Loving and Living Hamster Kombat

Could hyper-casual games be the key to unlock crypto’s mass adoption? Will gaming be the game-changer that crypto could do with, or this too will make an unexpected escape?

I discovered hamsters accidentally.

At a colleague's apartment. In the city of Bangalore. Silicon valley of the East. Where you are a hamster stuck in the wild, wild west traffic. 

This hamster? A tiny whirlwind of fur. Nestled in a cage. Tucked in the corner. Beautiful little world. Lovely.  

My friend was the caretaker. Not the owner. Sorry, the human parent. Who then? The neighbours. Out on a holiday. She was the stopgap parent. Beautiful passing relationship. Lovely.

The reality of hamsters, I was to learn then.

Cleaning the cage. A science experiment of sawdust and hay. Feeding the diet. Mix of seeds and pellets. No generic cereal. Picky eaters. Watching the escape. They want action. Almost always. Admiring the disproportionately large teeth. They can chew through almost anything. Beautiful little creatures. Lovely.

I am a city dweller. Simple altruistic living in the head. Expansive existence in the real world. In such a conflicting reality, tending to a living creature? Adorable as it might look, it is not. It is tough. Beautify dichotomy of life. Lovely

I love hamsters now. I really do. 

Beautiful, lovely creatures? No, not that. Sorry. The ones on my mobile. The CEO of the company. Making me feel all in control of my life. 2024 life therapy. 

Thank you Hamster Kombat.

Have you played yet? Aren't you on Telegram? If not, if you haven’t … You are not living the life that you must. A virtual all-in-control of your destiny existence that you can't afford to miss. 

Battling it out. Running your company. Earning money. Spending money. Making a lot of coins. How? Tap. Tap. Tap. That's it.

No cleaning. No feeding. No escape watch. Tap to earn, baby. Just that. Tap to earn. Nothing more. Easy. Pure. Unadulterated. Fun. Period.

Hamster Kombat. 300 million users.

Telegram channel, bigger than some small countries - 53 million subscribers. The YouTube channel has nearly 35 million (more than Beyoncé). X account has 12 million. 

Fastest product to reach 100 million users, 2 months. On its way to the Guiness world record.

So popular that Iranian authorities claimed the crypto game was distracting voters during the presidential election.

Come to think of it, this game was launched on March 25, 2024. That’s it. 

And now it has 300 million users across the globe tapping their way up to be the CEOs of a crypto exchange. 

Waiting for “the largest airdrop in the history of crypto.”

Some call it money plucked out from thin air. Internet money. That’s a topic for another day. I love crypto. 

This airdrop is huge. 

Set to beat Uniswap’s $6.43 billion airdrop? The largest decentralised crypto exchange. 

@CoinGecko

How did we get here? What happened? Two questions I ask myself always. Questions that often help me unpack. No matter what.

It’s a game on Telegram. The messenger app that has close to 1 billion users across the globe. 

Telegram is where all of these tap-to earn games reside.

Launch the game on the platform with big distribution. Big tick. 

The game’s economy is designed to sit on The Open Network (TON).

TON is Telegram’s blockchain. 

Open telegram, go to the channel, click the play button. 

Creating a TON wallet takes less than 30 seconds.

Telegram is on a mission to bring the next billion on the chain. The whole tap-to-earn universe runs on TON. Hyper-casual games are the trojan horse. 

Now there’s a mini app store as well.

@defilama

What is the narrative here?

Hyper casual games and Telegram are the way to bring mass audiences to web3. 

Can’t deny so much. If my grandma's in on it, you KNOW it's mainstream.

Why so much love right now?

The core gameplay is straightforward, requiring minimal effort. The game's appeal lies in its ability to provide instant gratification. You quickly see progress and rewards. A dopamine loop. 

But for how long? 

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I was a dedicated hamster tapper for a solid two weeks. My roommate lasted a measly ten days before throwing in the towel.

And her gamer boyfriend? He looked at the game, raised an eyebrow, and went back to his Valorant. 

Hyper-casual games are like those one-hit wonders. 

They burst onto the scene, everyone's obsessed for a minute, then poof, they're gone. 

He knows that.

It's easy to get bored with them fast because they're so simple, and with a million other games just a tap away, people jump ship quick.

Remember Kevin from accounting? No, gamers don't want to be that.

Spending hours clicking a button. 

This guy does love web3 games.

NFTs? Yes.

Blockchain? Yes.

Avatars? Yes.

In-game tokens? Yes. 

Endless tapping? Not so much.

Hyper-casual games are time fillers. Perfect for when you're stuck. 

At the airport with no seat and an hour to go for boarding, waiting for your turn at the dentist in pain, or just when the deadline for submission is on you but you need a quick brain break. 

