You may have seen them in the past on the Hive chain promising the "best blockchain game ever built", while putting on their portfolio someone else's work just to then delete it once called out.
Well, after 2.5 years "working" on it...
{yep the slow rug has been going on that long.. the failed kickstarter went out back in July 2021}
...they put out only a generic FPS with ZERO BLOCKCHAIN INTEGRATION for their NFTs and token.
You may have also heard some of your friends getting hyped about their web2 discord minigame with purchases of "I owe you" NFTs and deposits of their Hive-Engine token DBLN.
(yes, deposits. Good luck getting anything out as they keep changing rules.)
And it seems like the ponzenomics didn't last long anyway..
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In this post we'll dig more into their unethical behaviour, in particular focusing on..
The PsyberX NFTs
Here we have what seems to be a somewhat complete list of their NFTs.
Land and Alpha passes are missing, but it is a good start.
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@psyberx/all-psyber-x-nfts-available-by-classification
[Note: this list lives forever on the Hive blockchain, it cannot be taken down]
Let's dig into their "original" assets.
These so far have only been integrated into what was first a THIRD PARTY card game, developed by a member of the Hive community that was then lured into becoming part of the @psyberx team, since the latter realized that they couldn't deliver a blockchain game, despite promising so and selling $ 100 K of their token.
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** FINDINGS **
At the very least, a dozen of such assets were/are at the very least immorally (and most likely illegally) sold as NFTs without the slightest form of consent from the authors.
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Here are some that we verified:
1. SPIDER ROBOT
I'm sure you've seen this guy in a lot of their posts. And it's even the logo of their token.
So why not start with that...
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Here is the Original Asset:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/character/sci-fi-character/hydraulic-spider
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CGTrader License:
NOTE:
This is used as example in most replies claiming that there are minor edits to the 3d models used in the NFTs.
- Not really.
- This is the most flexible license of the 5 different platforms they used (keep reading).
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Plagiarized 3D artist: Yevhen Bielik (in-app messages only) - awaiting reply
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2. ALIEN SOLDIER
You may have seen this guy around a lot, as it was part of various marketing material like banners and trailers:
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...and it's one of the main characters displayed on the home page as well:
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Well, here it is in all its glory!
Asset link: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/rewind-cyborg-f76cbddd677a4593a370647113f5af90
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License:
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Plagiarized 3D artist: [email protected] - awaiting reply
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3. DRONE
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Original Asset: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3dNwwg
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Plagiarized Author: [email protected]
Reply from the victim:
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4. DOG SOLDIER
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NOTE: this was also one of the stolen assets put in their portfolio when @psyberx was raising their first $ 100 K from the Hive community: https://peakd.com/@tuck-fheman/re-jesustiano-r0fy84
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Reply from the plagiarized artist at that time:
The Original Asset:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/humanoids/elite-soldiers-pack-153265
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Plagiarized Author: [email protected] - awaiting reply
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5. ROBOT SOLDIER
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Here is the original: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/profile/Marcelo+Barrio
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Author: [email protected]
Reply:
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License:
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6. BIKER GIRL
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Original Asset link: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/lady-biker/questions
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Author: [email protected] - awaiting reply
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MORE ITEMS that most likely they do not own and sold/sell as NFTs:
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How much was illegally made out of these stolen assets?
According to their homepage over 7,500 crates were sold for about $ 10 each.
ie. ~ $ 75,000
Plus they got/get a royalty fee (usually 5%) every time any of their NFTs was/is traded.
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These assets are on the blockchain forever, the images cannot be replaced, and people can never be prevented from trading them and generating fees for the account owner holding the private keys.
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Analysing the various licenses from the various portals those assets are listed on, this is the summary of the conditions:
- The buyer cannot sell reproductions of the assets to others.
- The buyer cannot use the 3D assets in a way that violates anyone's intellectual property rights (e.g., copyrights) and cannot claim to be the creator or copyright holder of the 3D assets they purchased.
Besides being most likely illegal, such actions are highly UNETHICAL.
Taking credit for someone else's work and making money from it without giving proper credit or compensation to the original artist is considered a form of PLAGIARISM and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY infringement.
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Just one more confirmation from ChatGPT reviewing the various TERMS AND CONDITIONS from the multiple portals:
CGTrader - https://chat.openai.com/share/492913d8-8d50-4696-a2ce-f6924fd81790
Sketchfab - https://chat.openai.com/share/84a2658f-f169-45f6-8b8c-1dcbd85cfcc3
Artstation - https://chat.openai.com/share/83d2b103-b9f9-4d54-ac59-19f3fffa4f29
Unity Asset Store - https://chat.openai.com/share/d3e6a4ab-c092-43e2-a648-7e9ab7e1135b
Unreal Engine Store - https://chat.openai.com/share/d3e6a4ab-c092-43e2-a648-7e9ab7e1135b
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Psyber-x may now play dumb and reply "Oops sorry, we didn't know we couldn't sell them".
