So, if my faithful followers remember, I wrote an article earlier about staking into Hello Coaster, a new PvE game produced by the makers of Century of Trains. That entry was something to the tune of $125 for the starting Park Lord NFT, and then there was the first pack release on a soft drop to those who opted in above. So, total cost basically came out to $145 to get started.
Since then, consistent with the white paper and plan released, the first coaster NFT was released and dropped to all those with a Park Lord. The Ice Blizzard NFT was released this morning after a snapshot was taken on all Park Lord holders at 11am. As promised, I ended up with mint #34 in my wax account on schedule as promised.
Now, the original pack that was released gave everyone with a Park Lord three NFTs for an additional $20, mentioned above. That included a Guest NFT, a Staff NFT, and a basic initial Coaster NFT. The three of them gave a Park Lord holder the basics to get started with the game opened a little bit later at the beginning of September. Now, for most of us holders, we got common NFTs. A few lucky ones got uncommon or rare items, which made a big difference right from the start. However, the typical formula was that each NFT generated 15 of its token FIX, VIBE or FUN. Then, to mint and earn, one had to spend 30 points of energy each cycle. The total adds up to 90 points of energy, and as a start, we were given about 500 points.
At that point the holders were off and running. The release of the new tokens connected to the Wax network was an immediate return as the token commanded almost 0.5 Wax ($0.09 as of today) each. However, that soon changed. As holders realized the value, the market saturated. While two of the tokens held their value for a while, a third dropped quickly, 4:1 Wax and then almost 5:1 Wax. Further, holders with only common realized the math was going to require some juggling. If one earned 45 tokens with varying values, he or she had to earn enough to replenish energy. Once that run out from the initial 500, then the token had to pay for more.
Some folks immediately threw more money into the game, paid premium for the related tokens, and stacked up their energy to max. However, I chose the lean path. No further investment. Now I wanted my return.
The second challenge was the fact that one only started with two slots for NFTs, not three. That meant only two tokens could be earned at a time. However, a Park Lord needs 3 to keep things going. Each NFT requires repair after a cycle. Ignore it, and the cost goes up. Fail to eventually pay, and no more cycling can occur. That then requires having to pay into the game more investment. Again, not part of my strategy. So, I expertly juggled. I mussed up once or twice, but I recovered, and so far I haven't had to pay more overall, despite a pair of momentary cash flow burps.
The first new Coaster drop, the Ice Phantom, was a nice evolution; each cycle lasted 6 hours but it awarded 180 FUN token. However it also going to cost 180 energy points to run. So, the only way that was going happen was the same problem as before, putting more money into this venture. Nope. Not going to happen. The point here is to make this profitable, not a loss.
So, I put the first Coaster on the market. Why? Well, first it was free. So, anything I made on it was free and clear return. Second, it had just come out, which meant that NFT was going to be worth its most probably the first day, typical of drops. I already knew a number of players wanted in or extra coasters or to speculate, so there was going to be demand. At first, the outrageous cost level was at $200 for the NFT. Then, we began the race to the lowest price point before a sale occurred. It took me about an hour of watching the market and staying ahead, but finally I sold mine for a net income of $90 and change (Atomic Hub had to take their cut).
I'm sure it could have sold for more eventually, but the trick to selling on your clock is to respect the market and make it easy for the market to buy what you want to sell. Otherwise, you have to wait for the market to get to your price point. That could be a long time if priced wrong.
So, now with $90 recovered on the sale I had some leverage to work with. The next step was obvious: get the third slot so the game can pay for itself. That cost me about $60 said and done. Net income after putting that back in and now being able to use all three NFT channels was $30. And, three times a day now, I'm generating cost-free income. It's not a complete move to the black, but now I've recovered close to a third with token exchanges and the sale, and within a month I'll probably have the rest easily by the next coaster drop. So far, so good. Now to see if this game reach full launch and greater demand going forward.
Then I can get into crafting and generating more income. We'll see.
