# Rethinking the Ponzi

**Published by:** [cc](https://paragraph.com/@md5/)
**Published on:** 2022-03-28
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@md5/rethinking-the-ponzi

## Content

PrefaceYou can consider this article a response to “How On-Chain NFT games kill themselves, and how we’re *trying* to avoid it.” by @zarc. His article is easily the most in-depth and well-thought-out breakdown of the current p2e landscape we have as of now. However, I disagree with their solution to the problems with the p2e environment as it exists today. I will be going over my quarrels with the p2e today and how I plan to try something entirely new that will hopefully allow for the creation of the first truly sustainable p2e. https://medium.com/raidparty/how-on-chain-nft-games-kill-themselves-and-how-were-trying-to-avoid-it-e9df8a18e679Pay-to-Play Ponzi’sLet’s start off with the obvious, most p2e games that exist right now are often referred to as “ponzis”, and rightfully so. They are quite literally the definition of a ponzi scheme and when you look at them none of them really have any major long term aspirations which always ends with players late to the game holding the bag while early players are laughing to the bank. I won’t dwell too much on this topic as it’s very self-explanatory and the article I mentioned in the beginning pretty much shows the results. However there is one thing I want to correct from zach’s article before I continue, and that is his points about price cliffs being self-destructive and the reason a game’s utility token ends up tanking in price, while I agree the price cliffs are theoretically self-destructive let’s just take a look at raid party’s utility token (CFTI) and how it’s price has gone since release.Original CFTI/WETH pool (Uniswap v2)Now, I want to clarify something, this chart is from a legacy CFTI pool that today only has 1 CFTI pooled, but it has the historical price data needed to prove the point. The actual price of CFTI today is ~$25 to be clear, it is not $0.62, however, the point I am trying to make is you see in zach’s article where he shows tokens tanking by 80-90% after a while and blames it on price cliffs. Well, there is no price cliff mechanic in RP, so where did this dump come from? The blame is actually on the lack of price discovery from the market and the early scarcity of the utility tokens these games always have. The scarce supply also results in smol liquidity making the pair more volatile. Now, why am I bringing all of this up? I want it to be understood that I do not believe that price cliffs or anything like that has to do with these games failing, I have a very different take that I believe even Raid Party has a problem with.More Players = More PonziThe value derived from anything at its core is determined by supply/demand. Raid Party does a very good job at controlling the supply aspect of their utility token, however, my issue is with the demand side of things. Players create demand, without players your game dies. There are two problems when dealing with player counts that p2e’s today struggle with, that is onboarding new players while retaining old players. Let’s start with the problem of onboarding new players. Onboarding new players in p2e is hard for two main reasons, the first being it is too expensive to play with gas fees on L1. I remember when I first staked my team for RP and it cost $200 in gas just to start playing. The other, arguably more prevalent reason, is due to the barrier of entry created by insanely high entry costs. For example, just the bare minimum required to get started in Raid Party is ~$4000 at the time of writing this article, and has been much more not so long ago. Wolf Game is ~$2740. These costs make it essentially impossible for anyone with limited funds to get in on the game and even attempt to play. Now, I’m not saying there’s not a reason to be spending thousands of dollars on a game, I have done it before and would do it again and again, but I am not a majority and even most of the people who participate in these games are not those types of people who would invest that much if they didn’t see it as an investment with a return at the end. I think most of these people are tricked into investing crazy amounts that they would never think of normally just under the guise of a “well it’s NFT’s and NFT’s are expensive” mentality that most people carry with them today whether not they realize it, and they’re not really wrong, I even agree with that sentiment in most cases, but still is something to think about. Now, how is it we plan to solve this issue? Well, it has essentially already been solved for us by traditional game developers, and that is to simply be a f2p experience. In recent years anyone who plays games frequently knows that there has been a huge shift to f2p compared to your standard $60 for a AAA title. Free-to-play allows anyone to be able to get involved in the game as long as they can afford the gas to play the game (more on this later as well, not in this article tho). This f2p model makes the cost of entry essentially 0, meaning anyone with a metamask and a small amount of eth can play the game. Now, I know there are those that are questioning how they’re going to “get rich” with a f2p game since they can’t rip off new players, however don’t worry the game will have an economy, but I don’t want to reveal too much atm. Now, let’s say we can solve the problem of onboarding new players (I think we can), what’s next? How do we keep these new players interested and contributing to our ponzi play-to-earn experience? Well that is something I believe that we will also be able to solve, however I don’t really want to reveal too much about immediately, but I will say if you are in the uwucrew discord I’ve discussed a lot of mechanics I will be implementing in my upcoming p2e in the alpha channel, there also might be some chances to get some goodies for said game if you’re an uwu holder.Closing thoughtsA few things I wanted to mention here at the end, the game I am referring to is almost entirely complete right now (yes, I know that is crazy), and get this to, the game will already be play tested before we ever see a single cent in revenue! I know I know, that’s crazy to have your product essentially finished before releasing. Also, it will not be a glorified staking game, and I really can’t wait to give you all more information about the specifics of the game as it is really one of the most interactive experiences to date, if not the most interactive. The depth is truly unmatched at the moment. But anyway, before I get too excited and reveal something on a whim, I’m going to end this here and I’ll see you the next time. Oh yeah, and if you want to be very early or keep up with the developments, (no nameless is not the name of the game) https://discord.gg/E7AJymC2Dq

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