any small business let alone one that just started and is still in alpha!
Functional Blockchain
There are a few points I'd make here. There's a game called Crypto Fighter. I have a bunch of their players in my discord sharing just how stoked they are not ot have to pay fees on Eth just to play the game. Every action over the costs gas and gas costs money. So especially when the chain is active you gotta spend money to just play normal activities. That isn't cool and the folks are sharing they are pumped to not have any transaction fees. Also, they complain about how slow Eth is. Steem is free to transact on and has transaction times in the seconds. That's pretty bad ass.
But that point is more about working well. More fundamental than that is that it works. I didn't have to build a blockchain to run this project. I just hopped on Steem, sent a couple custom json operations on the chain, and bada bing bada boom: Steem Monsters. Figuring out how to get an API to function is way simpler and way more cost effective than building a whole blockchain for a single app. So, I'm stoked to have spent relatively little on equipment, not have to run a full rpc for this, and be able to get up and running in a couple months of design and programming work.
Community
We have 60k active users every day. I have something like 300-500 customer so far. There's plenty of room for me to tap into this ecosystem. If I can make 11k in a little over a week with just 300-500 customers imagine what's going to happen as we expand and have a fully functional game. So, that's on the extraction side of things... but I also want to think about what this game can do for the community. In the not too distant future appbase and rocksdb is gonna be implemented by the witnesses, and then we can start growing without breaking technology limits of full RPCs having to run on 1 TB servers. So, at that point Velocity (a future hardfork that will allow mining new accounts into existance for free) will be released.
So, before people would buy packs. Now we mine a new account into existence, give players their own account, and then get them cards to get started. This game becomes a portal to onboard folks into the Steem ecosystem. Now we're building community and growing the platform. That's epic!
There are very few other options
I'm not even sure what other chain I'd work on. I guess maybe it would be ethereum, but I'm already geting complaints about that one. So, besides being a witness that ideologically believes in this place, I'm not even sure where else I'd try to make something like this. Maybe EOS in the future, but that thing isn't even working yet, and there is a dev community, but no userbase...
But I'm not worried about that. I'm just stoked to get this thing off the ground and rolling! I guess not just off the ground but really freakin' launched. It wouldn't be possible without the active Steem Community or without the blockchain tech that's running in the background.
I've said for a while there are two key roles for witnesses: dev and community
I think this project highlights the need for both. I couldn't get this far without a working chain and a smart dev to build the product. It wouldn't take off if there wasn't a commitment to story, community, and the social aspect like trading etc. This is why dev skills and community building is so freaking important. Both working together is the backbone of a successful system.
A request for a witness vote
If you don't know yet @yabapmatt is the dev working on this project with me. If you believe in the power of Steem Monsters to not just extract value but return a lot value to the blockchain then I need your help to get @yabapmatt higher up on the witness list. I'm dreaming of the day he can quit his job and work on this and other Steem projects full time. It's gonna be awesome. He's so talented, I need him, and he needs votes. So, I'm shilling. Please send some witness voting love his way.
This graphic was made by @omitaylor! Woot! Great work!
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How do we know you'll not escape from steem blockchain like Vice and Appics?
I'm a witness. I'm not going anywhere. I built MSP from scratch. I've spent 2 years here. I have 20k followers. There are no life guarentees, but I have zero intention of leaving. This is my digital home!
I'm glad to hear this.
I supported many projects in the past with my upvotes. Most of them are gone.
Do you think that steem is ready for your game?
Yes, and more so when appbase and rocksdb are implemented.
What's the deal with Appics... it's not gonna use Steem now?
They have ICO on ethereum. But you never know where they gonna launch their app.
Thanks for the shoutout! I was literally floored when I saw the collage get circulated. That's wonderful. My kids absolutely adore the game cards and this brings me back memories of MTG. Nostalgic. I know it's going to be a great hit. I can't wait for the social media accounts to get rocking. Yay!
You and @yabapmatt have my vote!
I'm not into this kind of game myself, I did try Hearthstone and ended up spending far more than the initial purchase in the short time it took me to get bored.
Regardless, I think this is a great idea and I agree with your assessment above. I've never been much of a FB user but I know a good many people that signed up without any particular interest because "everyone else was doing it". Some of those stuck around long enough to "get it" because the likes of Farmville and similar games that were so prevalent back then and kept them logging in.
This could work for Steem as well but I see one potential difference there that may not exist here as things progress. Everything was integrated, and I don't just mean at the back end, so you couldn't play a game without seeing that someone or other was poking you or liking something.
At the moment if you are a steemit.com user you will tend to come across this additional stuff but that is not guaranteed, depending on the accounts you follow. As people get onto this blockchain via other avenues like this game it is not immediately obvious that all of these services are related. It's early days yet but going forward, I think it will be in the best interest of all involved to nudge people towards also using the other services based on Steem. For example you could implement a simple way to upload a replay of a match as a Dtube video and possibly even share the link to a FB group or something, if that can be done with a couple of clicks, it will be used.
Obviously you need a functioning game first and you have probably already considered this type of thing but it's usually worth keeping things like this in the back of your mind during the design phase.
I'm all in favor of getting talented people out of the corporate rat race and into the blockchain space full time, so I've been voting for you since I read you had done that on a interview with @jerrybanfield if I recall? I will witness vote @yabapmatt now for the same reason.
Am I the only one having a problem getting a witness vote to stick? It appears on the UI but on a refresh it disappears and does not appear on steemdb? It happened to me last week and I assumed I used the wrong key or something on the first attempt...anyway I'll sort it out later, almost late for work :P
I guess I was....worked first time when I got home :/
The value proposition of building on the Steem blockchain has always been there. More things will bubble up to the surface to show the true power of this blockchain as we go. We are just at the start. Great game @aggroed.
I bet it took a little more than that ;-)
But anyhow, let me congratulate you on this great idea and succes you have with it; much deserved for the joy the game gives people even now! I got a starter pack and one expansion and already scored a legendary!
You are already on my witness list, and I'll add @yabapmatt right now!
Thanks again @aggroed! Keep up the good work! :-)
I just imagine Steemmonsters becomes as popular as for example Yu-Gi-Oh... imagine millions of kids worldwide joining Steemit for just playing Steemmonsters and find a totally world-changing blogging concept - me get a little dizzy ^^
I added my vote to @yabapmatt. Excited about the future of Steem and Steem Monsters. Looks like fun. @ironshield
@aggroed i already gave @yabapmatt my vote and you as well. I would love to be involved to work on steem stuff full time as well and quit my day job. heres hoping to sugarsteem and these projects
I throw a shill plug in for @yabapmatt too. Even if I don't like bidbots, I do like the accountability and transparency that his site added. Also, like you said above I think he's very talented and I'd love to see this project blow up (in a good way).