The One Word that Might Drive Me Out of P2E Games

I like to play games, whether that means a pickup basketball game, an RPG on my computer, a strategy game on my phone, or a board game with my family. I am not the world's greatest enthusiast, but I like it. It relaxes me, it gives me a chance to experiment with strategy or just not to care too much about the real world for a few minutes here and there.

I really believe that Play2Earn gaming is a perfect, and natural, way for me to enjoy being in crypto. It seems like it would have everything. First, there is the game aspect, which should be fun. Second, there is the chance to have money invested turn into assets that I own, which is the great promise of blockchain gaming. Third, there is the idea that ROI reflects not only financial investment but also effort and skill. It SHOULD have everything I like about games and everything I like about crypto.

It should. But it is harder and harder to keep believing that P2E games are for me. I have no doubt that many other people are thriving. That is part of the fun of being on Hive, I get to read and follow many people's successes, follow the growth of their deck and the evolution of their strategies. I am as happy as I can be for everyone who is doing well.

But...in the back of my mind, I realize that the more I read about other people's amazing daily rewards, awesome card decks, thrilling pack openings, and expansion of what they can try to do in the game based on the growing strength of their cards or other assets, well, I realize I am constantly falling farther and farther behind.

A LOT of this is because other people are working harder, learning more, being smarter, and gaining more mastery of the game than me. Fair play to that. I love that and am impressed with how straight-up good people are at these games and how much they know!

Megamind on Hive!

But a LITTLE of this is the word that might drive me out of blockchain gaming forever.

LUCK

Specifically, luck in getting good stuff from packs. I know there are other kinds of luck, how much damage you do, or who strikes first when speed is even, or whether you rented out the card that would have been perfect for the weird battle conditions, etc.

But one kind of luck makes too much of a difference, in my opinion. Player A and Player B might both pay 10,000 Starbits or 5,000 DEC or $5 or whatever for a pack. If A gets a Gold Foil Legend and B gets hyper-abundant Commons and Rares, A's pack might both be worth $LOTS$ and help them qualify for more future rewards and play more interesting strategies and matches, whereas B's is essentially worthless. Not really even worth the electricity B would have to spend to sell all the cards.

These disparities are kind of fate-altering. Even if they are randomized, it is not appealing to me. Imagine watching the World Cup and at the end of each half there was a freekick shootout. The ball could be positioned anywhere on the pitch, dozens of meters away or right on the PK spot. Where each team gets to shoot from is randomly generated. Imagine Brazil pulls a shooting spot from their own goal. Doesn't matter if Neymar or the trainer takes that shot. It makes no difference. Now imagine that Qatar gets to shoot it from the PK spot. It hardly matters who takes that shot, the odds of being a game-influencing moment are very high. At the end of the second half, Brazil again pointlessly shoots from it own goal. Qatar shoots from the edge of the Brazil goal box. Miss or score, is this fair? In the sense that both Brazil and Qatar had the same random chance of getting better shot, sure, it is fair. But it is fate-altering in a way that feels wrong, don't you think?

Maybe you could brush this off and say that over time Brazil will still beat Qatar. So you turn up for the next match. Brazil faces another dismal team, let's say USA. At the end of the first half Brazil again shoots from its own goal, and tries to feel excited when they get a shot from the center circle at the end of the second half. It is their best chance yet! Meanwhile USA gets a PK and tries a curler from the Brazil back line. If you were Brazil, you would start to feel not so great, I think. Maybe Brazil beats USA, but if other teams keep getting great chances and Brazil keeps getting pointless wastes of time, they will fall behind. And even if they do not because they are an excellent talent, the game feels less fun, right? Harder to feel engaged, harder to care, harder to look forward to the next match.

This is a pretty obvious analogy, right? Cards are randomized, everyone has the same random chance of getting garbage and everyone has the same tiny random chance of getting something that is potentially destiny-altering. Now, I am not as good at these games as Brazil is at theirs. So I am probably more like Switzerland or Japan. Or, realistically, Lichtenstein. I have my moments, but I need some luck to go my way.

It never does.

I don't honestly know how many packs I have opened in Splinterlands. Maybe 50, maybe 100, maybe more? Not counting Gladius packs, which are nice but of limited consequence, I have never gotten a Legendary card. Not once. I have opened about 80 packs in Rising Star. Not only have I never gotten a Legendary, I have never even gotten an Epic card.

I know that is just me, because I have seen lots of people's pack opening reports. And, let me just say, that I do not deserve to get awesome cards in pack draws. I shouldn't get great cards just to help me advance in a game, there are other ways to do that. I could invest more, invest smarter, learn more, play longer, etc. Definitely, I could.

Also, I want to say that I am not complaining, per se. Yes, I would absolutely like to get great cards, but again, I do not deserve them any more than anyone else does.

I want to make 2 points though, only one of which is personal.

#1 - the huge swing in fates, in my opinion, based on pure luck in what you get when you open a pack, is outsized. Some people open 100 packs and get nothing, some people open 1 and get a card that is worth the price of 100 packs. That is weird to me. That is pure lottery gambling. It is not fun for me, speaking personally, and makes me unsure of whether it is worth investing time and money into a game where no matter how much work and forethought I put in, someone can accomplish the same thing for 5 Hive on the market in a couple of seconds. Maybe it matters less than someone who is in a position to buy 1,000 packs than someone who has to save up for weeks in order to get one. But I can't just buy 1,000 packs, and even when I can afford to buy 12 packs on Rising Star, it still sucks if the yield is blah. How many Penny Whistles can a struggling musician need? haha That brings me to #2.

#2 - I never get this lucky. I never have. I have never gotten the great pack pull, the ace in the hole, the 11 when I double on 10, the big lottery payoff. I never will. I am not sure why this is the case for me, but it has been true my whole life and it continues in crypto, where I get even more chances to prove it over and over again. I am not lucky in that way. I mean, why do I want to pay money for the opportunity to be reminded of my bad luck all through my life over and over again. It's a bit depressing, right?

So, the game is against me in that particular way because it is always other people who are getting great cards from packs even though I paid the same amount. And I keep falling farther and farther behind. There are indeed ways to keep making money on games, but there are no real ways to ENJOY the games if you are me. It just is hard to care about them when a significant amount depends on getting lucky (though not everything I admit), and I never do, never have, and never will.

So, each pack opening that is garbage, that is worth only 1% or 20% or even 50% of what I paid for it reminds me of my bad luck. And reminds me that yet again, I made a mistake in buying a pack and yet again I am falling behind.

I will keep looking for a game that has rational rewards that are transparently built on my actions in the game. I can't really think of any offhand, but I will keep looking.

And, I think I am perilously close to swearing off any game that give luck such a huge role, where the range of what you get from a pack ranges from $0.15 to $250 or more. That is just gambling. That is just lottery nonsense. That is just throwing money on the roulette wheel and hoping for Green.

That is just fine for lots of people, but just not me.

I hope this doesn't come across as too complain-y. I am just meditating on luck and just came to the realization of how much it drains my enjoyment of games when the outcomes can diverge so greatly just due to luck. You probably love all these games and hopefully have better luck than me. I wish you the best and I hope you enjoy continuing to play.

I'm just on the lookout for something that fits my style a little better.

Thanks for reading, and Good Luck!