I feel that we are living in an age of soft FUD in the cryptosphere. The retail is more aware about cryptocurrency due to all the events that has happened over the past years. The regulatory environment is pushing turn cryptocurrency into another arm of the legacy systems. This deterioration of the original cypherpunk ethos is not a good thing at all. One thing for certain is regulation and adoption by government and traditional finance should be one of the best things that could happen to cryptocurrency. When I look at Google Trends, what it shows me is that interest in cryptocurrency is down from its 2021 peak.
What this must mean is that the real bull market has not really started. One of the reasons could be the economy being in a recession or near recession and people not having enough funds to invest. The things we do with blockchain gaming + other Web 3 ventures must be far ahead the curve. We have a great deal of room left to grow. Let me talk about one of the oldest games on HIVE.
Rising Star is a Retention Tool
Merely onboarding users is not sufficient to keep a blockchain alive. Those users must come back again and again to be a part of the ecosystem. Then they can get accustomed to more DAPPs and eventually start investing in HIVE as it is required for the Resource Credits. Click the title above to visit the game page and see what it has to offer.
Soulbound NFT Avatars
Soulbound items are not well received in cryptosphere. The world has done fine with soulbound items for decades. They are very common among the regular Web 2 games and they offer more freedoms to the developers at the cost of player's control.
It was a long time I ago I first purchased a SUB Mask for myself to participate in "Its a Stick Up" Mission. 
Collecting STARDUST
Bribing the Big Boss is how I earned most of the STARDUST I have + the ones I have spent. It is a one time setup (that took me some tries due to some bad UI/UX) that keep adding up 2 STARDUST per day. It is a very easy method if you have some patience for it.
The easiest place to manage recurring transfers is to visit https://peakd.com/@username/wallet/recurring and test out the features. If 
I have recurring transfers going on for a long time. I did this in case I had more use cases for STARDUST. I don't want to wait too long. Each transaction cost a fraction of a cent. Therefore I decided to stay prepared for the long run. I have been with
Few Things to Know About "Its a Stick Up"
I earned SUB jacket + SUB trousers many months ago. This was around the time I completed 7,000th Mission in the game after playing through two bear markets. You may notice that the old UI is missing few parts that were added recently.
- 10% chance doesn't mean you have to do the Mission 10 times to get the NFT.
- You can get the same NFT multiple times.
- Multiple NFTs do not stack.
- If you get an NFT you already have, that Mission was wasted.
- I got SUB trousers over and over again.
- All you can get out of this Mission are SUB jacket + SUB trousers.
- These Soulbound items are merely cosmetic.
- Community events may require or favour players with cosmetic upgrades.
After getting both items, I stopped playing Its a Stick Up altogether. The three items with SUB prefix makes up my current avatar in the game.
Small Rewards and Surprises
Small Rewards from various places and activities can keep players engaged for longer. There are millions if not billions of players engaging with traditional games that offer them no financial value back. Even if a player manage to transfer some of their assets, it would be through third party services that are often against some terms set by the video game company.
We do things differently on blockchain games. I am currently in the Red Rave as I write this article. What you see above is one of the Rewards I received a few days ago. I can trade these STARBITS on HIVE-Engine as I would do with any other Token on HIVE. We have more freedom and control on blockchain. We are already living through what should be the future of gaming.