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RE: Drugwars - Introducing FUTURE the new DrugWars Token.
I never put a single penny into this game or played this game and I can see that investors/players are getting completely screwed over by this nonsense.
This is precisely how to NOT fix your revenue problems - by fleecing the people who are actually putting their own money into the game.
I’m going to make a prediction here:
Your revenue problems will quickly get much worse and will persist until you have to shut down this game/project.
That’s what happens when you scam people out of their money, which you are absolutely doing here. Giving them worthless shittokens to try to avoid massive backlash as you steal their money is about as dumb as launching a half-assed game in the first place.
https://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ia_virtualcurrencies.pdf
Tzzzz - Jesus. As often @ats-david has explained it as it is. No matter if it is a start-up and too early launch, the way they change rules and stuff s simply dubious business practices - I am not saying Scam straight away but come on! This is totally shit attitude to inform users and investor about such a mjaor change with a 2 day notice. Anyone investing more Steem needs to be warned.
It's not "scam" because they change rules. If Youtube changes rules on monetization is it a scam?
No but often their changes are a real dick move and not the right way to deal with the issues that caused them to change the rules. YouTube isn't scamming when they change the rules, but they pissed people off enough / made people concerned enough about the stability of their income stream on YT, to diversify their video platforms and not only use YouTube (and some have left YouTube completely due to the monetisation changes). It's not a scam but it definitely makes YouTube look bad, and that translates into action for some of their creators. Drugwars should be looking at the PR consequences of choices they make too, which luckily it looks like they actually might be doing given they are still paying out steem currently. I don't agree with the people calling it a scam but have a right to be pissed off at drugwars, and people definitely have a right to be pissed off at YouTube. Even as a creator on YouTube as well as other platforms like Dtube, YouTube deserves all the negativity that gets thrown at it, because they have done a terrible terrible job of managing a lot of things ranging from monetisation and treating creators right to dealing with horrible content targeting children to the massive difference in how they treated Logan Paul vs Pewdiepie - I'm not a fan of either but they treated Logan Paul better than Pewdiepie and filming a dead body, for a mostly child audience mind you, is a million times worse than saying a slur. YouTube isn't a scam but it 100% deserves criticism for how it has handled a lot of things.
Drugwars isn't a scam but still should do the right things both for its public relations and morally and it is reasonable that changes like this pissed some people off.
Not being a scam doesn't mean being free from criticism. Some things that aren't scams definitely are worthy of criticism.
Steal their money? Did someone force someone else to upgrade their buildings? Am I missing something here? Have none of you complainers ever played a cell phone game? Or any new game these days. Every freaking game out there has in game purchases. What, you spend a crypto and think your value is immune to your purchasing decisions? The game does not require you to put money in to play. If you want to produce more in-game currency at a quicker rate you are free top spend some money on the game. It is not an investment. I understand the Bookkeeping bot is saying ROI within it. But it is not a return on investment! I spent more than most of you and I see where this course of action can lead, think future games, think future in-game functionality. So many people are jumping to conclusions.
fraud
/frôd/Submit
noun
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
"he was convicted of fraud"
synonyms: fraudulence, sharp practice, cheating, swindling, trickery, artifice, deceit, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, treachery, chicanery, skulduggery, imposture, embezzlement
You make a point but, most games don't have money tied to them as returns for using microtransactions though. This game claimed drug production and the heist were connected to returns in steem. It is a game not an investment, but it's in a grey area.
If you buy a skin in Fortnite, you get a skin in Fortnite. They didn't say you would get money as well. This game basically did.
If you use a microtransaction in a mobile game (and there are quite a few with similar gameplay to drugwars) you get the sped up upgrade, or the upgrade without resources, or the ad less experience or whatever else the microtransaction would have been for and you are happy because you got what you paid for. If the game said some aspect of it would return a particular cryptocurrency and you didn't get it, you didn't get what you paid for.
