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They are putting all payouts on their posts in the daily pool. This is not closing the 20% gap of course, but shows it can be closed or at least made smaller through some sort of ‘external’ funding.

Curious to see if you’re more or less motivated to launch your own version of drug/mafia wars ;-)

Posted using Partiko iOS

Unless they are making 64K+ steem via posts, it won't even remotely close the gap and that doesn't even factor in the many that will grossly exceed 100% ROI.

Indeed, posts won't be enough. Just making the point the game is not dependent on 'in game' spendings only.

I saw the team state on Discord 'don't play this game if you expect to make money from it' - should be reflected in the logo as well though :-)

the only thing I could see making a significant difference is if faction wars end up diverting a significant amount of Steem investment to buying troops. I mean you already see some of that with many of the largest initial investors dropping a ton of steem into troops - to whatever extent genuine rivalries and back and forth clan raids end up developing, I wouldn't be surprised to see larger players like bernie dropping a ton of steem on troops which basically subsidizes new players who just focus on drug production.

Yay for the untermensch that have better ROI than the rich. I would like to point you to my comment on the OP, which reveals that I have already attained an ROI above 100%.

I note that this bodes a future in which it is not scarcity, but abundance, which will impart power. You might well reflect on that aspect of the nature of Steem, as you could be one of the greatest beneficiaries of this new paradigm. Your current business model is the legacy which we have inherited from our forebears. You may find it possible to create a novel business model which profits from the potential of Steem to transcend that model. I don't doubt your ability to devise such, given your obvious intelligence.

It is certain that rebalancing will have to happen more than once going forward for Drugwars. It's also quite possible that you may be able to suggest other ways the devs might be happy to implement that potentiate greater ROI for well-heeled players like yourself. I hope you do.

I'd be bummed if I BTFO you and you took your ball and went home. I'd like to see a balance delicate enough that both of us were happily playing well into the future.

Wouldn't you?

Ads on the overview screen. Prime time ad space that DW could charge primo prices for. They have a lot of eyes on these pages. Shoot they could add a bar of adds on the left right and bottom. New advertisement bars on each tab. I bet we could sell 100/s of ad spots everyday within this game. We must accept ads tho.

"...We must..."

You're not the boss of me.

I note that ads have both potential benefits and drawbacks. Given how ads have corrupted MSM and captured platforms for propagandists and censors, introducing ads to DW could do the same to DW as it has to CNN: render it completely devoid of utility for it's original purpose.

While I'm not saying that it definitely would do that, it is possible. I also don't think increased revenue from ads is necessary, and very much doubt it would be worth the risk at this point in the game particularly.

There are values in society other than economic, and these other values are actually far more valuable than money. Folks focused on money are fain to agree with this, and that but reveals the dishonesty or foolishness many of that ilk are prone to.

Mike Tyson said Don King would sell his momma for a dollar. While I appreciate that many people seek financial reward, I note than almost none of them agree that whoring out their mothers is a profitable undertaking. This is strong evidence supporting my thesis that society has far more valuable features than it's economy.

We do not have to accept ads, and unless it is acknowledged that ads have drawbacks, accepting ads is sure to have detrimental impact on DW. Only rational consideration of both positive and negative potential of ads will enable them to be successfully part of the game, and it's entirely possible they could be.

It's also possible that they can't be, and I'm ok with that too.

Really? Imagine 100 ads every day, from different sponsors(off blockchain sponsors), bringing in USD. Plus a profile with cosmetics and this game just became massively profitable. Add in a merch store and we are solid!

Posted using Partiko Android

Also say there are 10 ads. 30,000 is chump change to a large corporation. I understand that is pipedream to get a corporate sponsor, but GFuel just might go for it lol.

Posted using Partiko Android

Well I play another game it's called last shelter survival. I spend like 25 euro a month on it because of the things I get a solar panel faster building etc. You can put much more money in it to get units faster...

Expect this in drugwars too you can choose to just upgrade your buildings or Rob people or do both. You get some crypto out of it.. There will be allways people who don't have the patience to build and just buy.