We say it's BS. Just BE ETHIC and don't sell other people's work without their permissions pretending it's your own and hope to make a ton of money screwing over the original authors.
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I hope Hive users use more caution next time, and listen to more experienced users like @tuck-fheman @pfunk and @ats-davis that raised red flags from the very beginning.
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What do you think the next steps should be on this matter?
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Mention spam: @hivewatchers @steemcleaners @adm @guiltyparties @azircon @themarkymark @ausbitbank @gtg @blocktrades @baah @acidyo @arcange @risingstargame @theycallmedan
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Why anon?
Exposing the dirty laundry of projects could cause me to drop from the high ranks of witnesses. I don't want to be swayed by powerful votes or un-votes
So who are we? Intro post HERE
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Do you want to join this initiative and review or suggest DHF proposals, projects, games, or guilds to be reviewed to strive for quality on Hive?
Join this new Discord server and post your suggestions: https://discord.gg/NsGbjENX
(slowdowns are in place as we prefer discussing things on-chain)
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Post rewards will always be burned. Tips are appreciated and will be shared among HD reviewers.
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PS. buried under all the self-voted comments at the top:
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Favourite Comments:
- The summary meme
- If the IRS knocks on our door, we never sold crates. Magic.
- Hey, I'm not a liar !!
- Psyberx is decentralized . . . . . . . . 🤡 . 🤡 . 🤡. . . . . . .
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UPDATE
I have now made sure that the artists know that psyberx will forever receive royalties on every trade of those NFTs.
The images that they were not allowed to use can be replaced in the psyberx website and game but they cannot be changed on the blockchain. Every current and future app consuming this metadata will need to be aware of the issue and add some "customizations" to their logic to point to the new "legal" images.
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- As we dug more dirt and start asking more questions, 3 team members of the psyberx team dropped already.
New posts soon.
I don't give a damn about legality, but this is definitely dishonest and unethical if even one of those allegations of plagiarism is true. I'd even be OK with using AI art, provided it was disclosed as such, but lazy copy/paste "NFT creation" is disgusting.
Same guy that bullied me off Steemit, here to try it again?
I have no idea who you are, but if you are here, obviously I didn't "bully you off Steemit." Were you a plagiarist or a bidbot buyer?
Late bidbot buyer. Kept buying votes when everyone else stopped.
Yes, even leaving aside the legality, the ETHICS of all this are a joke.
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You can easily check yourself with a Google Images search, that's all it took to open the Pandora box.
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👆
I wonder whether @marcuswahl was ever refunded...
https://peakd.com/psyberx/@marcuswahl/justin-moore-has-taken-in-2600000-for-a-game-but-has-failed-to-deliver-it-or-a-refund
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The Discord username change sounds BS to me.
PS- Not paid!
And they don't intend to.
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Hearing more bad things like devs and artists not getting paid.
Will dig further.
Will also be interesting to know where the 650 K Hive that have been sent from psyberx accounts to exchanges went...
Just to throw my hat in here and state that I'm a 3rd party contractor that was brought in to do integrations and what not. This stuff is news to me and I'm not directly a Royal Reptile Studios employee.
I will look into the use cases of the assets in question here and if they are in violation of the licensing, and if so, remove them from any projects I've been working on on Royal Reptiles behalf, replacing them with imagery not under license or creative commons.
Interesting post none the less. Asset flipping is pretty standard in game development is my understanding, but because I've not actually looked too closely at what assets have been flipped and what licensing they were purchased under, that is something I'll look at here shortly.
Why wasn't this brought up to the group that made the game?
Maybe one contractor got lazy. Might be a simple explanation...
I didn't even think to inquire about where the models and shit was sourced. I assumed all the items had been done by an illustrator or been made with AI. So to some extent I didn't do due diligence to check, at this point I'm still trying to determine if anything on the site I've been contracted to build is in conflict with the license or whatever.
If this asset shit turns out to be a potential legal issue, I'll replace with creative commons or license free stock images. Very little want to get sued over something that I didn't even directly cause or have knowledge of.
You are the solution man! Love the positivity! You rock!
End of the day it is what it is. Regardless of how things go with the main Royal Reptile Studio stuff I'm contracted to build this thing out and it is what I will do until a stable and properly tested v1.0.0 of Decks is operating, it's all I can do really at this point.
It's quite close to being complete with Decks but I still have an assload of testing to do after a few more key integrations are completed.
It's been a long ass build, I'm excited to get it done and move on to working on my own way past due projects.