I've only paid for one transaction in drugwars and didn't intent to again until I reached 5 steem earned, then 10, then 25, then 50, then 100 and every 100 since. I am nowhere near any of those but my one transaction has been "earned" again by now and I've made a tiny tiny profit. I'm interested to see where this game goes both in terms of changes to gameplay mechanics and changes in the whole system (which is what this is). I've made a miniscule profit rather than a loss, so I'm personally okay with this. But... people played this based on the value proposition of it, and the fact is if you were going to get money from buying a fortnite skin, you are probably more likely to buy the skin than if you didn't, so the value proposition of earning crypto from a game does make it different to microtransactions in games that don't claim you will earn cryptocurrency. I'm curious if this change will be part of drugwars actually improving a lot but I don't blame some people for being pissed off.
Some people were more ambitious with this and put lots of investment into it. The game said they would get steem based on drug production and heist. The microtransaction itself was for a particular thing, like an upgraded alcohol production, but many people were upgrading alcohol production for example, in order to have the resources to increase drug production, which from the basic premise of the game, had a return in steem.
I believe they should continue paying heist, production and referral via steem until the steem is gone and then switch to the tokens, rather than using the steem to inflate the value of the new coin. This way all of the steem goes to players in steem form. I think they should then give all players a starting amount of tokens moving forward with the new system and a proportional amount of tokens on top of the starting amount to those who invested based on what people invested (if they have that data). It won't have the same value as this is a new coin, but just work out a proportional amount for different levels of investment. This also supports the people who supported them. I don't think the people who invested more should get any in-game advantage, but they should get extra of the new currency as that is a situation appropriate equivalent of giving more in-game currency in a normal game to people lets playing your game or who were part of a kickstarter etc for your game (except it is real, but not yet valuable currency). Giving away a bit might slow the coins value growth but it is appropriate to start people off on appropriate amounts.
It's not stealing but it makes the original conditions of the game change which could have mislead people's behaviours. The people behind no mans sky also weren't stealing and forcing people to buy their game but that misleading situation still affected people's choices and therefore wasn't good.
I actually think it will be interesting to see where this goes, but buying upgrades that lead to an end goal of earning steem isn't the same as buying upgrades in games that promised no currency / return. It's not an investment, but it is tied to money, and that means while this isn't stealing, it isn't on the same level as other microtransactions. I'm excited to see where drugwars goes and how it develops over time, and who knows - while it rightfully pisses people off now, it might be the best thing they do with this game based on what follows - but I do not blame people for being pissed off about this and I can't agree that normal microtransactions are comparable to this due to the fact this game is tied to a return and most games aren't. Hopefully they will make good business decisions from this point forward and the token will gain a worth similar to or exceeding steem and therefore, people aren't worse off, but a general principle that affected people's choices in terms of whether to engage with the microtransactions has changed regardless.
I don't agree that it is a scam or fraud as some have said. I think it is more that they changed their plans with it and hope this will work better in the long run, but THEY MUST pay the steem out first if they don't want to look like a scam. It's the right thing to do by the users.
They definitely should be leaving the pay out as steem (or both with the new one being "extra") until it all dries up either way rather than using it to inflate the coins, as users put that steem in and therefore it should be distributed to users as steem. That point is a given and should definitely be what they do at least.
Steem is also a game not an investment. If you buy Steem thinking it's a security you could lose your money too. If you post on Steem assuming you will get money you could be wrong. There is uncertainty in all of this.
Cryptocurrencies generally are considered an investment in the financial world though. The two things they are generally classed as are investments or a form of currency (in reality they are both but some people will class them as only one or the other). They certainly aren't a game though. Investing in them is uncertain so you could say investing in them is a "gamble" but something being uncertain / being a "gamble" is not the same as it being a game and cryptocurrencies do not meet the basic definition of a game.
