The Year of Steem Monsters

Hi Friends,

Want to know one of the most common phrases I've heard on the chain this last year? That Steem Monsters is the main thing giving people hope for the growth of the blockchain. I've heard this even more frequently since Ned's recent announcement about laying off a majority of the Steemit Inc. team.

Whenever I hear someone say that - I picture something like this in my head.

Joking aside, I really do think that these comments point to what a shining example Steem Monsters has been to show what a dApp can do on the blockchain. Many things have happened over the last year on Steemit - in fact Hive account@gtg did an awesome Recap Post about that, and in that post he made a comment about how this has really been the year of Steem Monsters - and I couldn't agree more.

It has been amazing to see the quick growth and development of this game going all the way from inception to actually hosting tournaments in a relatively short period of time. I think this really speaks to the incredible amount of work and dedication that has been put into this by the founders Hive account@aggroed and Hive account@yabapmatt and how they have been able to rally the community and build an incredible team of people around them.

We have so much talent here in the steem community and I really respect that they chose to hire internally. From world class music, to incredible graphics, to top-notch content on their blog, to managing tons of voice actors - they've got the right people on the buss all the way through their organization.

So yes, this has been the year of Steem Monsters and I think it is worth celebrating how much they have achieved!

Why am I so excited about Steem Monsters? (besides that it's obviously a fun game to play)

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A Practical Steem Application for a Wide Audience

Let's face it... not everyone wants to be a content creator. In fact, there are plenty of people who would fall into that category. Even if they think the idea of Steemit is cool - they probably won't get too involved on a daily basis except for maybe reading and commenting.

Playing a game though? That's something that anyone can do without committing to basically building a whole blog. Gaming in general not only opens us up to an entirely new audience than we have previously attracted before - but it opens up a whole new type of use case.

It gives people a reason to come back and interact with the steem blockchain many times throughout the day.
It encourages people to purchase steem because they want to buy packs and cards.
It taps into an entirely different market and demographic.

For example - Let's say my friend has a 12 year old son. Would it ever even cross my mind to tell him about the Steem community? No. Would I be super excited to tell him about Steem Monsters? eff ya.

It's super easy to tell him about the game too. Not only do they have great tutorials and practice rounds you can play - but they have done a great job of building a game that is pretty intuitive and easy to pick up. So instead of having to explain all the idiosyncrasies of Steem - you can tell them to go play a game. Pretty simple.

Ps... if you do onboard someone to Steem Monsters - consider entering the Refer a Monster weekly contest where you could win booster packs and SBI shares. It is a weekly contest that is run by the Hive account@steemmonstershow and Hive account@contestkings to onboard people to the game to help it grow.

Speaking of the Year in Review...

Here's a little blast from the past. Shortly after Steem Monsters was first announced - I did an interview with Hive account@aggroed chatting all about Steem Monsters and his vision for the game. If you want to go back and see a little OG Steem Monster Chat and see what was running through his brain back then - then you might find this interesting!

The interview is about an hour long and we also talk about the Minnow Support Project, and some more general topics like blockchain tech, liberty, freedom etc. No big surprise there!

Also a little fun fact... this was my very first time ever interviewing someone. Why not start with the #2 witness and founder of the most influential project on the blockchain? Not sure if you can tell in the video, but I was a little nervous!

Cheers to 2019

If Steem Monsters was able to make such a big impact on the blockchain and this community in 2018 - imagine what they will be able to do now that tournaments are live and things are really starting to roll. I'm personally really excited to see where this new year takes us!

Happy New Year's everyone!

Xo, Lea