People could also invest now because it's in the early stage also with the apps coming up I expect also a PayPal or Google payoption in it so you buy stuff with fiat while you get crypto back in lesser form and depending on how good you play the game. But still it is a game...

No other game gives you fiat back they put it in their pockets and this golden option to distribute steem as crypto is a first of its kind.

Posted using Partiko Android

actually @themarkymark is right with his comments and calculations..
actually he would not even have to do such complex calculations..
just looking at the fact that there is a price pool that is funded by steem spend on the game and the fact that only 80% is shared leads to the fact that newer "investors" will have trouble getting a positiv return on their investment.
However I believe developers were aware of this and this is why they put in the exponentially increasing cost of upgrading buildings.
So this changes the equation quite a bit.
If this game really lifts off I would expect also old players to pay in steem to upgrade their buildings from time to time as they need more resources to perform in the game.
So a player has to decide if he is here for the ROI... then just spend wisely maximum 30 steem and no more and he might do OK.. or you are here to win in the game and you will probably have to spend a few hundred steem and will have trouble in getting a positive ROI...
at the end this will again be a fascinating economics 101 experiments.. as is steemmonsters.. and I am very much looking forward to the outcome..
I believe in regards to return it will be as important that you joined the game early as well as how attractive the actual game play will become..

However I believe developers were aware of this and this is why they put in the exponentially increasing cost of upgrading buildings.

This is standard for games of this type, although they seem to be really unbalanced in Drug Wars. For example, upgrades yield very little improvement and cost a ton and storage is extremely slow to upgrade and you need many levels over the upgrade you are doing. I think in one case you need like 16 storage to upgrade a level 4 or 5 building. And storage is times three as you have to upgrade three versions of it.

yes.. I totally agree!
And I am really looking very much forward once the whole game play is online how this will play out at the end..

I am actually more concerned about the possibility to have multiple accounts that benefit much more IRR wise from the lower cost at the beginning..
And this is a also a happy welcome for any kind of bots..

Lets see how the developers handle this...

I just broke even today (thanks !bookkeeping bot). But that was on 5 Steem.
Getting in and out early is the key with pyramid/ponzi schemes. Just like 'Buy low, sell high'; Early is one of those moments you can only discern in hindsight.
If this game explodes for 3 years and ends up with a billion players, then a guy who gets in a year from now is going to be real happy with his total ROI. If the money dries up tomorrow, the guy who paid in yesterday is going to feel like he was taken.
If the game was in any way hiding its nature I'd have boycotted on ethical grounds, but we all know what we're getting into.
Who knows, though. The devs might roll out some advertising or start moving merch; they're going to want to keep the gravy train running.

This IS a game, not a stock. I find it kinda odd that so many people are so focused on ROI in a game meant to deliver entertainment. It's an interest people have, I guess, so where it's an aspect of a game, it seems to capture their attention well.

I would love to see potential returns on investments added to many games, as I'd like to see how that impacts the communities playing those games. I wonder if there are games where adding such a feature actually causes current communities to dislike it. I bet such games do exist, and that experiments along these lines will reveal some fascinating things about society and how various communities view money and other societal values.

Something you don't discuss in your comment is that having better resources earlier in the game due to investing capital in it could make people glad they did it so that they can maintain an advantage over other players in gameplay dynamics. It seems possible that only the economic aspects of the game are interesting to you, given your comment. Steem's an interesting technological development that's creating new paradigms not only in social media and economics, but now gaming.

Enjoy!

hey cool I didn't know about bookkeeping bot :) Cheers

!bookkeeping drugwars well I did it too.. invest in the game early knowing I won't get it all back. Or in a year or so.

Hi @hans001!

drugwars

Received:

  • 88.975 STEEM from daily
  • 5.754 STEEM from heist
  • 0.019 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 336.188 STEEM

Total:

  • -241.440 STEEM

First transfer was before 13.16 days.
Your ROI per day is 2.14 % and you are earning approx. 7.20 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 33.5 days.

