Now that the floodgates are open...

Preface: I'm not going to say anything negative about the people, but only my opinion of the way it has been presented to me. My personality tends to keep my own controversial opinions to myself when I realize it is against the mainstream culture. Making enemies and picking fights is not my agenda. I'm happy to wave the white flag right now, and delete this if it bothers anyone deeply. I also tend to exaggerate when I finally let off some steam, so pardon me, and take it with a grain of salt as I vent. I may be completely misinformed on these topics, so take that with a larger grain of salt.

Normally I love to get involved in games like this, but I stayed away from it completely from day one. Had people from all sides around me pressuring me to get involved. Everyone was doing it. "Just buy a pack to get started". Pressure to buy, or miss out on the mania. Red flag number one.

They had a story-writing contest. That sounded like fun to me also. I seriously thought about submitting ideas, but I didn't. Rule stipulations. Forced to work on a team with other writers I have never met before. How am I going to guarantee that my creative ideas see the light of day in the contest before someone else on my team decides they would rather back-stab me to push their own ideas to the front? What if my team leader is an untalented, foul-mouthed bully the moment he/she realizes I'm better qualified to lead than he is? What if I don't want to use their ideas? What if the whole team thinks I'm an untalented loser, hampering their progress? Isn't there more incentive to work to eliminate your teammates than to work with them (more rewards, easier to write freely)? How would I be guaranteed fair rewards for my time if a teammate is taking most of the credit? Why are writers split into teams writing separate backstories, that might have nothing to do with eachother? How would random backstories ever makes sense with eachother? Wouldn't it be better to have a head designer doing all of this, and divvy out assignments for small guaranteed rewards? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of everyone's time spent writing these stories? All these red flags.

I wanted no part of these rules.

Speaking of rules. Steemonsters seems to love rules and stipulations in their promises, competitions, and games. I guess that's the whole point of it. The business has to be profitable somehow to the developers, and then to players also. Rules are essential to guarantee fairness, like a contract. If I wanted to earn money though, wouldn't it be easier to post a great story, piece of art, or game idea on steemit, or on some other steem dapp? I could even start a free to play game for players to take turns and participate in, and we could reward one another, and that would be an easier business model with limitless potential.

Unlike steem posts which have always been free to interact with, and many dapps that are offering free rewards to simply interact on their systems, I believe the reverse to be true with the steemmonsters. There were things you had to pay for, but also things that would be given for free. Mostly there was the promise of value to be added to special cards. How can they promise that? Will this value ever go up to a level that I deem acceptable in this lifetime? What if something happened to the steem blockchain in the next 5 years, would that affect the value of the cards? Would I be able to play the game with friends online anymore? Will they still be valuable, profitable, and popular? Would they even want to play if the cards became worthless?

Then I saw all the corporatization happening with Steemit Inc showcasing steemmonsters. Community campaigns pushing it to the front to hype up steem. Brand stickers everywhere. Logos showing up in the cover of people's posts in my feed. Do I really want to follow people who suddenly only talk about how great steemmonsters is? Why aren't they sharing the great content they used to share, which made me want to follow them? Something is fishy. I see more videos with the logo. Glowing interviews with the developers only. What were the fans saying, are they not saying something, for some reason? I read about how many cards have been made, and how much steem has been invested into these cards. It's a lot! This is called advertising. It's a not a social movement anymore. It's business. They want my money, and they want me to spread the hype, so they can continue to make money. Big red flag.

There are many free games being made on and off the steemit platform. Is this game really drawing people into getting involved in steem for the exclusive opportunity to play? I'm not sure. How many steem accounts have been set up for players to play steemmonsters, who were not already using steem? How is that going? Are they growing or shrinking in activity from new players being onboarded to steem?

I am more interested in using steem to interact freely with others, without interference, fees, and stipulations. I'm not interested in bringing up my concerns with game designers, who have already thought long and hard about the dynamics of a fair play system. They will not deeply value the concerns of a non-player/non-investor. Any concerns I bring up will probably be perceived as insulting, or a request to re-work the foundational systems of the whole game. Honestly, I can't blame them for that. Shouldn't the developers have already considered these things? They probably have. My words are a waste of breath, except to possibly warn others of potential pitfalls.

Despite my interests in strategy games, competitive games, collecting, art, and creative stories, it seemed from the beginning that my goals and interests never meshed with the goals of steemmonsters.

That's why I never wanted to play steemmonsters or buy a starter pack. Buying a pack is the only way a person can play. It's integral to the game, and reward mechanics. I can think of many easier ways to have fun, and/or make money.

Conclusion: Again apologies if my opinion upsets anyone. If it really bothers anyone, or causes enmity with anyone, I'm happy to delete it. I'm not interested in a war. I just wanted to clear the air, be honest (though likely greatly mis-informed!) and not be silent. Why keep secrets from my friends? And sorry for the long-winded post. I could have made this a one-liner, but I am a descriptive writer and communicator, not an abridger.