Really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out. You've clearly thought about this and a lot of it matches what I've been thinking too.
Your breakdown of the P2E cycle is spot on. New game launches, early adopters sell high, market floods, economy collapses, players leave, devs burn out. Lived that exact thing. And you're right that framing matters. "You own your in-game items and can trade them freely" is a completely different pitch from "come play and get rich." I always tried to keep it on the game side of that line. Told people over and over this is not an investment, this is a game. But when the economy dips, people blame me anyway. Doesn't matter what I said.
Where I disagree is on just keeping building on what's here. And trust me, I wish I could see it differently. The fact that people kept playing for a year with zero updates from me is honestly humbling and proves the core loop works. But the problem goes deeper than what you can see. There are economic dead ends baked into the game that I can't fix without screwing over the people who are still here. The token balances, item distributions, power curves at the top. I can't rebalance any of that without either wiping people's progress or just piling more bandaids on something that's already cracked. If I keep going with this, it needs a full reset with some form of carry-over. No way around it.
On Hive vs other chains. Look, I know Solana is also a blockchain. But they're not all the same. Hive keeps losing value and I'm pretty sure it's not done falling. The people running things at the top aren't exactly inspiring confidence. And having your game economy pegged to something that keeps declining makes every balance decision ten times harder. Even if the game isn't meant to be about earning, the chain still matters for anyone who wants to trade or move their stuff around.
You make a fair point about marketing it as a game first though. That's exactly what I'd do if I come back. No "earn passive income" garbage. Just a good game where you happen to own your stuff on-chain.
Thanks for the kind words at the end. Hope so too.
RE: Breaking the Silence: Where I've Been, What Went Wrong, and What Might Come Next