Recently, even though everyone is focused on the rise of $ETH or scrambling for positions on $BTC , I am still keeping a close eye on those 'uninspiring' projects in this market that drains people. After playing games for so many years, I've seen too many machines that take off at the beginning and then crash quickly. A few years ago, any team could put on a nice mask, stuff a token in, and everyone would start scrambling. You would just tap the screen a few times every day, collect your earnings, and then sell them on the market and leave. We are all too familiar with this process. Once the funds in the market retreat and no one is trading, what’s left is a pile of non-operational wreckage.
I used to always like to catch the earnings period at the opening. I thought those daily increasing online users were the real popularity, rushing forward with everyone. Later, I realized that those people were just mechanically working in a different place. Those teams bring out a bunch of growth charts every day to make a show, yet no one considers what to use to retain people after the dividend period is over. In the end, it will definitely be us who pay to fill the pit.
So I didn't have much hope at first for @Pixels . I clicked to take a look. Farming, simple graphics, a bit of social attributes. This kind of project seems too easy to be turned into a short-lived scheme. But after monitoring its on-chain daily data for a few months, my judgment changed. It actually survived and didn't endure too much difficulty.
Later, I found out in retrospect that this project did one thing wrong. Many teams create a shell to get rich first, and then paste a few pretty pictures as a game. When there's no money to be made, that layer of skin instantly breaks. Pixels first solidified the mud underground. The progress you grind out in the game, the land rent you spend, the rotten wood materials in your hands, including the friction when you compete for resources with others, these things pile together, giving it real weight. It is far from perfect. But this weight allows it to stand firm on the rough ground after the revelry recedes.
Slowly, this way of not painting a big pie has become very useful. It doesn't expect to give you a big news every day. It just makes you log in every day, collect yesterday's crops, and do a few small tasks. It is cultivating an extremely tiny habit through day-to-day repetition. In this attention-consuming circle, small but real habits are always more powerful than one-time revelry. After the revelry, only noise remains, while habits firmly stick to people.
However, I still have a concern. What if everyone's spare time and patience are drained every day? Yesterday, I was looking for an early user resource flow chart, staring at the data comparison of several important trading days for an afternoon, feeling a bit blocked in my heart. That seemingly stable labor cycle depends entirely on the continuous influx of buyers for support. Every repeated click you save has secretly marked the cost. If one day, this repeated labor makes impatient players feel too tired to withdraw, the foundation built on habits is actually very fragile.
I still check its consumption data every day. Even if everyone is now willing to give it time to improve the rules, the real trouble is always ahead. When the hot money outside becomes more discerning, and no one wants to take even one trial-and-error, can the faint heartbeat of daily clocking in really withstand the death gravity brought by system wear? If that layer of false prosperity is shattered, who will account for the ever-enlarging hole?
