In an indication Zeus’ Bounty recruitment has plateaued, proprietor Tim Bentley is pitching Zeus’ Chariots.
Zeus’ Chariots is a deliberate NFT racing recreation, constructed round ZeusCoin.
Bentley’s dystopian imaginative and prescient for Zeus’ Chariots, sees addicted youngsters enjoying like “crackheads” for grocery cash.
Our source-material in the present day is a Zeus’ Chariots webinar, held for Zeus’ Bounty associates on or round February 4th.
Quotes are from Tim Bentley (proper) until in any other case specified.
Zeus’ Chariots is an NFT recreation launched alongside Zeus’ Bounty.
They’re in the identical style, proper? In the identical theme.
They may feed off each other however Zeus’ Bounty the smart-contract is actually critical …
Zeus’ Chariots is enjoyable.
With respect to “feeding off one another”, Zeus’ Bounty associates are being positioned into Zeus’ Chariots earlier than anybody else.
Within the different path 5% of charges collected by Zeus’ Chariots might be redirected into Zeus’ Bounty.
Being a recreation, gameplay is all the things. At time of publication no gameplay for Zeus’ Chariots exists.
What we do know is the sport is purportedly being developed by Strider Video games, a Ukrainian NFT recreation manufacturing unit.
Regardless of being based in 2018, Strider Video games doesn’t seem to have launched an NFT recreation.
Strider Video games’ web site options one recreation, Elemental Crystals, slated for launch in This autumn 2022.
Bentley pitches Zeus’ Chariots as a VR chariot racing recreation, by means of which gamers can win ZeusCoin.
For some motive Bentley thinks this hasn’t been accomplished earlier than.
We’re gonna do that and it’s gonna create a cult following for what we’re doing. As a result of no one’s doing it.
Most of those individuals are simply producing one thing, that’s already been accomplished, kinda make a bunch of earnings, they don’t have any long-term equitable motive for the sport. And so they type of fizzle and die out …
We wrote up one thing completely new. No one’s accomplished this earlier than.
We don’t have any anecdotal proof that that is gonna work. We are able to’t go to the final person who did this and go, “Hey man how’d you do that? What might we do higher?”
As a result of no one’s ever accomplished this earlier than.
I had a fast go searching and thus far there have already been two chariot race VR video games launched; “Rome Circus Maximus: Chariot Race VR” in late 2017 and “Historic Video games: Chariot Racing” in late 2020.
Each video games look totally horrible, each from a visible and gameplay perspective.
So uh, what’s completely different with Zeus’ Chariots?
Whereas the 2 recreation above are most undoubtedly trash tier, presumably there’s nonetheless a component of ability concerned to win.
Right here’s the place Zeus’ Chariots facade as a recreation falls aside.
Our race goes to be particularly reasonable. We’re going to have managed RNG know-how. Ok?
There are going to be slight benefits for individuals within the races …
However total that is honest know-how. Everyone could have an opportunity to win, and it’s principally predetermined algorithmically.
Zeus’ Chariots is a glorified slot machine.
Clearly this isn’t focused at precise avid gamers.
The one lacking piece is avid gamers. You guys know any avid gamers?
That is who Bentley sees enjoying Zeus’ Chariots:
You’re a complete addict, a crackhead … who can’t take that goggle off your head and go to the shop and get some meals.
You simply race.
You’re only a fiend. You understand how it’s.
You’ve gotten youngsters, or you’re a child. Your youngsters are addicted.
We’re gonna feed them …
Hey in the event that they’re gonna be enjoying recreation, at the least allow them to earn some rattling cash.
They’ll purchase the groceries. You’re gonna need to go and get the cash out of their fingers, as a result of they’re not leaving.
They’re addicted.
To grasp the place Bentley is coming from you might want to perceive what NFT gaming is.
Bentley compares Zeus’ Chariots to Axie Infinity, a Vietnamese crypto recreation launched in 2018.
The sport makes use of a “pay-to-earn” mannequin (additionally referred to as “pay-to-play-to-earn” mannequin) the place after members pay the beginning prices, they will earn an Ethereum-based in-game cryptocurrency referred to as “Easy Love Potion” (SLP) by enjoying.
