撰文:Anna Kharton,Olivia Capozzalo
编译:Zen,PANews
Whether you're one of the big players of Hamster Kombat, a Telegram-based click-to-earn game, or you're completely unimpressed by it. Since its release this spring, the buzz surrounding this game has been real.
Since Hamster Kombat reached 10 million registered accounts, most of the news about the game has begun to focus on the release and price prediction of its native token, HMSTR. Now, with the end of the game's first season since its launch in March, players are blaming the team for unfair treatment and accusing it of false promises.
As of last weekend, the resources accumulated by players as part of the game's promised reward system have been converted into HMSTR tokens, which are expected to be sent in the form of airdrop tokens at TGE. The game team also revealed more about the token supply and distribution in a post on Platform X. The team said that of the supply of 100 billion HMSTR tokens planned to be minted, 75% will be reserved for the community, and 60% of the tokens will be distributed to users of the game at the end of the first season.
According to the team's post on Platform X, this kind of "hamster math" continues: of the 60% of the HMSTR token supply allocated to users, 88.75% will be distributed at this week's token airdrop and listing, and the remainder will be locked up and unlocked only 10 months after the token is live on the exchange. The team also pledged to airdrop an additional 15% of the 100 billion tokens during the upcoming Hamster Kombat Season 2.
Since March, the game has had a whopping 300 million users, according to the Hamster Kombat team. Of these users, only a small half of the 131 million players are eligible to receive token rewards in the highly anticipated airdrop, which is currently scheduled for September 26. In addition, 2.3 million players were identified as cheating users and were completely banned from participating in token distributions.
Disappointing token allocation
Since the Hamster Kombat team's announcement on Sunday, many users have expressed their dissatisfaction with the token distribution process and criteria on the X platform, arguing that the amount of tokens they received was much lower than the time and effort they put into it.
The HMSTR token will be listed on exchanges and open for trading after the airdrop later this week, but several major exchanges have conducted pre-market trading of spot and futures contracts for the HMSTR token. Its price ranges from 0.01 USDT to 0.1 USDT on different platforms, and players are confused about the actual value of the tokens they are allotted.
Judging by the comments in the community, based on the highest USDT prices on various exchanges, the average user has earned less than $50 for spending hundreds of hours of gaming time.
A player in the Telegram community who goes by the nickname Timbo said he played the game almost from the beginning, playing about 4-5 hours a day for two months and earning about 500 tokens. Over time, the buzz surrounding the game and upcoming token releases has grown, which means that more and more players are being promised token distributions at launch. "Over time, my interest faded away. The game itself isn't that much fun. As for the potential gains, I didn't expect much – the number of players has become huge, and everyone needs to be rewarded." Timbo said.
The "cheater" determination raises questions
Another even bigger wave of negative sentiment was Hamster Kombat's announcement that it would exclude 2.3 million players from the token distribution. According to the project, the ban was imposed on users who allegedly tried to monetize their games through unfair means, such as clicking on multiple devices, playing from different accounts, or cheating by referrals. "One person connected more than 400 accounts to the same Binance address, and another invited nearly 2,000 'friends', all of whom were flagged by our anti-cheat system," the project team also said.
However, some of these cheating criteria seem to be quite controversial, and one of the most shocking penalties is the purchase of keys. The key is an important game item introduced in the later stage, and it also has a high weight in the airdrop. In the rules of the game, users need to complete a mini-game to obtain the key, but some players choose to buy krypton gold directly and skip the mini-game. The Hamster Kombat game system allows users to purchase keys without any warning or hint explaining that this is a violation. However, this behavior was clearly identified as "cheating" in the airdrop and allegedly resulted in players being banned from receiving tokens.
Several members of the Hamster Kombat Telegram chat group posted a message that included the following paragraph:
"Some of my friends who have done nothing wrong have been mistakenly put on the list of cheaters. This injustice has severely damaged the trust of the community and created an atmosphere of mistrust."