Cheers GanjaFarmer.
Bag holders making is sound like not a big deal.
Not that simple.
Psyberx bag holders are making this sound like it's not a big deal, but unfortunately, you can't change the images on the NFTs.
Pros and cons of decentralization.
The trading fees come from those, and that's where the license violation is — not in the game or the website.
You can't stop anyone from ever trading those digital assets.
If they are on hive-engine, you can change the images. The issuer can pretty much change all the properties if I remember correctly.
Depends on the "read only" boolean on HE.
The IPFS data point on the PSYCARD items are infact set to "read only" or can only be set once.. meaning the existing cards will have IPFS links to the original images.. But a developer could blacklist these images and replace them dynamically if needed.
After reading the post I looked into this. I need to do further investigation to the licensing type purchased and what the clause of use looks like.
As a 3rd party contractor this type of stuff spooks me a bit, but regardless on if they have rights to image usage or not, I've got some functions that could be used in the code to make the stuff compliant (atleast on any project I've access to / am working on as as contractor for RR)
My suggestion would be for you guys to hire an IP lawyer and for them to go through the licenses. That is the only really sound way for this, or to just cut those entirely and commission your own assets.
Well, to be honest given the technical side of things that I generally focus on for a living.. I think it would actually be possible to change the images on the NFTS.. One sec!
( this image is from the psyberxmarket account looking at PSYCARD on tribaldex, I do not own this account and only have access to it due to needing access to issue cards and modify the NFT data points to make them ready for the Decks game, once I'm done that contract I'll relinquish all access to this stuff )
Ok.. so the IPFS image hashes are infact read only / write once into the chain. However it would be possible to effectively make a list of IPFS hashes that aren't kosher and have a function inject an image that isn't against a license or whatever..
I need to look into all this a bit more. As far as I know depending on what license was purchased on the assets, it may be legal to utilize pictures of said assets in other works. However I am no legal expert and will 100% be looking into if any assets were purchased on a weaker license that does not allow their likeness to be used in other products.
Worse comes to worse and the images are in conflict with their licensing stipulations, they'll be added to a list that in turn replaces them with images that aren't limited legally by their licensing (or lack thereof).
The post certainly raised my eyebrows and alerted me that I have to look a bit deeper into the source of the images I was provided to use in the app I've been contracted to make for Royal Reptile. Appreciate the heads up, I will certainly be digging deeper into making sure that what I've been developing for them isn't going to get me sued over copyright shit.
Cheers.
Good stuff, keep it up!
If those IPFS hashes can indeed be blacklisted, then every current and future app consuming this metadata will need to add some "customizations" to their logic to point to the new images, correct?
The function used to parse on chain data can be modified with the ability to replace or substitute data that is determined by some logic before the asset data is returned to both server side or client side data.
The possibility is there, any future applications utilizing either the on chain or API data would have to do a sanity check to see if substitution would be needed. Hopefully the licensing scare turns out to not be an issue and nothing needs replaced, but if it does, it can be done.
Kind of a pain in the ass, but completely possible to filter and replace offending data if that is what is required. I've yet to look into the assets licenses and inquire which license Royal Reptile bought the assets under to know for sure if the images are kosher to use. :/
Cheers.
changing the images on the NFT's.
Is that an HE issue??
Most games I have seen don't even record any image info on chain.
Most games I've seen do. And in many cases it's readonly.
Are you only looking at HE games.
I personally don't like HE for games.
Yeah, right. And a studio that allegedly made close to 100 games doesn't notice how long it took them to create 12 3D models?
Some of these assets were also part of the initial trailer set up where they claimed to have spent $ 300 K.
The same assets that they mislead users to think were they own by putting them on their portfolio page and then removing them when called out about it.
Thanks for looking into this.
Using them in the games most likely is not an issue. The issue arises with the royalties that are automatically issued on every single trade of such NFTs.
Never really dove into the rabbit hole of licensing and royalties as I've always designed assets myself or had them commissioned. In this case they were provided to me as pre-existing assets.
The design of the Psyber-X static image assets currently used were made before I was brought in to do integrations, and I'd just assumed they were all commissioned art (as which was done for the battle animations of the Decks game being worked on, credit to @thisnewgirl for the awesome battle animations and death list icons)
I know the psyberxmarket.com site uses different market code (based on the inbuilt HE market functions I believe) but am unsure of if it's taking fees, this was set up before I was brought in to further build things out and do integrations.
The escrow/trade function on the Decks site does have an inbuilt variable controlling the commission float/number charged by the site, which can be adjusted if need be.
