When we first came across Steemit, we didn't know what it was or whether it was "just another scam". It sounded a lot like a gamified social media / blogging platform and we were interested to see if it was real.
Weeks passed and we're certain that Steemit (or a similar platform) is the future of social media and blogging. If you open a regular blog and rely on advertising, it's going to take months or years to make a decent income. However, there's also a huge chance nobody's gonna stumble upon your blog since the big gaming blogs are occupying the search rankings!
Hence, Steemit may be the answer to gamers who do reviews. Since we love gaming, here are some of the reasons why Steemit sort of resembles an online game.
1. Reputation
Every user on Steemit has a reputation and it's usually an indication of how long you've been here or how well your content is doing. Most of the high reputation members are awesome, hence the reputation (although there are always exceptions).
Reputation is in a way similar to leveling in a game. The higher level you are, the more respected you are in a game. But it doesn't always mean you're much stronger than the other players (although you usually are). What if you don't have a strong set of weapons and armor? You may lose to a lower level user. Similarly in Steemit, higher rep members usually have accumulated more Steem Power but it's not always the case.
2. Writing
To increase your upvotes and reputation, it takes a lot of writing and posting. The more you write quality content, the better the chance of gaining valuable upvotes from all members of the community. Writing is in a way like grinding in a game.
You grind to level up and to sometimes pick up awesome in-game loots. Sometimes you find a treasure in a game that can be sold for millions of in-game cash! On Steemit, sometimes your content gets discovered by curators and you get big upvotes from whales like @curie!
If you don't write, you won't know if you'll succeed. If you don't grind, you know you can't level up!
3. Joining communities
There are plenty of communities and curation guilds on Steemit like Minnow Support, Curie, OCD, Build A Whale, Adsactly, Whalepower, Whaleshares, Steem Speak and so on. Similarly in a game, you always want to get accepted to an awesome guild with high level members and lots of influence.
The same can be said with Steemit. If you join these groups and participate actively, your journey on Steemit will be much smoother and you may even become one of the higher ups in the future. Writing is only one part, networking is the next.
4. Post rewards
On Steemit, we always look forward to post rewards as we can actually fund our expenses with Steem. How cool is that? We always aim for high payouts but expectations have to be kept in the minimum, otherwise you'll probably leave Steemit.
Similarly in an online game like Maple or RO, we always look for awesome loots whenever we go training and killing monsters. However, we often get nothing but crappy loots that don't sell much in the NPC store. Similarly, we can sometimes get lucky and find a jewel or a high level armor or even an awesome scroll for upgrades!
5. Flags
If you do abusive things or you spam on Steemit, there's a high chance you get flagged by @steemcleaners, @cheetah or other genuine users. Your post rewards take a big toll and your reputation may decrease a lot.
If you act like an idiot in an online game, you'll probably face the wrath of other more powerful users as well. Imagine going into a map and kill-stealing all of another player's monsters. He'll then call his guild to bring the horde and return the favor!
6. Friends
Most importantly, you can make new friends on Steemit. Yes, real life friends that you can meet face to face. Look at SteemFest2! It's a living example of how awesome Steemit can be! In an online game, you may also make new friends or even new lovers! We've personally made new friends through online games and via Steemit so we can see the similarity there.
7. Addiction
We're pretty darn sure many Steemians are actually addicted to Steemit. When was the last time you took a break from looking at your news feed via eSteem or Steemit? Just like in an online game, when you're addicted, you can't stop thinking about it and you'll probably end up playing until the wee hours!
In a nutshell
Steemit may not be an online game but it's still fun and addictive! Best part is, you make new friends and you get rewarded for quality content. How cool is that?
Thanks for reading!
Upvote for sharing a scary parallel....I only found steemit 2+weeks ago and I think I already wrote a small book worth of comments. Dang!
Well done @gamehouse!
Interesting post. It does make sense though. If more people actually play games it will make sense to others.
What MMORPG games do you play, out of curiousity?
I'm no longer playing MMORPGs.. the older ones would be MU Online, Maple Story, Runescape, Diablo 3, etc.
great comparison. What is your favorite 'guild'? Which community you like best to participate in?
Thanks. By guild you mean on Steemit? I like @curie since they've been helping me from the start.
I love the game analogies that you made in this post. I think if more people treated SteemIt like a game that they can level up in (instead of spending so much time playing actual video games), we'd see a lot of people contribute to something great and earn some good money along the way.
Really high quality content. Thanks for sharing
I haven't engaged deeply in steeming yet and your post made it sound like a game :D Thanks for the fun analogy @gamehouse, it looks more comprehensible now.