You can also lose money on securities. Cryptocurrencies are a high risk, potentially high reward investment and investing in anything comes down to a risk-reward analysis, with term deposits and government bonds etc being low risk, real estate being about medium risk and shares and cryptocurrencies being regarded as high risk investments (cryptocurrencies more-so than shares but both are high risk investments). Higher risk investments have a higher risk of losing money but also typically have higher potential returns. That's where risk / reward analysis comes in, as well as whether an investor is risk-averse etc.
Posting on steem also doesn't have the risk that buying steem does. You are potentially wasting time there, not wasting money directly like you would if you spent money on steem and the value of steem falls.
It can be debatable if cryptocurrencies are investments or not (though the general concensus seems to be that they are an investment, albeit a high risk one), but they aren't a game. Being uncertain does not mean it is a game.
A college degree is considered an investment too. Does this mean we should have the right to sue all colleges who put us deep into debt via college loans etc? After all, we could make the claim of false advertising, scam, etc, just as some people say about the gaming business.
My point is, yes you can go with that angle but to be lawsuit happy only brings greater lawsuit risk for all parties. Lawyers benefit of course when everyone is suing everyone but the industry suffers because innovation becomes much more costly.
I'm going to say I agree that from an ethical point of view perhaps the DrugWars team messed up. They did not consider the impact their decisions could have on the sentiment of their customers/players. Player sentiment in my opinion should come before all.
If they can find a way to profit in a way where the players share in the success as stakeholders then I'd be okay with it. Drugwars in my opinion should also become an SMT and support the Steem ecosystem but the exact economics in my opinion need to be negotiated with the community. The team needs to understand that a loyal fanbase can allow future games to inherit the same players (player loyalty) in the same way Blizzard for example did with World of Warcraft from the Starcraft, Diablo and other fanbases.
"A college degree is considered an investment too. "
Not in the way I'm talking. I'm talking about financial investments - shares, term deposits, bonds, rental properties, government bonds etc. A university degree does not fit into that description, but yes, it is an investment in yourself, but not a financial investment. It would have been ridiculous in the financial planning courses etc I did at university if we learned about those sorts of investments, because investing in financial investments is a completely different thing to investing in yourself via education etc.
But I never went with the angle of lawsuits or calling drugwars a scam. I said I don't agree with the people calling it a scam etc and I think it is just that they changed direction, but people's choices were still made based on the value proposition originally mentioned so that included the steem, not just the upgrade. All of this is truthful. I don't think it is a scam, and I think what they do from here might be what actually improves the game, but it doesn't change the fact people put money into it based on the value proposition offered. That's what the situation is. I don't think people should sue them or call them scammers, but I do think both morally and for the sake of positive public relations they shouldn't pump their new coin with the steem spent as artificially doing that by buying it themselves doesn't often work so people will lose out from them doing that, but they SHOULD continue paying out steem via drug wars until it is all gone. They've now given us future tokens but still seem to be paying steem so I think they may actually be doing it, and if they are doing it, I think that's the best thing they could have done.
I never went with the angle of suing them or calling them a scam but I did say they should respond correctly to changing the way the game works and the resulting backlash, and that I don't blame other people for being pissed off.
As for games, it was the other person who was making a point about it being a game anyway as though that absolved it of responsibility, but it doesn't. If it did, people wouldn't have been able to get refunds on No Mans Sky for their false advertising. It doesn't matter if steem is a game or not, as that doesn't change anything in this situation, but you'd be really stretching to say that it is / it does meet the definition of a game and most people wouldn't agree with someone who made that claim, regardless of if it was steem or bitcoin or whatever else. Risk and uncertainty doesn't make something a game either, or shares would be a game too as they are uncertain, risky and can drop too.
How someone invests could be gamified but that's them gamifying a task in their life. I gamify most of my life as it works well for me and my goals but that doesn't make the individual tasks at their essence a game. It gamifies my experience of doing that task.