As of September 2021, nearly all of gamers had been primarily based within the Philippines.
Axie Infinity permits customers to cash-out their SLP tokens each fourteen days.
This mannequin has been described as a type of playing and as an unstable market that’s overly reliant on the influx of latest gamers.
In June 2021, throughout a pandemic lockdown, CNBC reported that some individuals within the Philippines had been enjoying the sport as their primary supply of earnings, although incomes charges from enjoying fell under the minimal wage of the Philippines in September 2021.
Axie Infinity is a crypto Ponzi scheme wrapped up as a recreation, performed by determined individuals in a third-world nation for under minimal wage.
You possibly can go lookup the related AXL and SLP tokens. Each pumped throughout the Philippine rush of gamers final yr. And each have since dumped.
To be clear I’m not evaluating Axie Infinity to Zeus’ Chariots. This drawback is inherent in all NFT video games.
Again within the 2000s World of Warcraft spawned gold farmers. Scammers employed slave labor in third world international locations to “farm” the video games for gold.
The scammers paid the slave labor gamers peanuts. These “gamers” typically labored in rented workplaces, working shifts to farm gold across the clock.
Scammers offered farmed gold to gamers, usually in first world western international locations.
This was towards TOS and efforts had been made to curb the apply. I don’t know if that is nonetheless a factor however my level is that this nonsense has been round for many years (it predates World of Warcraft in different kinds).
NFT video games are the identical enterprise mannequin. All they’ve accomplished is substitute the database used to trace participant forex balances with the blockchain.
And as a substitute of being an undesirable addition to a recreation, gold farming is the sport.
You noticed on the slide earlier (that) Axie Infinity had 677,000 gamers Ok?
Zeus’ Chariots has the potential to be ten occasions extra thrilling, addicting, rewarding, and we should always simply surpass these numbers.
We should always have the ability to surpass these numbers by so much. Ok?
We now have very cool components within the recreation that, on the finish of the day, are gonna be releasing dopamine in individuals’s minds. Of their brains. Of their lives.
Dopamine releases whenever you’re in that digital actuality world, racing that chariot. Dopamine launch whenever you win 100 {dollars}.
Thrilling. Folks come again for that.
The place is the precise gaming in all of this? There isn’t any.
It’s only a money seize.
Once more, I’m not singling out Zeus’ Chariots right here. NFT gaming is an outdated grift in new packaging.
In Zeus’ Chariots, “gold” is changed by ZeusCoin.
Gamers buy or hire an NFT (again within the day you paid a subscription to create an account), which serves as an entry price.
Bentley thinks individuals are going to pay $100 to hire a Zeus’ Chariots NFT for twenty-four hours.
When you’re in, you then pay a price to enter races. An AI bot determines whether or not you win or not. And that’s the “recreation”.
Race winnings are paid in ZeusCoin, which you money out. It will see ZeusCoin dump, so Bentley urges individuals to not do it.
You need your races to be value extra? Don’t promote our coin.
Go over and stake it as a substitute … and earn much more.
“Staking” is the apply of investing a coin on the promise of passive returns. So it appears there’s extra securities fraud layer to Zeus’ Chariots.
Talking of securities fraud, Bentley is at the moment promoting 250 Zeus’ Chariots “founders positions” as NFTs.
These NFTs are being offered for 0.4 ETH. Plus gasoline charges Bentley states this involves about $1250.
Purchasers of founder NFTs can choose to obtain a Zeus’ Chariots recreation NFT, or 4000 ZeusCoins.
Oh and everybody who pays for a founder NFT will get a share of 5% of company-wide income.
Bentley frames signing up as a Zeus’ Chariots founder as placing “in $1000 and probably mak(ing) $200,000 in a yr”.
Neither Zeus’ Chariots or Tim Bentley, a resident of Colorado, are registered with the SEC.
At time of publication the US makes up the overwhelming majority of site visitors to Zeus’ Bounty’s web site. It follows that Zeus’ Chariots can even be primarily promoted to US residents.
Bentley plans to launch Zeus’ Chariots someday between Could and August.
