Town Star – Results Update

Town Star is a play-to-earn game that is similar to Farmville, a very popular farming game from around 10 years ago.

In Town Star you can buy NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and use them in the game to earn Town Coin, a native cryptocurrency.

We commented in our previous update “that for the token to have any real value in and of itself it needs to be given utility in the game…otherwise this token could very well end up worthless as could all the related NFTs used in the game.”

Well sadly our prediction is coming true as Town Coin continues to plummet, reaching as low as $0.075 at the time of writing, from a high of over $2 just a few months ago.

There is still very little reason to hold the token, other than having it in your wallet, which allows you…to earn more Town Coin! A slightly weird setup to be honest.

You can’t do anything else with Town Coin though, and you can also achieve the same effect by holding Gala tokens in your wallet.

So as we have said before, unless they can create a genuine use-case for the token, there is only ever going to be sell-side pressure from people wanting to cash in the tokens they have earned but no buy-side pressure from people actually wanting to buy the token. The inevitable result will be the token going to zero (or close to zero).

Ultimately it seems like at the moment no play-to-earn game developers have developed a functioning token economy that balances supply and demand and creates a stable ecosystem. It’s a challenge but hopefully at least one of them will figure it out at some stage.

If they do then others, like Gala Games, can learn from that and adapt it to Town Star.

In the meantime it isn’t worth putting in the many hours of work needed whilst the payouts we receive are almost worthless, so we are going to put this on hold until we see Gala develop the utility of Town Coin such that it has value and is worth earning.

Town Star – Results Update

27th January 2022

Town Star is a play-to-earn game that is similar to Farmville, a very popular farming game from around 10 years ago.

In Town Star you can buy NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and use them in the game to earn Town Coin, a native cryptocurrency.

So far we have been able to use two NFTs and have completed the daily challenges pretty much every day, earning 25 Town Coin per day. In total we have earned just over 1500 Town Coin.

As mentioned last time however, one of the problems is how much the price of Town Coin has fluctuated. It was up at $2 at one stage but is down to just $0.17 at the time of writing, so a more than 90% fall.

This is part of the reality of cryptocurrencies which are wildly volatile, although it is a little frustrating that this token, which is in-game coin purely for Town Star, seems to have been affected so much by the wider market.

We also commented last time that for the token to have any real value in and of itself it needs to be given utility in the game. There was mention of this in a couple of blog posts by Gala Games a few months ago but nothing that we have seen since, so we are hope there are still plans to do so.

Otherwise this token could very well end up worthless as could all the related NFTs used in the game.

Town Star – Results Update

19th December 2021

We have recently started to look at play-to-earn (P2E) games as a new trend that is emerging in the intersection of the cryptocurrency and gaming worlds.

Town Star is a P2E game that is similar to Farmville, a very popular farming game from around 10 years ago.

In Town Star you can buy NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and use them in the game to earn Town Coin, a native cryptocurrency.

It is worth noting that in order to use your NFTs, you will need a certain amount of “power” – which basically means holding either Gala Coins or Town Coins in your wallet. To achieve level one and be able to use one NFT only requires having one Gala token which is easy, but to get to level 2 requires a lot more – 5,000 points to be precise. There is more info about Power levels here.

In any event, we have been able to use two NFTs and have completed the daily challenges pretty much every day, earning 25 Town Coin per day. In total we have earned just over 600 Town Coin.

One of the problems though is how much Town Coin has fluctuated recently. When we started this review it was around $0.70, then it went to over $2 at one stage and has fallen all the back to around $0.60 at the time of writing.

That is to be expected with cryptocurrencies of course, but a major flaw we see in the Town Star model at the moment is that the Town Coin is not integrated within the game.

Other P2E games like Axie Infinity have integrated their token (AXS) into the game such that you need to purchase AXS to enter the game and buy assets within it. Then you can win the token by being successful in the game. It has created a circular economy that balances supply and demand for the token.

The problem with Town Star is that you don’t need the token to play the game and it is not used within the game at all. The only use for is it buy NFTs or hold in your wallet, but both of those things can be done with Gala tokens. So essentially there is no need to buy Town Coin and therefore no demand, but there are lots of people wanting to sell it as they earn it from completing the daily challenge.

Until this is addressed we can only see the price of Town Coin going downwards. It seems the spike in price was due to nodes being sold in Town Coin, but that will not drive long-term demand for the token.

We hope that Gala Games (the makers of Town Star) are thinking about game economics and are planning to integrate Town Coin into the game. We have asked them if they plan to do this but are yet to receive a response.

In the meantime though we will keep playing the game and earning Town Coin, in the hope that at some point the value does increase due to demand from utility within the game.

Town Star – New Review

12th November 2021

We remarked recently that we were starting to delve into the world of play-to-earn games. This is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged in the cryptocurrency sphere and allows you to play video games and earn tokens from doing so.

It sounds pretty amazing and although yet to break into the mainstream, that time is surely coming soon with major players like Ubisoft announcing they would be entering the fold.

One of the key features of this new generation of play-to-earn games is the use of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) within the games.

These relate to the in-game items – like swords, shields, armour etc that you can purchase in a video game to improve your characters’ performance.

Where as previously you did not own those items though and they belonged to the gaming company, now with NFTs you actually own the item outright. Ownership is provable on the blockchain and means the items cannot be copied, forged or faked.

It has opened up a revolution in gaming but also an opportunity to earn an additional income from playing games. Some people are even apparently playing these games for a living!

Whilst we’re not sure that is entirely wise, certainly the opportunity to make some additional revenue is intriguing enough to give some of these new play-to-earn games a try.

So in that vein we are starting a new review today of a play-to-earn game called Town Star. It comes from Gala Games, who have been one of the pioneers of these new play-to-earn games.

Town Star is a lot like Farmville if you are familiar with that game – and in fact it was invented by the same people.

Essentially it is a game where you build up your own farm and town, make goods and sell them to other towns.

You can earn in-game currency – the “Town Coin” – by completing certain asks – or even it seems just by owning NFTs and placing them within the game.

We have just signed up and been having a little play and it is a fun game to play for sure. What we are more interested in of course is the potential for earning Town Coin and how much you can realistically make per week/month.

That is something we will investigate as we get more involved and understand more about how it all works. We will report back soon when we have further details.

In the meantime you can check out Gala Games (including Town Star) here.