These players, who were deemed to have violated the so-called "rules of the game" by the project team, were given a simple status at the end of the first season: "Cheating is bad." The Hamster Kombat community's Telegram group chat was immediately inundated with complaints that the distribution criteria were unfair and asked administrators to reconsider and distribute tokens. Users in Telegram expressed their displeasure at being suddenly branded as a cheater at the end of the season, noting that they have spent a lot of time on the game.
"At the beginning of the project, no one knew what the irregularities would be, and at the end of the project, there was a sudden ban on giving tokens to fewer people under a ridiculous pretext." A self-proclaimed player complained on Platform X that he had been playing for four months, collecting more than 200 keys, earning 8.36 million HMSTRs per hour, setting alarms and tracking the "rise time" of the cards. "Now you tell me I don't deserve it. Hamster Kombat is a liar."
Meanwhile, the hashtag #boycotthamsterkombat (boycott Hamster Kombat) is trending on Platform X — the hashtag has more than 22,000 tweets as of this writing.
How is the token distribution determined?
According to the community report, the number of tokens earned by players is determined based on the following criteria:
- The number of coins collected by the user throughout the period
- The number of friends the user invited to join the game
- The number of coins that users earn through passive income
- The number of keys the user has won in the mini-game
- The number of Dailies completed by the user
Tokens in the Hamster Kombat game are divided into several categories: Total HMSTR, Claimed, Next Unlock, and Unclaimed. However, the game doesn't offer explanations for these different categories.
It turns out that the most important task in determining the number of tokens each player receives is not the passive income earned by playing the game HMSTR tokens, but the number of friends invited through the referral link. Judging by the comments on social media, the average user is the most dissatisfied with the token distribution logic because they spend a lot of time actually playing the game, trying to get into the top 100 players, completing tasks, etc. These players are the core of the community and may not have the same extensive social network as YouTubers, who are able to invite "friends" by sharing referral links to earn more tokens.
Did Hamster Kombat deceive everyone? With a massive token distribution plan and reported user statistics, the game is still on track for the largest airdrop in the crypto space. Those who have linked their wallets with their Hamster Kombat accounts are expected to receive their allocated tokens during this week's airdrop event, which can then be traded on major exchanges such as Binance and OKX.
Considering the large number of users supposedly playing Hamster Kombat, it is perhaps not surprising that players are receiving fewer tokens than expected. Given that the total token supply is limited to 100 billion and there is a reported user base of hundreds of millions of users, the math becomes at least somewhat clear, although this is disappointing for most players.
In any case, the value of the yield calculated by users in fiat currency will not really become clear until the HMSTR token goes live for spot trading on September 26 and players actually receive their long-awaited tokens.
Russian experts say their tokens will face selling pressure
Viktor Pershikov, an independent expert in the fight against financial crime in the crypto space, said that those who "want to get rich by playing Hamster Kombat" "find themselves disappointed," according to RTVI. The outlet noted that many people were disappointed to learn that "after playing the game for a few months", their efforts were "only paid off by $5 to $15". Pershikov also said that the game and its team "never promised to make anyone rich" and that the token price "will be under pressure" when players finally start trading their HMSTR tokens for fiat.
Telegram is the preferred chat app for most citizens in Russia, and the popular "Hamster Kombat" naturally has a high popularity in Russia. Some of these players in the country even buy fascia guns to enhance their percussion abilities. Many e-commerce sellers have also promoted the role of their fascia guns as "hamsters", thereby driving sales growth of these fascia guns on Russia e-commerce platforms.
The Fontanka.ru, a Russia information and socio-political e-newspaper, reported on Hamster Kombat on September 22 and said that one of its employees' "eight-year-old son" had "mined" "bitcoin" for a total of 120 days. In the end, the boy "earned about 4.3 rubles ($0.046)".
Some commenters expressed their displeasure in the comments section of Fontantka Ru's article, with one Russia social media user lamenting: "How did we go from the most well-read and most educated country in the world to what we are today?"