Earning Strategies in Cryptogaming

Last update:16.12.2019

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For a long time I was planning to write this article with thoughts or not. Maybe I didn’t want to share secrets, maybe it was just laziness 🙂 But still I decided to do it because I am glad with all my heart for popularizing games on the blockchain, and it’s just hard for a newcomer to adapt here and, like trading, there is a risk of losing money ... or make money. Basically, the article is more focused on beginners, but there are some chips that will be useful to advanced and experienced crypto gamers.

For those who actively follow the development of the industry and hear the statements of crypto pioneers or representatives of companies such as Coinbase, OPSkins, it is probably no longer a secret that the first step towards Mass Adoption will most likely be cryptogaming, which will allow most people to learn the technology better in a playful way. blockchain, and perhaps even adapt it to the real world. It is in games that the most digital property and rights are created, control over which can be ensured using the blockchain. But first things first.

There will be 2 parts in the article: I - Description or water, but water is also important, we generally consist of ~ 70% water, so whoever needs it - enjoy. II is the part that will help you create your strategy.

I part
What is cryptogaming?

For myself, I position cryptogaming as a new type of earning cryptocurrency along with trading and mining, combining a serious approach from trading and fun, excitement from gaming, but which is still at the very early stage of its formation. When I first heard that a user can own their gaming assets, I realized that this has a potential even higher than that of crypto trading!

In some games, with modest indicators of the total number of players, the daily volume in the domestic market reaches hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some millions of dollars in turnover. The same eth.town (see screenshot). At that time, the price of ETH was ~ $ 500. But it’s also important to understand that there are not completely pure schemes for cheating these volumes and the number of players. Therefore, 100% cannot rely on this information.. Some record sales of game assets in my memory:

Cryptokitties 600 ETH or ~ $ 171000;
Axie Infinity 50 ETH;
Doperaider 40 ETH.

These are just a few examples. In addition to the same trading in the domestic markets, you can earn crypto even for completing various tasks or fighting.

PvP with an adversary or PvE, use the daily income from your business in some kind of monopoly or deductions from the game items rental market, or you just want to buy rare items at the pre-order stage and then sell them more expensive after the game is released. Near-game methods of earning money by consulting or evaluating game assets are developing, and indeed, the methods of earning money here are limited only by your imagination, the imagination of game developers and, accordingly, the limitations of the game economy.

Ownership of game assets and even the accumulated experience in the game passes from developers to users, and the blockchain is right there. This is essentially the same property as the one that surrounds you now. At the same time, it is not worth counting on the fact that large companies from the gaming industry will so simply want to give up control over financial flows. In my opinion, blockchain startups will form the environment. It is worth hoping for them and expecting that directly “on the go” you will be able to earn large sums is also not worth it.

How much can you earn?

In some crypto games, you will be able to earn, and in some not. You need to come to terms with this and try to limit losses. Earnings depend on various factors and may amount to (at the time of the game process):

sometimes 10 ETH per month;
sometimes 1 ETH per month;
sometimes in a minus.

My bar for success in terms of earning opportunity is $ 5-8 / hour when I hit the top players. This does not mean that you will receive this amount every hour. You may take a long time to go to one mega sale. I take all profit in the game / time spent on the game. Always try to get into the top players. I'm targeting Pareto principle 20 / 80, ~ 5% -20% of players earn ~ 70-90% of all money for players.

What is important to consider?

It is important to consider that there are different genres of games in which you may not be strong, game mechanics, the popularity of a particular game, the release date of the game, what the economy is based on, what weight the randomness factor in the game is, the size of your donation (investing in game). Someone is good at trading, someone is a good shooter or an excellent strategist, and therefore can earn their own skills.

II part
Recommendations:

Test crypto games and enter at an early stage, well, or in the first week after release. Firstly, as a rule, tests of crypto games are free, and when testing a game, you can understand the mechanics of the game and what the economy is based on, where and how you can earn money and, based on this, think over which strategy you will use. Secondly, from the very start of the game, all participants are in approximately equal conditions and there may not be a clear leader. There is an opportunity to become one, which can bring substantial dividends in the future.
Follow the news and look in advance at interesting projects, so as not to miss the moment.
If you invest in a game before its release, then you need to collect and analyze information about the developer, there are always risks.
Track indicators “to change something, you need to calculate or measure it first”.
Risk management. Yes, yes, and here he is.
Take into account the commission platform.

Here you can go directly to 4 paragraph. Firstly, I track the performance of the crypto game itself on various dapp trackers like DappRadar or State of the DApps.

To date, the most common indicators:

DAU (Daily Active Users);

MAU (Monthly Active Users);

Volume 7D (Volume under the contract dappa);

The number of transactions.