Cool I didn't know this was a thing. I'll have to try this.

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @birchmark!

drugwars

Received:

  • 0.169 STEEM from daily
  • 0.001 STEEM from heist
  • 0.007 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 0.498 STEEM

Total:

  • -0.321 STEEM

First transfer was before 10.41 days.
Your ROI per day is 3.41 % and you are earning approx. 0.02 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 18.9 days.

Hi @themarkymark!

drugwars

Received:

  • 9.083 STEEM
  • 161.943 STEEM from daily
  • 61.181 STEEM from heist
  • 22.155 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 845.262 STEEM

Total:

  • -590.900 STEEM

First transfer was before 12.65 days.
Your ROI per day is 2.38 % and you are earning approx. 20.11 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 29.4 days.

How close are you to breaking even now?

Knowing all that you have spent so much money?

!bookkeeping drugwars

Those who got in early will be fine. But if you make 100 Steem a day today you will make 7 in 30 days from now. By then it should be far more difficulty to “break even”

Hi @hotbit!

drugwars

Received:

  • 0.664 STEEM
  • 19.533 STEEM from daily
  • 7.954 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 16.269 STEEM

Total:

  • 11.882 STEEM

First transfer was before 10.74 days.
Your ROI per day is 16.11 % and you are earning approx. 2.62 STEEM per day.

Time to put my stats on the table then ...

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @elektropunkz!

drugwars

Received:

  • 0.543 STEEM
  • 50.922 STEEM from daily
  • 19.439 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 97.432 STEEM

Total:

  • -26.528 STEEM

First transfer was before 12.31 days.
Your ROI per day is 5.91 % and you are earning approx. 5.76 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 4.6 days.

My ROI = Downn, Spending $$$ is up, ... so, One more time then!

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @elektropunkz!

drugwars

Received:

  • 0.543 STEEM
  • 55.120 STEEM from daily
  • 22.601 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 118.746 STEEM

Total:

  • -40.482 STEEM

First transfer was before 15.42 days.
Your ROI per day is 4.27 % and you are earning approx. 5.08 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 8.0 days.

Please use one of the following keywords after !bookkeeping:

drugwars steemmonsters magicdice steemslotgames steembet

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @carlgnash!

drugwars

Received:

  • 4.142 STEEM from daily
  • 0.000 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 6.531 STEEM

Total:

  • -2.389 STEEM

First transfer was before 12.31 days.
Your ROI per day is 5.15 % and you are earning approx. 0.34 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 7.1 days.

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @pauliinasoilu!

drugwars

Received:

  • 0.098 STEEM from daily
  • 0.073 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 0.000 STEEM

Total:

  • 0.171 STEEM

First transfer was before 7.40 days.

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @runicar!

drugwars

Received:

  • 1.198 STEEM
  • 77.743 STEEM from daily
  • 24.620 STEEM from heist
  • 9.314 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 132.198 STEEM

Total:

  • -19.323 STEEM

First transfer was before 14.62 days.
Your ROI per day is 5.84 % and you are earning approx. 7.72 STEEM per day.
Break even in approx. 2.5 days.

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @carlgnash!

drugwars

Received:

  • 6.551 STEEM from daily
  • 0.903 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 6.531 STEEM

Total:

  • 0.923 STEEM

First transfer was before 16.07 days.
Your ROI per day is 7.10 % and you are earning approx. 0.46 STEEM per day.

!bookkeeping drugwars

Hi @carlgnash!

drugwars

Received:

  • 8.165 STEEM from daily
  • 2.441 STEEM from heist
  • 0.000 STEEM from referral

Spent:

  • 6.531 STEEM

Total:

  • 4.075 STEEM

First transfer was before 19.06 days.
Your ROI per day is 8.52 % and you are earning approx. 0.56 STEEM per day.

