Hi Folks,
After entering the world of tron dogs a few weeks ago now I thought I would share my experience, and break down the inner workings of tron dogs that may not be apparently obvious.
To begin, here is some context:
1.Currently, the only way to sell tron dogs is buy opening a pet shop (this will change once game.com releases trading features across players over the next month). A pet shop costs 20,000 tron and has a limited supply of 10,000 across all language versions of the game (i.e. 10,000 for across all Japanese, American, Chinese, etc.. players). Initially they were releasing 100 new stores a day. Then, more recently, they dropped it down to 50 new stores a day. Currently, only 10 stores are available for purchase each day. One can purchase a store at 9:10PM EST, but be warned, they sell out in a matter of seconds. This has been the case even when 100 stores were being sold a day. I think there is around 1500 stores in existence right now.
2.When you buy your shop you get 130 or so pets to sell of different rarities. The rarities are Common, rare, epic, legend. Commons at this point are basically impossible to sell as there are so many, but rare, epic, and legend pets typically sell out instantly. Since I have started, I have easily sold over 20,000 tron worth of rare or better dogs, but maybe a few thousand worth of common dogs. Note that currently all dogs are priced at 200 trx each regardless of rarity. This is likely to change once features are fully released soon.
3.Game.com has previously claimed that once you sell out your store you can buy packages of 26 tron dogs for 20 trx, 200 trx, or 2000 trx where each tron dog has the value of the package purchase price (i.e. 26 dogs worth 2000 trx each). I have spoken with the admins on their telegram group and it seems like they may be backing off of the specific values they originally suggested. In theory, the package system should remain, but the prices may be different. Since the package system has not been released yet, tron shop owners get free refills when they sell out.
4.The reimbursement system for store owners is a bit complicated. When a customer buys a dog they receive the dog and a bonus amount of game.com's coin called GTC. The amount of GTC they receive is on average around 80% of the total trx dog price, and is paid to the customer by the store owner at the point of sale (note that the GTC comes out of the 200 tron price paid and not paid directly by the store owner). From the remaining revenue (20% of total sales) game.com takes half and you get the other half. This leaves your profit per sale at about 10%. Hence, for every tron dog you sell currently you get 20 tron. However, if they do release 2000 tron packages, then your profit per dog will be 200 tron or a total of 200*26=5200 tron per package. I imagine it would be easy to sell one package per day at current demand even with the increase in supply of more scarce dogs.
5.Some of the new features they are launching look very exciting. You will be able to level up your tron dogs, do battle with them, breed them, and trade and sell them with your friends. It is unclear exactly when these features are launched, but it should be at some point this month. The mobile version of the game will be released on february 15th.
6.While people are waiting for the full version to release they have been trading common dogs in order to sell out their stores. Doing so allows them to get more rare dogs that sell quickly and earn them profit without needing to trade. You end up losing a little bit of money from trading, but you gain lots of common dogs that will be essential to leveling up and breeding. Trades occur in telegram groups. People also announce when they refresh their shop in telegram groups, which means people in the telegram groups often snag all the rare dogs.
THE GOOD
-Looks like an update to cryptokitties with battle mode. -Chinese new year is the year of the dog. Will be popular at least in china. -Rare dogs are selling out quickly. There is definitely demand for these things. -It is entertaining and even a bit addictive. -Think pokemon go except you sit on your ass -No issues withdrawing, depositing, buying, selling, or cashing out pet store revenue -Heavy consideration for community concerns and input by the developers on the telegram group -GTC is a potentially profitable coin that you can accumulate a lot of -Definitely seems profitable, particularly after the features are released.
THE BAD
-Customer support english is not terrific, and they can only be contacted through WECHAT. -They have missed a deadline or so in the past. They accomplish their goals, but may not be reliable in exact launches of specific features -The economics is a bit fuzzy right now about how markets will work once trading is enabled (i.e. can pet shop owners set prices too?) -It's not clear if anyone who doesn't already own a store is buying and selling these things. -China just banned exchanges. The major market driver has new barriers to entry, but the great firewall has ways around it that most people take advantage of anyway. Still not great. -If tron price blows up then dog prices might be too high. Seems like they might need to constantly readjust set prices. -can't withdraw GTC yet.
Thanks for listening. Happy to answer any questions in the comments below.