If it is unequivocally proven that any of the image assets used or provided to me by Royal Reptile/Psyber-X to distinguish between in-game items are breaking any licensing clauses then the image assets in question would be replaced with something free-use, or the escrow commission variable be adjusted to zero until licensing for all rendered assets was adhered to.
Appreciate the heads up on the potential licensing buggery, will do what I can on my end to ensure things are above the boards on anything I'm working on for Royal Reptile.
I am being told that it can only be set for the token symbol. You cannot turn off fees for just a few specific NFTs.
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Keep in mind that Creative Commons licenses allow for commercial use but still require attribution to the original creator. You would have to add an additional property to the NFT.
This change can't be done retroactively though.
Good thing to mention and keep in mind. Agree that proper credit where it's due is important.
That depends on the Creative Commons license. Some allow commercial use and derivatives. Others do not.
I can confirm PSYBERX did disclose the use of purchased assets/items very early on as I was in their discord when they did. I believe that disclosure from PSYBERX came after they were called out for using purchased assets. I will also note that I own a small amount of level 1.2X Million and some 88* crates? I did not pay for those 88 crates, majority were dropped to me/ bonus crates due to holding the LVL token. I have no clue how CRATES sold were calculated but its possible that the 7,500 sold crates you quote might be in part including airdropped/bonus crates that were not purchased. I feel this is relevant as one of your points is to highlight the amount of funds they received. I'm unsure of any recent events other than the release of the PSX token as I been MIA for awhile.
My view as someone with no legal background on such things:
I would expect that the purchase of content would serve as payment for use of that content. Which in turn means no further payment to the original creator is needed. Reading the part of the license agreement supplied in the opening post I would say that still stands as true. The screenshot below (taken from the main post) shows two things (1) The bias of this exposure: could be unintentional bias (2) PSYBERX might just be in the right to use the images as they are doing so. My assumptions about point (1) is due to the highlighted info in the screenshot ending where it best suits the posters agenda/exposure of PSYBERX. My assumption for point (2) is that same screenshot clearly states "..... but can be used in your commercial projects multiple times after paying just once "
I think one of the issues here is how the license agreement is worded and if the "NFTs" some of these images are used on (after being modified to some degree) fall under the Can Be Used In Commercial Project multiple times category. Was the modifications enough to satisfy all license agreements, I don't know but nothing displayed in the OP says to what extent modification is needed. Only assumptions based on opinion. As the assets were purchased over different contracts my opinion might not stand true for each agreement. At the moment I don't care to dig in any further. If more concrete evidence presents itself I have the right to change my opinion.
Very few crates were sold, the vast majority were dropped
That is what I thought but I didn't want to make the statement without being certain of it. Also some crates were likely purchased using the games token known as LVL as well. Which if memory serves me correctly gave a purchase discount. All relevant information due to the fact funds received is a point made in the OP. Thanks for providing the additional info.
So they have been deceiving, as usual.
They have happened to have it removed from the home page now...
Probably telling those artists they sold nothing...
I feel as that is grasping at staws. I have some "crates" in other games that once displayed as "crates' purchased even though some were bonus crates that I got for "free" (I have no issue with this either). I think you could potentially have some valid points that can be discussed but things like the above distract from them. If an image displaying "SOLD" instead of "Distributed" is one of the main talking points than that isn't much of a talking point and one that is easily fixed. Which you pointed out (the removal of said image/I didn't look I'll take your word for it) they very well might be in the process of doing.
It's their overall approach on selling things that is always shady.
This is just another example.
Lying, misleading, unethical behaviours. All things we have seen in psyberx over time.
I would appreciate it if you stopped editing your replies to me to include new information/statements (its been 3* days since the above comment you made and you just edited it again). Edits to make spelling corrections or to make a point more clear of already provided information is ok (I do those to) but adding new info/ damning statements to a comment days after I responded to said comment is not. It makes it look like I skipped over things you responded to me with. If you have something to add I would prefer if you simply created a new reply instead of editing an older one. If we all did such edits it would be easy to make those who we are debating with look bad. Thanks for your understanding.
Noted.
Only aligned this reply with the other similar ones.
Getting crowded in the comments so this gives the important points a chance to be seen more.
The comment says edited as well. Readers can see the previous versions if they want to.
I'm aware but allot won't bother looking unless prompted nor should they have to. Some might not even know how to look. Either way thanks for making note. For what its worth, I don't think you were purposely being malicious towards me with the edits.
So they have been deceiving, as usual.
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They happened to have it removed from the home page now.
Tell those artists they sold nothing...
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It was there just yesterday...
I can see why this affects you and are bothered. Most of the supporting replies in the comments are from bag holders or team members.