Good points and I’m glad someone said something. You have to understand the risks in games such as these when playing for an roi and only invest what you are willing to lose. I really enjoy DrugWars and hope they can figure out a way to keep it going.
I personally am playing for fun. I did invest about 40 Steem in my account but just to get it going to be able to play. I don’t plan on putting anymore Steem in myself and let my account grow on its own here on out. I actually spent my 40 Steem on Drugs, Weapons, and Alcohol to produce enough of everything without having to put more Steem in. Yesterday I earned 2.4 Steem as a reward today I got 2.1 Steem. I feel you have a better chance to earn actual Steem if you don’t put in to much.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Yeah, their current system is broken. They need to figure out some ways to get more money into the pool.

At least when battles are re-enabled, and the research whatever is enabled, it will more resemble a game that's something near fun.

A lot is riding on what they do with future development. That's not a good sign. Nothing in the current game suggests to me that there's much hope for the future. It's horribly unbalanced. Hopefully they'll re-assess the numbers on the cost of buildings and what they bring. That includes the costs of things. The cost spikes up rather dramatically once you get pretty up there. That does mean that players won't continue to buy things.

If they come up with things for normal players to continue to buy to improve their chances, that will make it slightly less of a ponzi.

Maybe i speak as a person who "got in early".

Since the very start i've been playing this game for the fun of it. Granted, i spam insta-upgrade everything while it was cheap for me to do so. I've sunk way more steem in other failed ventures.

Mafia wars was the shit back in the day and every moment i spend playing Drug Wars is a harken to 2010's nostalgia. That's the point of this game, putting classic internet games onto the blockchain, that in itself is something i'd support 100%.

I'd love to start reading rage posts by triggered retards about how "Drug wars is a scam" because they "can't make back the money" with zero regard of the game. If any of them are in my follow list i'd know who to unfollow.

Have fun!

Mafia Wars made a killing back in the day. I heard their monthly income was insane for games of that era. It's a great game and very fun, turning into an investment vehicle changes the tremendously and this hits one of the biggest pain points of crypto in general, how to create value.

We've all heard of the controversial Zynga and the insane amount of money they made in a short few years. It all change when VC got in and fucked it up though IMO.

One sentence about the early rise of Zynga got me.

From the perspective of investors, Zynga games were far too simple and looked very similar to shareware that was being developed at the time. (source)

Maybe Drugwars will fail, maybe it won't. I'm okay with either results. (again, speaking as someone who probably broke even so might be somewhat hypocritical).

Man, you're ruthless!

Enjoyed fully =)

Can we get a similar analysis of steem u-a?
I see you participate.
Is this not also a transfer from the newbs to the biggest accounts?

Those newbs would be better served by flagging spam for 125+% return on their vote value, imo.

Steem is diluting, but the lines will always be there.
Do you enrich the early adopters?
Or
Do you change the world for the newbs?

I like this moonsteem, it could teach the greedy bastards to control themselves.
I'm up ~11%.

As someone who is on Steem for other than financial reasons, I find it fascinating how the Steem community is approaching this game. I'm not playing it for financial reasons either, and await with bated breath how continuing development affect various communities playing. I see comments regarding it that show some folks are only playing it for financial reasons, and could care less about having fun, like they play the stock market.

It's really interesting, and I can almost feel my brain growing as I learn about society, economics, and people from this game.

I hope you're having fun too =)

Yep, all the accounts i made for people that still don't want them will have a built up dw account when they do want them.

I appreciate your analysis. I often rely on folks smarter than me to inform me of things I am incapable of doing for myself. This usually works out for me, as most folks are smarter than me and honest too.

However, I note one factor your analysis seems to have neglected, which is that players with thousands of units will take drugs from players without them. I will be amongst the latter. Taking drugs from other players will affect ROI, and players that take them will increase their ROI, while players losing drugs to armed thugs will see decreased ROI. Again, that will include me (an alt).

Lastly, I cannot lose money on this game. Ever. I have already earned more than I have invested, and if I refrain from injecting any more Steem, I cannot lose money. I did this purposely, so that I could gain from my entertainment, which is quite a novel feature of the technological revolution ongoing, and particularly of Steem and it's dapps.