As far as I can see we agree that player sentiment / positive public relations is important in this situation and they messed up ethically. I never said we should sue them and I talked about what they could do to not "look like" scammers etc. I think we actually agree on the main point here because I said nothing about suing them and actually said I don't agree with calling them a scam etc. We just disagree on whether cryptocurrencies at their root are games or not and whether cryptocurrencies are considered investments, and also we were using different definitions of the word investment as I was using the financial definition and you were using the broader definition that includes investing in yourself etc. We agree on the main point here, and I don't think anyone should be suing drugwars.
No that isn't "general consensus" unless you can cite some poll data to support this claim. Show me sentiment which shows most people want cryptocurrencies to be treated as securities?
Okay, my bad, I should have worded that differently. It "seems" to be the general concensus in the financial world. I meant in terms of financial discussions, articles etc of cryptocurrencies.
I wasn't referring to what every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks of cryptocurrencies, because their opinions don't really matter for the purposes of this discussion. I was saying that when you read information on financial websites, tax office websites etc, most seem to consider it to be an investment (not necessarily only an investment but an investment still), so it is reasonable to believe that the financial world considers cryptocurrencies to be a potential investment. It's not necessarily regarded as a good investment as it is more risky than shares (which are otherwise considered the riskiest investment, and you can also lose money on them so the fact steem isn't certain doesn't mean anything because neither are shares - that reflects on how risky an investment is not whether it is an investment) but most see it is a digital asset and discuss it in the context of investing in it as an investment and in the context of it being used as a currency. The financial world seems to accept it as both an investment and a digital currency, and that makes sense because that's what it is.
I haven't gone and interviewed and polled people from finance but the general information expressed by the industry seems to suggest it is an investment and a digital currency, albeit a high risk one. I haven't gone and polled random people because that's not what I meant, I don't care what they think compared to the industry and a lot of people don't understand investing at all, let alone cryptocurrency.
But it definitely isn't a game. Cryptocurrencies can be used in games, like drugwars, but a cryptocurrency itself is not a game.
The air quotes around general consensus seem a bit unnecessarily hostile though. My reply was less about investments and more about the fact that a cryptocurrency isn't a game. Drugwars is, the cryptocurrency itself isn't. WOW is a game, the in-game currency isn't (it's interesting and has even been used for economic studies, but it isn't a game in its own right and neither is a proper cryptocurrency).
Whether it is an investment is debatable because it can be seen just as a currency or just as an investment, or most ideally both as it meets the definitions for both, but financial information generally seems to feel it fits the investment definition regardless of if they feel it is a good idea to invest in it or not, and if it is a choice between it being a game or being an investment, it is much closer to an investment than a game. You can gamify how you go about dealing with cryptocurrency (just like you can gamify washing dishes) but the cryptocurrency itself isn't a game in its own right. I don't really care if people class it as an investment or not, but it's not a game.
And also whether something is a game or not plays no role in what the drugwars devs should do either, because No Man's Sky was a game and only a game but their product did not match the advertising and that was enough to get people refunds so I don't really see how classing Steem as a game makes the actions the devs should take any different. In the case of drugwars, it was still a case of it said one thing, people put money in and then it changed. Steem being a game wouldn't change the fact their decision changed the value proposition that affected people spending money on the game. NMS is a game (and supposedly is finally actually being turned into what was promised) but the fact it didn't line up with the original marketing meant people spent money on it when they wouldn't have otherwise. The promise of steem in drugwars meant people spent money on it when they wouldn't have otherwise. It doesn't matter if these things are games or not. For the sake of good PR and morality, drugwars should pay out what is left in there first and I think they might be doing that by the looks of it, so if they are, that's a good decision on their part.
If you have a lot of steem power you get rewarded for voting as well or you can self vote which does give u a return so I don't agree with you saying steem isn't a investment
Is there a guarantee that your votes will be worth money? Or is it just an expectation?
Yes, you are. You’re missing the fact that the game states that players will be paid out in STEEM. It was billed as “play and win STEEM,” not “play and win worthless shittokens that we haven’t created yet.”
