Hello, 

This is a topic that I've spoken about a bit on (and offline) - both on my previous streams where I've chilled out, playing Steem Monsters, and also with my local Steem Monsters community. 

The basic statements I'm using to make these musings (or my preconceptions) are as follows:

- 33% of Booster Sales goes to Tournament Prize pools
- All 300,000 Alpha Packs have been sold at $2 each
- Approximately 350,000 beta packs have been distributed. I'm contemplating that of these distributed, 20% are given away as league rewards, meaning I'm looking at 280,000 current beta sales.
- The base acquisition cost of a booster pack is $1.73 (based on the maximum discount available to an individual.)

So, let me start to extrapolate this figures:

- 580,000 booster sales @ $1.73 ea (not taking into account the decline of much of this due to the crypto market taking a nose dive).
- This comes to $331,122 in total potential prize money, if all crypto used to purchase packs was converted to fiat immediately. 

It isn't possible to determine if this is the case, with the @steemmonsters account powering up a significant amount of STEEM over the course of its activity. 

Let's say that 33% of the sales have remained liquid, and generate a quick matrix basic on a split between USD sales and crypto, then model the current decline in the prize of cryptocurrencies. Here's a matrix modelling the impact of 40/60 USD to Crypto purchases:

![image.png](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/holoz0r/r6uFk9yF-image.png)

Here's another matrix showing a different distribution in purchases this time, giving a 30/70 split.

![image.png](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/holoz0r/MMUUxh1i-image.png)

What is not possible to calculate is the split between USD and Crypto Purchases for Steem Monsters, without incredibly deep analysis of the @sm-usd account, and at @steemonsters wallet histories. We would also need to take into account proceeds raised from the Fundition and KickStarter campaigns, which I am not doing for the purpose of these musings, which are purely for my own enjoyment only.

<h2>Let's take a stance that the current price (about a 80% decline in the value of STEEM) and be generous in that more sales are occuring in USD than STEEM for the prize pool, so I'll present another table on which the further musing in this post will be based upon.</h2>

![image.png](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/holoz0r/ZjTKDzUA-image.png)

Here, we have a total available prize pool of $225,230 and some change. This is what would be used to fund "official" STEEM Monsters tournaments, with the news that @coruscate unveiled in her interview with @yabapmatt being that anyone can run a contest, and sponsor a prize. 

From the recent kicstarter Steem Monster campaign, in addition with Fundition campaign marketing material, @steemmonsters have locked in weekly prize pools of $1600, inclusive of daily prize pools of up to $100 on tournaments.

What would this mean for the total prize pool availability, based on the funds available in the hypothetical scenario I've outlined above?

$225,230 divided by $1600.00 = 140.76. 

This means that there would be enough kitty in the prize pool for this level to be maintained for up to almost three years, <b>without any additional booster sales above and beyond current confirmed sales</b>. We all know that this is simply not going to happen, but it is no secret that we have seen a steady decline in booster sales. 

<h2>A message from holoz0r to the Steem Monsters community: Don't Ask for huge, enormous prize pools above this number ($1600)</h2>

<h3>Why?</h3>

Sustainable, regular tournaments (with a few extravagant, big ticket tournaments) will help for the game to consistently grow.

It is important to note that I am not affiliated in anyway with the Steem Monsters team, and this post is speculation based upon my own curiosity, given a situation which may be entirely fictional, or incorrect. Instead, I am taking a pragmatic, conservative, and measured approach to the volume of potential prize money in the pool, making educated assumptions based on some figures that we know to be true (the base cost of boosters), and how many have sold. 

The things that this doesn't take into account is the funding from KickStarter / Fundition, and how this influences the available prize pool.

<h1>What everybody needs to do to help Steem Monsters grow further.</h1>

Share this amazing game with your friends and family. Talk about it around the Christmas dinner table. Give people the gift of a Starter pack. Live, breathe, and talk about Steem Monsters to all your friends that have ever touched Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon trading cards, or anything else of that nature.

Be supportive to those you engage and onboard; and ensure that the experience is as smooth as possible. 

With the current, ongoing promotion of getting 10% of purchases back as STEEM Power, this means that resource credit issues experienced by new accounts are easy to mitigate without intervention from the community or development team. 

<h1>What Steem Monsters needs to do help Steem Monsters grow further.</h1>

Build an in-depth customer support system or zen-desk type interface that allows users to get answers to common questions, along with automated solutions to these questions or problems <em>immediately</em>. This service, in my opinion does not require decentralisation; but needs to come from the Source of Authority: Steem Monsters themselves. 

Tournaments, sponsorship of these, and other things need to be developed and worked upon, of course; but the most important part of any experience, be it gaming or otherwise, is having a simple, smooth, and excellent customer experience. Without this - any product that relies on customers is doomed. 

<h2>I'm not out to FUD, or deconstruct STEEM Monsters</h2>

I've written this post as I love the game, and I think it has incredible potential. I write things like this to set a challenge to the @steemmonsters team, and the #STEEM community to approach things with a pragmatic, realistic view, and one that is based on available data. It is okay to extrapolate available data for the purposes of a post such as this, which muses on a myriad of potential outcomes. 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts in the comments. Insightful comments will be upvoted generously. :)

Thank you for your time and consideration of my musings.