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It doesn't affect me personally at all (financially or emotionally), nor am I bothered. I learned a very long time ago when running my own forums to not let anything people say or do on the internet bother me as I have the power to choose who I interact with. I chose to read your post and comments, I chose to respond to them. I can simply not do those things if I ever feel bothered. I responded to your post to shed some light on things such as the early admission by PSYBERX about using purchased items. Also to correct the misinformation you shared (total amount of funds received by PSYBERX). Since you are impartial (right?) and not someone with an agenda I assumed such information would be important to you and those reading your post.
My delegation stays because I don't think PSYBERX are out to scam or intentionally deceive the HIVE community. Your post has not convinced me otherwise. I will remove my delegation on my own accord when I so choose. Also, I don't have much of a bag nor am I a Team Member. I listed my PSYBERX holdings in my original reply to your post which at current prices equals to about $70 USD (at most) of the LVL token and 88 crates (I'm not sure what value to give them). I also hold a small amount of PSX tokens. I hid nothing, money doesn't hold weight over my integrity or morals. Especially such small amounts that we are speaking of here.
For transparancy I should mention that I also own 0.1 LVL tokens on an alt account (unbelievable).
Good.
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That was nothing new. Using purchases assets in a game, for sure does not look good when they promised an AAA game, but it doesn't break the law and is not immoral like re-selling them as NFTs without the artists' permission.
So you are aware of the over 600 K Hive transferred to exchanges too, right? (it's all on chain).
And it wasn't misinformation, that's what their homepage stated. 7500 packs sold.
Ok, so about 1 grand invested, at the current prices.
Of course, you are free to do as you please. More than warning people I can't do.
It wasn't mentioned in your OP when I read it or at least I didn't notice that you mentioned it. So from my point of view, yes it was indeed new information. Not new in the sense that you/ me or some others didn't know the information but new in the sense that it was not shared in your opening post. Its possible one of the team members mentioned it in the comments here before I validated the claims. That doesn't take away from the importance of needing the Team Members claims confirmed to be true by others who are not team members.
I'm no law expert, I already gave my opinion on how I view the parts of the contract as it was displayed in your original OP.
Why would someone be aware of that other than when it is being pointed out? If I invested thousands than sure maybe I would keep such a close eye on their on-goings but I didn't so here we are.I took part in handful of start-ups here on HIVE and I never once felt the need to track funds moved off chain. I always assume such a possibility for cost of operation/ cost of further growing the product/ company and onboarding.
It was misinformation. You very well know how this works as you are a witness and have vast knowledge of the other play2earn games here on hive. Such games also have or at one point had the same type of advertising when it comes to "Sold" "CRATES". Not to mention the possibility that in-game tokens could of been used to trade for some CRATES which is not the same as selling for fiat. You also never considered any potential bonuses for bulk purchases/other. The part that makes it misinformation------->You then presented a number of received funds (Fiat) that wasn't true <---- that is the part that makes it misinformation. Its nitpicking but obviously distributed would be a better word for PSYBERX to use. You are not a newbie to this stuff.
No, I'm not sure how you are calculating my invested value but if you were simply going by what my holdings are worth today that is not what I consider my invested amount nor is it the amount I would get if I were to try and sell everything in todays market. Either way its still a very tiny amount. I'm not hear due to my *-1K holdings in PSYBERX. In short I confirmed some facts and provided my opinion in my original response to your post. You proceeded to address me. I decided to entertain your inquires. That is all this is.
Indeed, will PSYBERX overcome all this. I don't know they now have a big mountain to climb. Only father time knows the outcome. The rest of us have to wait and see.
I don't agree on a couple of points but I don't see the point of keeping to discuss them.
And yes, time will tell.
In most cases it is illegal, and where it's on the edge it's still...
...to profit from someone else's work without attribution or compensation.
NFT = Derivative Work
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They were compensated (assuming they were paid for the original agreement) and my comment you are replying to expands on my opinion on that. In short, the initial purchase is the compensation. I have no clue in such situations if the original artist should be cited or not. I would assume if the artist wanted their name cited they would include that it needed to be so in the the license agreement/contract. If it isn't there I will have to side with the possibility that citing them is optional or potentially not even wanted by the seller of said asset.
Even with Creative Commons licenses, you are required to give attribution to the original creator.
The licenses they agreed to when they purchased the assets state that they cannot do what they did. They are already investigating remediations.
Just another stain on their already frail reputation..
So they have been deceiving, as usual.
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They have happened to remove it from their landing page now.
Telling those artists they sold nothing?
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The first screenshot was taken yesterday.
I have never been wrong when I was right.
This game when first announced got my attention. I joined the server and jumped in the DM of those involved. I will say, the feeling of being a disturbance was strong. Never the less. I pushed the topic of value. No one from the game wanted to engage with any depth.