So, users spent their STEEM to upgrade their accounts so that they would have a chance of earning more STEEM in return. But as it turns out, the game developers decided to not honor that. Instead, they are keeping much of that STEEM.
They have advertised a game that pays you in a specific currency, then, after many thousands of dollars in that currency was used on the game with the hope of earning that currency back, they are switching payouts to a different non-existent and/or worthless currency. It’s textbook marketing fraud and it’s prosecutable in most legal jurisdictions.
So yes...very scammy, indeed.
Are terms subject to change?
Posted using Partiko Android
"are terms subject to change?"
WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW THE FUCKING BALLS ON THIS GUY!
I hope the fucking SEC comes for your throat.
DRUGWARS 100% COMMITTED FRAUD!
Stop looking at my balls. Why would the SEC come for my throat? Cause I like the game? Are you wishing violence on me? You seem like a real nice dude.
Posted using Partiko Android
I love how upset emotional people get when you ask them a legitimate question... are the terms of this game subject to change? yes? Court case closed.
Posted using Partiko Android
fraud
/frôd/Submit
noun
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
"he was convicted of fraud"
synonyms: fraudulence, sharp practice, cheating, swindling, trickery, artifice, deceit, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, treachery, chicanery, skulduggery, imposture, embezzlement;
People are treating the SEC as some sort of attack dog to threaten people with. What happened to this place?
Abusing within your rights doesn't suddenly turn everything you do into ethical. It's a shitty move regardless of whether they were allowed to do it.
Posted using Partiko Android
Unethical and illegal are totally different arguments. We can argue it is unethical. I would actually be quite sympathetic to that argument. But people throw around scam and "illegal" far too easily and it damages innovation.
Yes! People think that because things are legal it's OK to abuse and fuck people over within the laws.
Posted using Partiko Android
I see your argument and will address it in a future video. Also, I do have a couple questions; where do any SMT or ERC20 coin get their value from? If it utilizes steem and can be exchanged for steem isnt it steem? Or its skeleton is steembased, doesn't that help steem?
Posted using Partiko Android
You nailed it.
You actually said the truth, if i would've known i would've never invested, i wish there was a way to sell the account to get my steemit back
The game does not require you to put money in to play. If you want to produce more in-game currency at a quicker rate you are free top spend some money on the game. It is not an investment.
Dont float around that bullshit now, it was hyped about the $.
That's why they put ROI in the stats.
Fucking scammers, dont let them off the hook.
!bookkeeping drugwars
Hi @stortebeker!
drugwars
Received:
Spent:
Total:
First transfer was before 33.63 days.
Your ROI per day is 9.58 % and you are earning approx. 0.83 STEEM per day.
ROI when taking only the last 5 days into account
Your ROI per day is 5.36 % and you are earning approx. 0.47 STEEM per day.
Really it is helpful for us.
totally false, I've invested, it's fun and I've won
Cool story, bro.
Every single ponzi scheme on Earth has people who made profit in the beginning... Kinda how it goes (:
peek on bookkeeping, a lot of people earn. Myself for example. Invest 8steem earn 30.
People invest in a game, they dont play, and get shocked.
I didn’t say anything to contradict that. I’ve also profited.
Posted using Partiko iOS
You're the exception. The majority lost. I won s well but that's because I saw this coming from afar. But look around. People lost thousands of dollars because of false advertisement and shady measures.
Posted using Partiko Android
You are saying this cuz you got your money back nor everyone who invested got it back and the newly investers hell they lost their money what would you say now?
Posted using Partiko Android
@ats-david please tell me more about this game because your review about the game to highly bad..
Out of all of the things they could have fixed in the game, this seems like an odd choice to say the least.
I hear people who say "it's just a game, nobody made you invest", and people shouldn't have invested much. At the same time, I can't help but understand why people feel mislead. This comes to mind:
Still clean, Bwahahahaha!
!bookkeeping drugwars
Hi @just2random!
drugwars