I am amazed by what Steem is transforming into. Never before in my life have I seen I dynamic like here on our social media blockchain. The network effect is enormous and projects are popping up like mushrooms after rain. Coming from a gaming background I have a keen eye on one of them: 
One has to admire the path Steem Monster has taken: They released a platform that allowed you to buy digital images for Steem with the prospect of transforming them into proper cards over time. And Steemians from all over the world started to throw their money at them. They collected thousands of Steem in the first week and grew exponentially.
Now they have proper virtual cards and even a market place to trade them for enormous prices. The rareness and proof-of-ownership aspect has transformed these cards into a new form of digital gold. Some of these cards go for thousands of Steem over the digital table. And this even before the actual game is available.
The official Kickstarter has begun two days ago as a quick look at the Trendind Page reveals.
The currently available cards are called Alpha cards and are limited in their numbers. When the limit is reached no more cards of this edition will ever be sold and all owners will sit on an early invester bounty one could say that could potentially become very valuable when this kicks off as a proper game. And it looks like it will kick-off indeed.
The game is a mix of Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering. You even have gold cards which are rare versions of the normal cards. Weekly tournaments with price money will be an essential element of the game and drive the selling of the new card packages. Trading, crafting, playing and most and for all OWNING of the digital cards are obviously a model that has explosive potential.
I have not yet gotten any cards as I am notoriously short with Steem but I will try to get a few of these Alpha decks just in case the hype continues and makes this one of the most interesting Steem applications out there. It certainly is an incredible sample case for future developments which will come for sure.
Have you gotten any Steem Monster cards yet? Do you think they could increase in value when the alpha ends and new editions come out? Do you think this could bring in gamers who otherwise have nothing to do with Steem?