Author: Anna Kharton, Olivia Capozzalo
Compiled by: Zen, PANews
Whether you’re one of the most devoted players of Hamster Kombat, the Telegram-based click-to-earn game, or you’ve completely brushed it off, the buzz surrounding the game since its release this spring is real.
With Notcoin as a model, since the number of registered accounts of Hamster Kombat reached tens of millions, most of the news about this game has focused on the release and price prediction of its native token HMSTR. As the first season of the game, which came out in March, came to an end, players began to accuse the team of unfair treatment and false promises.
As of last weekend, as part of the game’s promised reward system, the resources accumulated by players have been converted into HMSTR tokens, which are expected to be sent in the form of airdropped tokens at the time of the TGE. The game team also revealed more details in a post on the X platform. More information about token supply and distribution. The team said that of the planned supply of 100 billion HMSTR tokens to be minted, 75% will be reserved for the community and 60% of the tokens will be distributed to the game at the end of the first season. user.
According to the team’s post on the X platform, this “hamster math” continues: of the 60% HMSTR token supply allocated to users, 88.75% will be distributed during this week’s token airdrop and listing, and the remainder will be The tokens will be locked and unlocked only 10 months after the token is listed on the exchange. The team also promised to airdrop an additional 15% of the 100 billion tokens during the upcoming second season of Hamster Kombat.
Since March, the Hamster Kombat team says the game has as many as 300 million users. Of those users, only a small half, 131 million players, are eligible to receive token rewards in the much-anticipated airdrop. The official airdrop is currently scheduled for September 26. In addition, 2.3 million players have been identified as cheating users and are completely banned from participating in token distribution.
Disappointing Token Distribution
Since the Hamster Kombat team’s announcement on Sunday, many users have taken to the X platform to express their dissatisfaction with the token distribution process and criteria, arguing that the number of tokens they received was far less than the time and effort they put in. .
HMSTR tokens will be listed and traded on exchanges after the airdrop later this week, but several major exchanges have already conducted pre-market trading of spot and futures contracts for HMSTR tokens. Its price ranges from 0.01 USDT on different platforms. Ranging from 0.1 USDT to 0.1 USDT, players are confused about the actual value of their allocated tokens.
Judging from comments in the community, based on the highest USDT prices on various exchanges, the average user would earn less than $50 for hundreds of hours of gaming time.
A player nicknamed Timbo in the Telegram community said that he played the game almost from the beginning, playing about 4-5 hours a day for two months and earning about 500 tokens. As time went on, the buzz around the game and the upcoming tokens continued to grow, meaning more and more players were promised token allocations at launch. “My interest grew over time.” The game itself is not that interesting. As for potential revenue, I don't expect much - the number of players has become so large that everyone needs to be rewarded. "Timbo said.
"Cheater" judgment raises doubts
Another bigger wave of negative sentiment was when Hamster Kombat announced that it would exclude 2.3 million players from token distribution. According to the project, the ban was in response to those who allegedly tried to obtain game revenue through improper means. Users, such as using multiple devices to click, playing games from different accounts, or cheating through recommendations. The project also gave an example: "One person connected more than 400 accounts to the same Binance address, and another person invited nearly 2,000 "Friends" who have been flagged by our anti-cheat system."
However, some of the cheating criteria seem controversial, and one of the most shocking penalties is the purchase of keys. Keys are important game props introduced later, and they also have a high weight in airdrops. In the game rules, users need to pass The game system of Hamster Kombat allows users to buy keys without any warning or explanation that this is a violation. However, this Behavior was apparently deemed “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 this line:
“Some of my friends have been wrongly included on the cheater list without doing anything wrong. This injustice has severely damaged the trust of the community and created an atmosphere of distrust.”
These players who were identified by the project as violating the so-called "rules of the game" were only given a simple status at the end of the first season: "Cheating is bad." The Telegram group chat of the Hamster Kombat community was immediately flooded with complaints. , and everyone thought the distribution criteria were unfair and asked the administrators to reconsider and distribute the tokens. Users in Telegram expressed dissatisfaction with being suddenly labeled as cheaters at the end of the season, pointing out that they had spent a lot of time on the game.
“At the beginning of the project, no one knew what violations would happen, and at the end of the project, there was a sudden ban, distributing tokens to fewer people under ridiculous excuses.” A person claiming to be a player said in X complained on the platform that he had played for four months, collected more than 200 keys, earned 8.36 million HMSTR per hour, set alarms and tracked the "accumulation time" of the cards. "Now you tell me I don't deserve it. Hamster Kombat is a liar."
Meanwhile, the hashtag #boycotthamsterkombat is trending on Platform X — with over 22,000 tweets at the time of writing.
How is token allocation determined?
According to community reports, the number of tokens players receive is determined based on the following criteria:
- The number of coins collected by the user during the entire period
- The number of friends invited by the user to join the game
- The number of coins a user earns through passive income
- The number of keys the user has won in the mini-game
- The number of daily tasks completed by the user
Tokens in Hamster Kombat are divided into several categories: Total HMSTR, Claimed, Next Unlock, and Unclaimed. However, the game does not provide an explanation for these different categories.
It turns out that the most important task that determines the number of tokens each player receives is not the passive income HMSTR tokens earned by playing the game, but the number of friends invited through the referral link. Judging from the comments on social media, the average user has a high opinion of The token distribution logic is the most unsatisfactory 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 a wide social network like YouTube influencers, who can Invite “friends” by sharing your referral link and earn more tokens.
Did Hamster Kombat fool everyone? With a massive token distribution plan and reported user statistics, the game is still on track to pull off one of the largest airdrops in crypto. Those who have linked their wallets to their Hamster Kombat accounts will be able to Players of the cryptocurrency exchange are expected to receive their allotment of tokens in an airdrop this week, which can then be traded on major exchanges such as Binance and OKX.
Given the large number of users reportedly playing Hamster Kombat, it’s perhaps unsurprising that players received fewer tokens than expected. Given that the total token supply is capped at 100 billion and there are reports of hundreds of millions of users, user base, the math becomes at least somewhat clear, even if it's disappointing to most players.
Regardless, the true value of users’ earnings in fiat terms will not be known until HMSTR tokens are listed for spot trading on September 26 and players actually receive their long-awaited tokens.
Russian experts say their tokens will face selling pressure
According to RTVI, Viktor Pershikov, an independent expert in combating financial crime in the crypto space, said that those who “wanted to get rich playing Hamster Kombat” “found their expectations dashed.” The outlet noted that many were disappointed to learn that “there are After playing the game for several months, they would receive “only $5 to $15” in return for their efforts. Pershikov also said that the game and its team “never promised to make anyone rich,” and when players eventually started using their When HMSTR tokens are traded for fiat currency, the token price “will come under pressure.”
Telegram is the chat app of choice for most Russian citizens, and the popular Hamster Kombat is naturally very popular in Russia. Some players in the country even buy fascia guns to enhance their knocking ability. Many e-commerce sellers It also took the opportunity to promote the "hamster knocking" effect of its fascia guns, thereby driving sales growth of these fascia guns on Russian e-commerce platforms.
The Russian information and socio-political electronic newspaper Fontanka.ru reported on Hamster Kombat on September 22, saying that the "eight-year-old son" of one of its employees "mined" Bitcoin for a total of 120 days. . In the end, the boy's income was about 4.3 rubles ($0.046).
Some commentators expressed their displeasure in the comments section of Fontantka Ru's article, with one Russian social media user lamenting: "How did we go from being the most well-read and educated country in the world to being like this?"