The question I was beginning to ask myself. After playing Splinterlands for a year or longer. Seeing other games come about almost straight away. Those who could creating the simplest and basic of games. Not one game showed me they had any interest in the player. Well two exception to that. Lucksacks poker and Risingstargame. Both of those had zero cost to play from the start.
Anyone bringing out a game on the blockchain. Takes on an obligation to give any token they create a value and use. Unless they are a dumb fuck, they will know prior to starting the development that there is a high chance the majority of tokens made will be sold and turned to cash. That will leave a few decent players wanting to play long term. During this time multitudes will fleece the rewards.
What does a developer do to ensure you do not lose all of your investment to a game?
The standard reply to this question is there is always risk with an investment. The markets determine the value. I can't predict future values.
These game developers can put measures in place to ensure the value of their token does not depreciate to 0 and only hold game value.
I'm no lawyer, but it makes zero sense to pay for a license but then not be able to use the image in a product you sell, I mean, that completely defeats the purpose of the license in the first place.
Still, seems like you quite enjoyed this "expose," so at least it was worth that.
Look at what is talked about. A flat image for a 3d game
There are generally two types of license for royalty-free images. Editorial and commercial. Editorial licenses give a limited set of rights. You can usually use it in things like ads or blog posts, but not in things you intend to resell. Commercial licenses...the entire point is to be able to resell the things you create with things purchased under this type of license. The fees are higher for commercial licenses than editorial ones for this very reason. So in my mind the question will come down to: did they pay for the (more expensive) commercial license, or didn't they? If they did, then they're in the clear. The thing they're creating with the images is the game. The NFTs are part of the game. Pretty cut-and-dried, really. Nothing illegal or immoral about using an image in the way it was specifically licensed to be used. I truly don't get the fuss here.
The 5 different platforms have different agreements. Not all of them offer an editorial and a commercial license.
Some just say that you can't re-sell them.
Update: they admitted their wrongdoing and they will replace them.
It does.
You can only use the asset in your product mixed together with everything else, and not re-sell it individually with 0 to minor editing.
There are hundreds of cases like this on other blockchains.
psyberx upvoting all the the comments in their favor to the top, as expected.
Go the the bottom to find the other side.
The license allows you to use the item, modify it and mix it in your final product. The IP in all cases remains to the author.
You cannot re-sell it.
In most cases it is illegal, and where it's on the edge it's still...
...to profit from someone else's work without attribution or compensation.
NFT = Derivative Work
It's a shame how easy it was for him to fool some people, despite giving them a peek behind the curtain early on.
It's a shame how easy it is to defame an entire project with pathetic evidence. The project was open about using unity assets early on and look at that screen shot, it says clearly the assets can't be used as is, if you play any of our 3 playable games today you will not see any of them as pictured. This is a sad pathetic attempt from Azircon, Ritzbitz, Cherie a few sour ex community that started a fight, cried about it then left cause they started the drama... toxic people told me they will destroy the project, both Ritzbits and Azircon recently
Does not stand in court. 0 to minor editing.
Funny enough that you don't mention the license of the other 4 platforms.
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What matters is how they were sold as NFTs, not the games that use them.
🍿
crazy stuff
thanks for sharing !
you are welcome
They said, users can create their own maps for integration into Psyber-X:
It looks empty?
I don't know all the background and I'm not interested, but I'm a bit disappointed with Psyber-X. I have invested quite a bit in their NFTs and LVL tokens. There are five maps to play, which aren't bad at all, but unfortunately there's nothing going on. And nothing has been developed any further. I suppose I can write off the money.
Yeah. And those maps are mostly cheap assets from the stores.
We can write emails and contact lawyers also once we get your names and locations, industrial sabotage and defamation of character is not legal all over the world. We should all come forward and be honest about who is ethical here and why this happened. I have a picture of RitzBitz & His Son he sent me wearing PsyberX beanie I sent him, I have screen shots of him promising to destroy the project, screen shot of Azircon saying "good luck with your project on Hive" and here we are... clear bullying and sabotage by haters
We raise funds off chain and onboard
We have anti-rug measures with Ecobanker holding all ETH / MYRIA funds I hold the PSX token keys
Also please come play any of our 3 games, if you can show a screen shot of any stolen assets in the game we sold as downloaded. Nothing was sold as downloaded and before launched in game is adapted, edited modified if infact utilizing the early purchased assets the project was open about.
Taking things out of context, without getting through a few paragraphs and screenshots I can prove unethical behavior from the hypocrite hiding behind the @hive-detectives account who is committing industrial sabotage, defamation of character and a Hive Bully.
Thanks for providing their email, they should be instrumental in helping to find out who you are depending on what email address you used to contact them.
Yes who are the people behind the attack job? WTH is this?