These aren't games you're going to lose sleep over. You're not gonna ditch your girlfriend for a tapping contest, or call in sick to work for a gaming marathon. 

They're fun, but they know their place.

Hardcore gamers want depth, challenge, meaningful progression, and immersive experience.

Telegram games don't offer much of that.

What is Web3 and blockchain for gamers?

Payment rails mostly.

Sale of digital assets, in-game items, and play-to-earn mechanics. Lovely.

Hamster Kombat, though about crypto, still largely operates on a traditional, centralised platform - Telegram.

We can still see the gap. The actual potential of blockchain and its current application in these, worlds apart.

What is Web3 and blockchain for the game creators?

Reach. People. Greed.

Millions of users across platforms. That itself is profitable.

Now take blockchain out of it.

Nothing changes. Still got the views, followers and activity. 

It's a cash cow. 

A massive distribution network of digitally savvy folks. 

Not just that, they have value. Immense value for anyone who wants to tap that reach. Advertising. Plain and simple.

The question of whether the game can be sustainable? Founders are unfazed.

“First, we are already profitable. We have multiple revenue channels … We sell ads in our game. We get money from our YouTube ads (we have 18 channels in different languages). We have the largest Telegram channel, and Telegram shares the advertising revenue with channel owners.”

Nobody knows who these guys are. There isn’t even a need to know. Crypto loves anonymity.

This is what we know. 

Working in professional gaming for 15 years. Mining and trading Bitcoin for over a decade. Since it was below $100. They have no headquarters, around 50 people working remotely. Hamster Kombat idea came to them in January 2024, and three quarters into the year the team is uncorking champagne over the most successful crypto game. 

If nothing else, for sheer numbers it has clocked. Ring that adoption bell.

All of this for what? Well. Just because they love hamsters and some of their team members used to have them as pets in childhood. Nice.   

I call them marketing geniuses. 

The mainstream game adoption counts? Maybe. Maybe not

Yes they have more subscribers than Queen Bey. 

Reason: You subscribe, you watch hamster videos, you get 100,000 coins. 

The videos are about? Crypto, blockchain, memecoins, Trump and what not.

As for my roommate, she’s more of a cat person. She tolerated the hamster videos for the sake of the free coins. 

You don’t call that “mainstream adoption.” Or do you?

None of them might not look up and create a MetaMask Wallet. They might not buy any crypto. They would never invest in a “namecoin ETF”.

I know that much. 

Does it even matter? 

If it is serving a purpose. Be it entertainment. Be it transactions. Be it seamless navigation across ecosystems. Why should the user know or even fret about blockchain, crypto and the modalities of this new internet. 

What do we call it? Web3.

Why should there be a distinction between the pillars? Web1 this. Web2 that. Web3 the daddy of them all. The infrastructure of the new internet. 

Isn’t it all about the ease? Without worrying about anything and everything underlying. 

Evolution of humanity, a natural progression that goes under the knife only in retrospection.

So then, what exactly is crypto adoption after all? 

Is it about buying crypto? 

Is it about reading crypto news everyday?

Or is it when it's not big news when someone buys a pizza with Bitcoin?

I don’t know. I do have a TON wallet. Still waiting for that airdrop. And I still won’t adopt a hamster.

Bring on them in-game hamsters. I will play. 

Hell. Bring on Cats. Bring on dogs. Bring on Elephants if you like. 

I am married to crypto and blockchain is my cult. 

Okay, so it feels. Thank you. 

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Buttercup Picks: The Good Reads

• Bragging Rights Are Key to Retaining Web3 Gamers -  by Allen Ng, Coindesk July 11, 2024

• Stop Trying to Sell Gamers What They Don’t Want - by Jyro Blade, Coindesk July 10, 2024 

• From Coin-Operated Machines to Token-Operated Gaming - by Ben Rubin, Coindesk July 11, 2024 

• Hamster Kombat creators: marketing geniuses or modern satirists? - by Henry Nelson Cointelegraph, June 29, 2024 

• Why is Hamster Kombat So Popular, and Will It Last? - by Connor Sephton, Crypto News July 12, 2024

• How Telegram Game 'Hamster Kombat' Got 300 Million Users—and the Ire of Iran’s Military - by Jeff Wilser, Wired August 1, 2024 

• Why Blockbuster Games Will Soon Be Built on Modular Appchains - by Jack O’Holleran, Coindesk July 12, 2024 

• Do Meme Coin Traders Care About Getting Scammed? Psychologists Explain - by Ryan S. Gladwin, Decrypt July 22, 2024

• Hamster Kombat surpasses 300M users, teases ‘largest airdrop’ in crypto history - by Zoltan Vardai, Cointelegraph July 30, 2024

• Hamster Kombat. How much will you really make? The whole truth. Big breakdown of the project, HMSTR token and the team - by Andrey Plat, Medium July 14, 2024

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