I like the points you made about adressing the supply moving forward, but it’s not enough. We need to think about the utility aspect of NFTs as well.
There is a lot of uncertainty around future utility of the rarest items in the game. Because a lot of the value of gaming NFTs is derived from utility and not only rarity, it is an equally important topic.
I understand the fear of having too OP items and “pay-to-win”. The problem is that there is no play-to-earn without pay-to-win. Why would someone spend 200k$ on a beard if it doesn’t make him win? In the context where pay-to-win players are buying items from play-to-earn players, therefore creating a mutually beneficial relationship; having OP items is positive imo.
Obviously there is some balance to have, and we should not reproduce bad practices of the mobile game industry. I think that for godlike items to be worth X times more than common items, then they need to be close to X times more powerful/profitable than common items.
We need to add utility to the highest rarity items, in terms of gotchiverse “gameplay” revenue and maybe in terms of future NFT distribution. Because by creating most of the value at the bottom, we are creating a risky situation for the long term success of the project.
If a project attracts mostly play-to-earn players at the bottom, then most of your player base don’t care about the game and see it as a job, let’s call them parasites. This fact is aggravated by game devs becoming dependent of the parasites, because parasites are generating most of the metrics used to positively value the project. This makes a pressure on the game devs to squeeze as much as they can from users who add money to the pot and distribute it to the parasitic majority.
Once the host becomes too weak or dies, parasites switch to another one.
Parasites are attracted by having most of the value generated at the bottom. Which has been the case for Aavegotchi since the lower rarity items captured most of the growth. Game devs should focus on creating play-to-have-fun value at the bottom and moving the play-to-earn value upstream. This is how you’ll bring balance in the symbiosis and new money in the system, positively impacting long term success of the project.
Damage has been done, but it is not too late. I believe Aavegotchi has a great community, and obviously a potential bright future. We didn’t suffer too much from the issue above because of our relatively slow growth. But we have to be very mindful on what we base our future growth on, what type of users we want to attract, and designing game mechanics and economies accordingly.