If psyberx was so bad and evil why was it allowed to integrate here for so long...
Is this hatchet account going to pay the shareholders of the game? And the gaming creators?
If one contractor got stupid? Shrug. Easy fix...
This? This hatchet account...
Who is this mystery group that just showed up?
Some major issues going on with this backstabbing negative account.... this is wrong on so many levels....
@freecompliments
While the depth of this information is far too much for me to delve into (I frankly don't know wtf is going on here lol), it's very clear that someone created an account behind which they can hide and attack people... very evident from their introduction post which they created 30 minutes ago.
Hopefully these "detectives" will actually be useful on the chain, rather than becoming another set of "hivewatchers" who end up mixing good work and harassing good users... although that seems like a pipe dream.
Being pressured by veiled threats of getting a witness vote removed to be silenced about getting out dirty laundry about a project does not seem like a good idea.
Certainly not something I can answer for, and certainly not something of which I've seen any proof. 🤷♂️
As such, I'd have to remain impartial here.
What I do know is that the PsyberX project has brought value to Hive in terms of providing a game and keeping users engaged on the chain, as I can see a very active community. The other details are far before my time here.
I hope that you'll do good work on the chain. As the old proverb says, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I've seen it happen many times, and I've had to keep myself in check with this concept in mind as well.
You probably didn't get my point.
If I were to do this with my main account, I would not be able to be impartial and expose ANYONE that is doing wrongdoings. There would be pressure on witness votes, proposal votes, veiled bribery and threats, etc.
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Not a blockchain game. So far they only sold tokens and NFTs and did not deliver what they promised 2.5 years ago. They pivoted to other Ponzi minigames.
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...that is going to get hurt once they get screwed over by their immorality or incompetence.
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Thanks, will try. And open to suggestions in Discord on how to keep it fair, transparent and trustworthy.
In that case, I'm not left working with much. I hope you understand the impartiality on my end.
You are welcome, they were public to begin with. 🤡
So open about it, that once you got called out you removed them from your website where you were misleading visitors to think they were your own:
https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@tuck-fheman/star-atlas-or-psyber-x-which-will-be-the-biggest-blockchain-game-yet-in-the-industry
There are also 600 K HIVE transferred to exchanges. It's all on chain.
Eco controls those & a computer frying in the middle of bear market called for funds to replace it. That was 1 withdrawal for a PC should, simmer down.
@saltyreptile @ecoinstant did that computer take all funds and it is empty? Maybe we should push for more marketing on Myria then. Those funds coming from ETH got used to build on Hive, if not replaced there are reasons like current market conditions and hard times like a computer breaking at the wrong time. Will get pushing on marketing more here as the markets are providing people funds to diversify with, MYRIA token is up a bit. Our focus is primarily to raise funds off Hive and bring them on chain while onboarding in which we do. Not many people know what it takes to build a game let alone such an ambitious project... Maybe we should stop turning down the VC's knocking our doors down and take some of their money while letting them also build our team and project out better and taking more than half of the profits from the very decentralized plan in place. The founders might actually like a plan like this now, since we have 3 playable games with many VC that have contacted us in the past year we could likely negotiate a more beneficial deal.
@urun @dynamicrypto
Its in the LVL:Swap.hive pool
For several reasons.
And yes, some was raided to pay for the computer.
Remaining funds are here
SWAP.HIVE:LVL pool - Liquidity providers
Account - psybersects
SWAP.HIVE liquidity - 2687.69507997
LVL liquidity - 15980492.37282604
Shares - 167629.71108
% - 49.083%
Way to take things out of context, we were upfront about purchased Unity assets early on and have moved to Unreal by a unanimous community vote. Before the actual in game asset is delivered it is edited and adapted and follows that screenshot you share about the legality of it. Also I did say we made the $100k mark and if you look at the tokens market capitalization it did in fact hit $100k that day yet Justin did not cash out $100k.
Klye put in over a year building this and it is a Third Party game now? & again 100k was not cashed out, please show the on chain data Mr. Detective
I got through a couple paragraphs and you are full of accusations and no evidence. Your proof shows your ignorance only!
A quick Google Search for psyber sects lead me to this:
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Oh, it isn't?? 🤡
Nothing illegal done & 3 games to play, links here come play. https://peakd.com/web3gaming/@psyberx/psyberx-updates-a-new-direction-and-hive-onboarding
What a chance to sell more!
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Hatchet and scam account made just to attack a block chain business?
This is backstabbing behavior at its finest.
Manufacturing an issue for your own enjoyment...
Who owns this account and who is the one behind these attacks.
Transparency is needed. This needs to definitely be dealt with harshly.
Who ever you are... You are the issue...
