[imagesource:hamsterkombat/facebook]

A new crypto game has managed to draw more than 300 million players and become so popular that an Iranian military leader accused it of “distracting voters amidst the country’s elections”, and claiming it was “a tool in the West’s ‘soft war’ against Iran”.

Beyond annoying the Iranian military, Hamster Combat, is touted as having ‘the potential to bring millions to blockchain’, and the anonymous creators say they are only getting started. They also deby anything to do with the US Government, cheekily replying to the accusations with “Should we send a confirmation letter from our CIA email?”

The idea of Hamster Kombat is straightforward: you are a hamster who wants to get wealthy while simultaneously serving as the CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange.

The founders are, however, suspiciously guarded about their origins, except to say they’ve been in professional gaming for 15 years, have been mining and trading Bitcoin since it was under $100, and have no outside investors.

With a staff of 50 working remotely with no headquarters, they came up with the idea for Hamster Kombat back in January. Why hamsters? “We absolutely adore hamsters! And several of our team members had them as pets growing up.”

Sounds innocent(ish) enough, so why is Iran making all this fuss?

Well, as the fastest-growing project in the history of crypto, the game has 53 million subscribers, its YouTube channel has nearly 35 million, and its X account has 12 million. There are now also more Hamster users than there are people in France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom combined.

The game went live on March 26, and players immediately started playing to collect free “coins” that they hope will someday have real monetary worth. The more free coins you have now, the more real money you have later. Despite the crypto/gambling vibes, Iran’s military seems to be more worried about another aspect of the game, similar in nature to the West’s worries about TikTok.

“First, there was Musical.ly, and it almost died,” the creators explain, alluding to TikTok’s first version. Then, ByteDance (which purchased Musical.ly) devised mechanisms to encourage sharing.

“People underestimate the effect of these tiny mechanisms,” said the inventors. “Sometimes, they can turn the tide.”

Since you earn coins for inviting friends to the game, watching YouTube videos, or subscribing to the Telegram channel, the developers knew the game had to go viral since it did not have a marketing plan. To do this, the creators used real-world events and incorporated them into the game, such as the ‘cloud-seeding floods’ during the Dubai crypto conference held recently.

“We went and made a card [in the game] about this. And then people just started getting this card, taking screenshots, posting on social [media].”

This real-time social commentary on events is likely why Iran’s ire was raised. With an online community that claims 300 million members, this simple game is anything but. And the huge following can, and is, being monetised.

More importantly, it’s a crypto game. When you open the app, you’re presented with a bewildering array of options for expanding your hamster’s cryptocurrency exchange, like investing in your UX and UI staff, creating an NFT metaverse or acquiring a legal license to operate in Nigeria. These alternatives are deep dives into Web3, and if you’re not familiar with it, you may need to do some serious research.

Each option has a cost (in the form of free coins for now), but investing in it can increase your hamster’s hourly profit. This makes the game as addictive as gambling, and in some ways, Hamster Kombat serves as a Trojan horse for getting people interested in cryptocurrency, which according to the developers, is their ultimate goal.

“We want to onboard the next billion people to Web3, so we had to show everyone how Web3 actually works. And the simplest way to do so is through the game.”

The creators claim its upcoming airdrop will be “the largest airdrop in the history of crypto” and will reward hundreds of millions of users with a “HMSTR” token that still has an uncertain value.

“We want to build an ecosystem around Hamster Kombat centred around game publishing.”

“The future token will be at the centre of this ecosystem of interconnected games and services.”

The only thing anyone who follows the game really knows at the moment is that it’s all a bit of an unknown. The tokens may very well become worth something one day and spawn a new set of ‘crypto millionaires. Or it can become worthless. As with anything crypto, it remains to be seen.

Perhaps it’s simply best to avoid it altogether.

[source:wired]