While I cannot lose money, my continued interest in the game can be dispelled, if raids aren't handled well enough. I don't need to be immune from raids, but I do need to be able to continue to play with achievable goals without being so taxed by raiders that I cannot progress, and this will require some pretty careful balancing by the devs. I hope they have the requisite finesse to pull that off, as it seems pretty daunting to me.

Regardless of whether they can manage to keep the game playable for folks that CANNOT invest thousands of actual, real dollars - as some folks have already - which will be an amazing feat, I reckon they have already successfully pulled this game off, by showing the potential of Steem to enable such a novel paradigm as entertainment that can financially reward you for playing. This is a fascinating transcendence of historical paradigms, immense in it's implications, and not just for gaming or Steem.

It shows the amazing innovation that Steem, as well as @drugwars, is, and gives us a glimpse of a future where it isn't scarcity that enables power, but abundance. It's hard to overestimate the potential impact of this paradigm on things like government, war, and society in every aspect.

Can you address the significance of raids on ROI?

Thanks!

Is it just my impression or is that's an incredibly biased analysis coming from someone who spent a lot without putting any thought into it?

ponzi, new players

How can a game be a ponzi if new players can meet roi in a week? DRUGWARS is an actual game. You're acting like a noob complaining about the game being too hard, even if more skilled players have no trouble doing what you're failing to achieve. Oh, did you invest a lot? It's a game. Throwing money at games doesn't automatically make you win at it. That's not how most games work.

This is my post and it proves you wrong: How to win at drug wars - A ridiculously short guide to meeting ROI in less than a week

to me it looks like simple math. if 100 people have 100 apples, everyone has one, and they all put it together. now someone comes and takes 20 apples and remaining 80 gives back to all the 100 people. can everyone of that 100 people have 2 apples? or even just 1?

Posted using Partiko Android

can everyone of that 100 people have 2 apples? or even just 1?

Depends on the apple tree and it's caretaker.

It sounds like you don't understand the definition of a Ponzi.

At some point, that won't be true. It's still really early and early people will easily make ROI and in fact make well over the ROI.

The math is simple.

Let's say over the next year 1M Steem is spent on the game.

200K Steem goes to developers.
800K Steem goes to gamers.

How can everyone make ROI if the pool for gamers is only 800K yet 1M was spent? Now we are talking about one year later, the "early birds", those ones you speak of that can make ROI in a week, made well over their initial investment. This means new players get even less of the 80% to make their own ROI.

At some point the rate of new players slows down, as this happens, the amount of money to pay old players slows down dramatically. At some point (far less than a year is my estimation) there won't be money to give anyone an ROI that hasn't been in since the early days.

It's mathematically impossible, how can 100% of players make more than 100% of what they spend when they are getting paid with only 80% of the money spent.

This video does a really good job of explaining it all.

Is it just my impression or is that's an incredibly biased analysis coming from someone who spent a lot without putting any thought into it?

If you are insinuating I'm upset or feel ripped off, quite the opposite, I got in early and even though I spent almost 3K Steem I'll easily make it back. I am just a big advocate of transparency and being realistic.

I just want to point out that you're discussing a game. Your entire focus is on investment potential. I'm actually kinda stunned. I am urged to ask a bunch of questions about how you approach other matters, but I'm not going to, for reasons.

I just find it noteworthy that this is your approach to a game.

Have a profitable day!

Look at all the discussions about the game. They are all ROI and profit related. In fact even their logo clearly focused on making profit for playing.

Yet the entire game was build as a ponzi. I suspect not on purpose but more of lack of understanding and ability to add a value element.

I’m pretty confidident in saying 90% are playing purely for financial reasons.

I appreciate your considered reply, and you may not be wrong about 90%. I think you are, but have no metrics to substantiate my opinion, so won't argue the point. The situation is that this is indeed a game, and not a financial vehicle, so if you're right 90% of players are going to learn the difference.

It's very interesting to me to see a game being approached in this way, and I am learning much that will take me a while to grasp fully. It is pretty valuable to understand this particular dynamic going forward, as more games will certainly be made that have a financial component. It's one of the greatest of innovations Steem has brought into the world, and I can see it also impacting many other societal aspects.

