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Clicker Games will have a ‘fairly sizeable’ drop-off soon
Clicker games like Catizen and Tapswap will probably lose their appeal once the current batch releases tokens because the games probably won’t sustain the hype, says SKALE Labs Chief Growth Officer Andrew Saunders.
Saunders tells Web3 Gamer that many people are flocking to crypto idle clicker games — also known as tap-to-earn games — because of “airdrop speculation,” meaning they’re hoping to get a massive crypto payout later from airdrops.
Clicker games are the latest phenomenon in crypto, and some of these simple games have seen massive results this year. Notcoin, a play-to-earn (P2E) game integrated into the Telegram messaging app, has been at the forefront, boasting an impressive 40+ million players.
“As they provide frictionless onboarding, they are easy to join and farm by both natives and non-natives. Many are also incentivizing referrals which again are seamless and able to tap into Telegram’s existing large user base globally.”
However, the main reason users are spending so much time on these games, which, let’s face it, are often pretty awful, is for the chance of potentially cashing in.
Token payout may not meet expectations
Saunders suggests that even with an airdrop, many new players in these clicker games are likely to lose interest quickly when they realize their payout might be worth just a bus ticket.
“I predict a fairly sizable user drop-off post-Token Generation Event for most of these games,” Saunders says.
“As Token Generation Event supply is limited and often tied to the initial user base, many will not meet expectations in my opinion,” Saunders says, arguing that once the reality sets in for many of these players they’re not likely to stick around.
“We will not only see significant negative sentiment and backlash towards them, but also a decreased likelihood of these users driving trials for new games as well as referring and onboarding new users,” he claims.
Saunders runs growth at SKALE Labs, the team behind The SKALE Network. It’s a layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution that promises a seamless, lag-free gaming experience and claims to handle up to 700 transactions per second.
It doesn’t host clicker games specifically, but it does feature popular Web3 titles like Motodex, a multilevel motorcycle racing game, sports metaverse Gamify, and the side-scrolling blockchain game Untitled Platformer.
Saunders doesn’t think all clicker games are doomed though. Some may have a chance if they take the “smarter approach.”
He points out TOM and ZESH, saying they need way less daily time and have smaller user bases. So, they “may be more likely to meet or exceed community expectations.”
Hot Take: Hamster Kombat review
Even though clicker games aren’t really my thing and I’m way too impatient to click a lot just for an airdrop — especially since typing all day for work already gives me sore fingers — I decided to see what all the fuss is about with the Telegram-based clicker game Hamster Kombat.
Hamster Kombat recently surpassed 300 million players. It now claims to be preparing for the “largest airdrop in the history of crypto.”
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The idea is that you play as a hamster running your own cryptocurrency exchange.
Whenever I’ve started to play these clicker games, I often find myself spending the first 30 minutes or so trying to figure out how they work and what the point is. Usually the tutorials and instructions are pretty bad.
But maybe I should forget about all of that — it’s just about clicking.
After watching a few YouTube tutorials I picked it up pretty quickly.
Even though it’s a clicker game, the concept of clicking to earn points and then buying “investments” that real crypto exchanges would use makes it feel more like a business simulation game.
Just like in a real business, passive income is crucial. When you first get into the game, you’ve got to start tapping to build up your initial capital before you can buy investments.
Once you have some capital, you can buy different parts of the exchange, each one giving you a certain number of tokens per hour, even while you’re asleep. Naturally, the more profitable ones are pricier. This is where it gets addictive.
You could, in theory, take a day off work, tap away all day, buy the right investments for your crypto exchange, and then you might not need to tap again.
For example, buying a marketing department for 1,000 taps (which takes about 30 minutes) will earn you 70 tokens per hour.
Earn tokens while you sleep
So if you sleep for eight hours a day, you’re looking at earning 560 tokens while you are sleeping on that one investment alone.
Other investments include a support team, an IT team, and even partnering with Cointelegraph (unofficially, of course), which pays out 350 tokens per hour.
Millions of players can’t keep their hands away from the game in anticipation of the Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) token’s supposed launch.
Although there’s not much info yet on the HMSTR token’s details, the upcoming airdrop for the HMSTR token is claimed to be the biggest airdrop in the Web3 industry, according to a previous announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
Overall, even if you’re not earning crypto tokens yet (or maybe never, who knows), the game is pretty addictive. The game gives you a taste of building your own empire.
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OK I’ll admit it, I’m now hoping that all these passive coins I’m stacking might turn into some crypto tokens eventually. But even if that doesn’t happen, the clicker game doesn’t feel like a complete waste of time and it’s worth giving a crack.
It might even make you think about starting your own exchange.
Web3 games may be a better side hustle than Uber, says Earn Alliance CEO
Playing a Web3 game in the coming years might turn out to be more profitable than picking up drunks on a Friday night driving for Uber, according to Earn Alliance CEO Joseph Cooper.
“Playing Web3 will top all opportunities for secondary and passive income streams in the future,” Joseph Cooper tells Web3 Gamer.
But while Uber money is OK, users really want to know if they can still get rich by playing Web3 games.
Cooper gives the roundabout answer that “rich” is a relative term.
Some people might work longer hours for less money, while others work less and make more. It all depends on your perspective and where you actually live, he argues.
For example, the blockchain-based gaming metaverse Axie Infinity, at its peak in January 2022, became a source of income for people in developing nations such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Venezuela.
But sadly, just being in the game isn’t enough with Web3 games — you’ve got to be half decent if you want to make a living from it.
However, he believes that recent developments, such as the International Olympic Committee’s announcement that Saudi Arabia will host the first-ever Olympic Esports Games in 2025, show there’s potential for serious gamers to make some real coin from it.
The partnership between IOC and Saudi Arabia is set to last 12 years initially. “Our commitment to Esports is simply a reflection of the world our young people live in, and we now all have the chance to write new Olympic history together,” Minister of Sport and President of the Saudi Arabian Olympic and Paralympic Committee, HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, said in a July 12 statement.
It will be held in Neom, a futuristic city meaning “new future,” which promises to provide high-speed internet, virtual reality features and other cutting-edge technologies for the event.
“With Esports being accepted into the Olympics and more competitive games being created, Web3 will create more opportunities for, not all gamers, but competitive gamers, to have careers,” he explains.
Recently, Earn Alliance rolled out a new “engagement as a service” system that rewards gamers for their time and input while allowing developers to test new projects.
Saunders is predicting big things for Web3 Games this year.
“2024 is the year where web3 game distribution has received a major uplift and some of the higher funded projects will release early access tests and as an industry as a whole, we will reach all time high active users experimenting with web3 games.”
Other News:
— English Premier League football club Manchester United has launched a new Web3 fantasy football game. The club claims it’s the first of its kind created for a Premier League club, built on the Tezos blockchain.
— The Sandbox is partnering with Magic Eden, which will now be the primary marketplace for both current and future NFT mints.
— Game7 is announcing its “most significant launch” with Game7 Credits, a system where users can complete quests to earn credits.
— Ronin Network has announced the launch of The Forgotten Runiverse and is asking its 213,300 X followers, “What happens when the biggest decentralized fantasy franchise teams up with the world’s most-used blockchain by DAA?”
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Ciaran Lyons
Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He’s also a standup comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.