To determine the level of engagement into the game and that people are still ready to buy something there. I share DAU / MAU. I set the bar at 0.3 - an excellent result in cryptogaming. There are no established values yet, but analyzing, for myself, I have deduced exactly this bar while it is. Example EOS Knights = 0,51 while last month the figure was about 0,4, the number of users is growing, which means you can still earn something and the developers are introducing some elements related to the middle and late stages of the game. CryptoKitties = 0,1 I won't get there anymore. Blockchain Cuties = 0,35 is also an excellent indicator, despite the fact that this is not a new game, something new constantly appears in the game. But in my beloved DopeRaider there is already 0,19, where I sold the character for a long time, and recently there was a sale of the character for about $ 10000, this may indicate that earnings are over there.
DAU / MAU can be high, but it’s important to keep track of volume which runs under the contract of the game. If the volume is low, then perhaps the players are buying something, but for small amounts. Therefore, it is better to filter by volume / number of transactions or by volume / number of users. Better to take the result in a week. For example, EOS Knights are among the leaders. Currently, one transaction accounts for only 0,013 EOS, and approximately 0,6 EOS per user per day. The amounts are extremely small. On average, we believed that successful players, not even in the top, but somewhere near the top, make 1 EOS per day there.
There is no need for any active actions from the user. 3 takes about an hour a day.
What do we end up with on EOS Knights? Involvement is high, trading mainly in cheap goods. I don’t really like when in games you can generate an infinite number of characters or goods. An increase in supply greatly reduces the price of goods and can reduce the interest in the game on the part of players who care about earnings, and if you can’t do without it, it would be nice to burn such items (this was done in Token Tycoon) and translate it into something else or so that they have an expiration date, if of course it is possible to implement it technically, or to limit the number of generations based on the growth in the number of users. In general, there is a separate topic for discussion.
If you take MegaCryptoPolis, then there is 2 EOS per transaction or 15 EOS per user per day. In this game, you can probably make good money, but be careful, there may be a high threshold for entry and the leader pool is already full, and you can simply pay someone a “banquet” with your donate. It is necessary to strictly determine for yourself the amounts that you are willing to irrevocably spend on one game.
The cost of your game - this is the entire amount of money spent on the game for the entire time, including commissions. I count as follows: my entire bank, which I have allocated for cryptogaming / 20. In case of failure, you will spend 5% of the entire deposit and stop, here you can draw an analogy with classic trading, where 1% risk per trade is included, in cryptogaming there are slightly different indicators. And so, so smoothly, we moved on to risk management.

Risk Management

Risk / Reward Better mortgage from 1: 5. If you spend 0,5 ETH, then squeeze everything out of the game until you receive an amount exceeding the initial investment by 5 times or more, if you managed to get into the top players. Most likely, you will merge your invested money or barely get out in 0. You will probably be in 2-s from 3-x games. But it is better to limit the loss. Remember: you always need to strive to get into the top, but it is important to manage money carefully and be able to stop so as not to waste the entire deposit. If it doesn’t work, then it’s better to leave funds for another game. Remember the excitement! Do not exceed the maximum risk per game.
About crypto game cost I'll tell you more. This is essentially your stop. For example, I'm ready to spend a maximum of 1 ETH on testing an unknown game. I divide this amount in half. No more than 0,5 ETH should be the amount to overcome the entry threshold (character or something else) + 0,5 ETH amount for donations (including commissions) in order to get an advantage in the first week of the game. Usually, it is difficult to get some working capital in the first week.

Total 1 ETH in the first week was spent on our expenses and this is not more than 5% of the entire game bank.

* After the first week, evaluate your chances.

Further, you have most likely adapted, understood all the rules of the game and developed some tactics or even a strategy.

If it doesn't work out, then think about a profitable resale while there is a hype or wait for the best moment for this. If you managed to gain a foothold in the top, then in the second week you can reduce the donation size by half, while most likely by the end of the second week you will reach a plus or even double, or sometimes even triple the initial investment. In general, ROI should be 0% -100% normal, 100% + excellent. Further, it depends on the mechanics of the game, it is possible to maintain the donation at a certain level and gradually decrease it, at the minimum viable level. It is undesirable to slow down too much, but it is also important to take into account that the involvement of participants in crypto games, as a rule, is short-lived. At least for today. Some games last only a couple of months, some are generally disastrous and you will not be able to earn there. In the future, I am sure the lifespan of the project will grow!

On the threshold of entry, I like it more when the cost of a character fits in 0,1-0,3 ETH + 0,1-0,3 ETH for donation in the first week, but not always my “Wishlist” converge with reality.

Maybe some of you will think: “Hey, why are all these troubles, these are just games ?!” Crypto-games can cost you much more and believe that it is such a serious approach that distinguishes earnings from unpredictable, big losses.

COUNCIL

Do not sell the character ahead of time if it brings you income. During the hype, he will still bring you good dividends, but when the DAU / MAU engagement rate starts to fall and stay below 0,2 for a week, then you can already think about selling.

Commission

The most sensitive issue today. In my tests of some games where the battle system is not optimized, a lot of money came out on commissions of $ 2000-3000 for 2 weeks, for about 8000 transactions, with the same potential earnings. It’s good that all this took place in test networks, with free airtime, and not on the mainnet (main network).

In EOS, transactions are “shareware”. Conditionally, because each transaction consumes network resources that are allocated to you based on the amount of tokens delegated by you (STAKED). 10-20 EOS is enough for a comfortable game when EOS is not overloaded (I’ve got crazy that it happens), when the network is overloaded, 50 may not be enough. Here it is better, of course, to make sure that you have at least 100 EOS steak. All the same, they are not spent, but simply on 72 hours become illiquid.

My best crypto game experience was on the POA Network. The cost of the commission compared to the broadcast is, on average, 4000-10000 times cheaper, the formation time of the 5 block is seconds. I recorded this video here on the example of the game Everdragons.

This is what I wanted to share with you! I hope both parts were informative and useful for you. Cryptogaming is more interesting than you think and may not be inferior in earnings than crypto trading, but it is also much more dangerous than trading, since there is much more excitement here. In trading, the same dynamics is always the same: up, down, to the right. Here everything is different, you can get carried away, get angry and spend more than you expected ... or earn.