Summary of Key Points
Two years ago, "Banana" became popular by allowing players to earn money by leaving their characters in the game to automatically sell worthless bananas. However, since bananas had no real use and their prices were highly volatile, the game's popularity waned. Now, "TBH" has replaced bananas with valuable in-game equipment, combining automated gameplay with a free trading market, which has led to even greater success (with peak online player counts exceeding 200,000). Nevertheless, due to issues such as server lag and cheating by game studios, the game's rating is only 50%. "TBH" represents a new attempt at creating a "free-to-play trading game with meaningful content"—the direction is right, but the small development team is facing significant operational challenges.
Detailed Analysis
1. From "Useless Bananas" to "Valuable Equipment": Solving the Problem of Invaluable Goods
In "Banana," bananas had no real function, and their prices were entirely driven by speculation—they could sell for exorbitant amounts when the game was popular but were worthless when players stopped playing. Players were either lucky enough to obtain them or unlucky to hold onto them at low prices. In contrast, the equipment in "TBH" provides actual benefits to characters, making automated combat more efficient and allowing players to earn more money. This adds a sense of "utilitarian value" to the equipment, which stabilizes its price even when the game's popularity declines, as there will always be a demand for good equipment as long as people continue to play.
2. A Market Design That Fits Various Players
"TBH" divides equipment into ten levels of rarity, with prices ranging from a few cents to hundreds of dollars:
- Low-Rarity Equipment (Legendarie): Abundant and priced below $1; some players stockpile them to craft higher-rarity items.
- Medium-Rarity Equipment (Immortal): Pricing between $1 and $5; occasionally found and sold for extra cash.
- High-Rarity Equipment (Cosmic): Hundreds of dollars; often collected by wealthy players for potential appreciation.
The system also allows 9 low-rarity items to be combined into 1 high-rarity item, ensuring that low-rarity equipment doesn't accumulate unused and maintaining market stability. This design is similar to the CS skin market: cheap items are accessible to everyone, while expensive ones attract attention, promoting good liquidity.
3. Success Despite Half-Bad Reviews: Server Lag and Cheating Are Major Problems
The game faced severe technical issues upon launch, such as unopenable treasure chests, disappearing equipment, and lost gold. The reason? Cheating studios used a "one-click upload" feature to flood the market with cheap items, similar to a DDoS attack on Steam servers. Steam implemented restrictions, allowing only high-rarity equipment to be traded and requiring players to reach a certain level before selling anything. However, this led to new problems, as legitimate players were mistakenly flagged as cheaters, resulting in a flood of negative reviews.
4. The Challenges Faced by a Small Team
Although the concept of "TBH" is sound (combining gameplay with free trading), the small development team is struggling to manage its operations:
- The servers cannot handle the high volume of transactions.
- The anti-cheating system is inadequate, either failing to effectively deter cheating studios or causing unnecessary player penalties.
The current 50% rating reflects these operational difficulties: players enjoy the game's mechanics but are frustrated by lag and unfair bans.
5. Comparing with Similar Games
Previous free-to-play games either lacked trading mechanisms (e.g., "Barr's Legacy," which only allowed point-to-point exchanges) or meaningful content (e.g., "Bongo Cat," which featured useless collectibles). "TBH" is the first to successfully combine a rich RPG experience with a free trading market, allowing players to both enjoy the game and earn some money (e.g., casual players selling equipment to cover their internet costs). This is likely why it quickly attracted 200,000 online players, tapping into the desire for a balance between fun and profit.
Conclusion
"TBH" represents a promising concept with potential as a "semi-finished good"—it addresses the core issues of its predecessor. However, the team's operational capabilities need to catch up with its popularity. If they can overcome challenges such as server performance and anti-cheating measures, this type of game could become a new trend. After all, who wouldn't want to enjoy gaming while making a little extra money? But for now, it still needs time to mature.