Thanks for your substantive contribution to my understanding!

I believe @themarkymark's post was made to highlight how unsustainable it is if one should approach the game as a financial venture. I have full confidence that any "ponzi" element was accidental on the dev's part and now they are scrambling to fix the distribution and (more probably) the image of the game.

It's sold as a game, it did not tell you invest; but everyone 'invests' anyways, is it an investment vehicle now?

The solution is as simple as the dev investing something back into the game. He could invest 10 steem or he could invest 1 steem or make upvote partnerships. He can get ads. Either way, it's easy to solve. No, it won't solve the "problem" of people who have "invested too much", but games don't have to care about that.

Either way, it's easy to solve.

Uh huh....

Drug Wars has made 160K Steem. Dev take is 32K, this is also the gap between what people paid and the start of their ROI. Now most people (like you said yourself, you can make a profit in one week) expect to make money not just break even.

Where do you see them making up 32K while also taking a profit? But it isn't 32K. If you can pull an ROI in a week, what happens in 6 months from now when you made way way over your break even? Where does that money come from?

And another big problem will be the more or less inactive players because they are still receiving steem without doing anything for the game. And having an script doing all the stuff automatic is also kind of the wrong way for such a game.

Without an change of the reward system this game will die really fast.

There will be no new players in the future if you still have to invest 50+ Steem to accomplish anything. Atm the game is not really playable without investing Steem. You don'tearn enough ressources to build anything (have to wait multiple days for one building) and can't recruit enough troops to secure your little pile of drugs.

They will have to change the whole system to have an easy start and after that it slows down but atm we have a slow start and from that it gets very slow...

Posted using Partiko Android

Maybe a way to solve this is always create new features in the game. For example, the research center and training stuffs are disable. they will begin at a low cost when enable, maybe this will make all players put a little more steem in the game again, cause is cheap. Imagine 4k users putting ~1 steem or more to upgrade the research center in the next week. Adding new features like that from time to time, making the game more interesting to play , and making people put just a little more steem in the game maybe solve the steem roi issue and reward better the most skilled players...idk, what you think? @themakymark

there is no problem to solve if the game is fun, because it is a game, not investment fond. yes some will get the investment back, but it should not be the main reason to play it. think @themakymark said it, can't call it a ponzi because it is a game, just a lot people don't look at it like that

Posted using Partiko Android

I agree, but i think the point of the discussion is if there's no steem at the pool, the game stops to be fun..don't you think?

that is the problem of the games in cryptoworld :D we will see will it be fun when all futures are available. i earned nothing from steemmonsters but i still play it.

If this game only attracts people interested in their ROI, you are most likely correct. However, I do not think that is a forgone conclusion. In fact, I don't think the devs are trying to attract that demographic at all. They are trying to attract gamers, not investors.

Investors only care about one thing: handing over their money in exchange for a future payout. Gamers are not thinking that way at all. They hand over their money in exchange for both immediate and future entertainment. If this game attracts people who are willing to spend some money in exchange for fun, then it will succeed. The fact that those players get a little bit of steem back will be a huge bonus. It will not be the main motivation. If the game is fun enough, I bet those people will either say "Cool I played a fun game and I got back a little coffee money" or they will just exchange it for something in the game that leads to them having more fun.

Attracting new players (and I mean players... not investors) from outside of steem's current user base is the only way this will succeed. A big part of that is the devs making an incredibly fun game that could become addictive like so many mobile games. However, another piece is the behavior of the early access players. Whether motivated by ROI or fun, those early player should only behave in a way that will make it more likely that new people will join and actually play the game. If we behave in a way that creates a miserable experience for a new player and they immediately leave, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot... and we need to save those bullets to protect our HQ.

I forgot to include one thing in my original comment. I really do hope you go ahead and make the game you described. I think games can be an incredibly effective way to attract new people and encourage the purchasing, holding, and spending of steem (things we desperately need). I would definitely give it a try when you launch it.