Highlighting immoral and most likely illegal behaviour is a scam?
You got it right champ!
Sorry for hurting your bags. Research projects better and don't be greedy.
Jesus Christ this is awful. Thanks for the post.
you are welcome
good to know thanks for the info.
Have a look @alokkumar121 @mypathtofire be aware of this
Yep. And a lot more much bigger coming out soon...
I think there is definitely a level of unethical behavior here but I think it was done in a manner of ignorance. I believe that the PysberX team has good intentions to actually develop a game and contribute to the Hive ecosystem but have certainly gone about it in maybe not the best way. Assuming there are legal breaches here, I would expect them to publicly address this and make amends.
Removal of inappropriately used assets etc from their assets (site/game/discord/etc) I don't see as a means of hiding their behavior but more so a means of trying to stop their wrong doing.
End of the day I think that if PsyberX was intended to be a rug pull or outright scam they have had plenty of opportunities to run away with the money.
For me, it seems like Justin and his team are simply inexperienced in the reality of game development, IP, and the legalities that putting out a game actually encompasses. I will look to see the studio's behavior going forward to see if things are corrected to the best of their ability.
In the case where artists are inappropriately compensated I expect inappropriate use of assets to cease and for the studio put together some method of tracking royalties etc for those artists. Artists at the end of the day simply want to be paid fairly and get exposure for their work and generally as long as that happens, they are happy.
I don't believe that all people are inherently bad however all people absolutely make mistakes. It comes down to how we address our mistakes that define us.
I share @baah's point of view. When you raise funds from the community in promise for something, then it's up to you to make sure that you're actually able to deliver and not just hope that you can figure it out.
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You probably miss some context. They removed the content from their homepage saying how many packs they sold (7500 x $ 10) so that they could tell the artists that they didn't sell much at all. That's what they stated in the comments, saying that they actually dropped most of them for free (although the landing page said "sold").
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For sure there is mismanagement of funds. Lots of funds withdrawn to exchanges (it's all on chain).
Building a game is expensive but something seems off.
Plus hearing some of their customers not getting refunded for undelivered work and unpaid devs that quit, just adds to the mix.
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I hope they'll do it but I don't see it happening. I suspect that they'll screw them over with nice words and give them nothing.
They are broke. Justin has debts and can barely pay rent.
Appreciate the time you guys take to respond to me.
I do see your points. Also, I'm relatively new to using forums such as Hive. How do I reply to specific sections like you did?
For their site, the the wording like that is very often an overlooked component in UI delivery in my experience. What I would be more concerned with is removal of the inappropriately used assets. Based on the conversation it seems this can't be done. As such, this is where I would point to the royalty system and agreement with the artists to make right.
Here is another area where transparency is key. Development absolutely costs money. If they are clear on what it is costing them such as how we handle HIVE proposals, I see no problem with them paying themselves and taking money out of the system in base principal. Again, the royalty issue is at play as some of that revenue is most likely legally belonging to the artists.
I still strongly hope that the right thing is done here. If Justin is broke, there is no point really going after him. In the US you can sue someone but if they have no money its generally not worth it. Knowing that he is based in SoCal makes me believe it. I looked at rents there and people are paying almost $3k/month just for a 600 sqft home. To make it at all you'd have to be making at least 60k or so there. However, in the event the game continues to progress, like they are saying, proceeds should eventually come and at that point having the royalty system in place will ensure future proceeds make it to the artists.
All that said, I'm a nobody and my thoughts are mostly irrelevant. I only had a few $ worth of LVL, I'm not actively developing for a studio, etc.
The content removal from their website is not an outlandish story but just adds to the mix. The main focus here is the assets from non credited and not properly compensated artists. And you covered that point.
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And yes, they'll need to track royalties if they keep working on this as they say.
Well, I think that is actually quite common. People bite off more than they can chew per say in pretty much every industry. The saying, 'fake it till you make it' exists even.
Once the realization that a project is a failure though, that is when the project should die. Milking it past that point is highly unethical.
So the question is, is the game anything like what it was marketed as and has there been periodic improvements to get to that point if not.
@kotenoke They promised:
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Development has been paused for a few months and they now say they may resume in Q1.
Certainly measurable KPIs which is important. All projects should have goals and objective milestones which can be compared against.
Seeing all your replies being downvoted makes it so much funnier :')
Yep, they briefly managed to get us to 0 reputation to try and hide replies and the post from Trending.
looks like they are really big enough for that :')
with the vote selling and other initiatives, yes they got some hp
I don't think I've ever seen a bigger misunderstanding of how asset license copyright laws work. This account is not off to a great start, but I can't wait to see what other projects you look into.
Would be pretty funny if "hive-detectives" is only dedicated to smearing and harassing one project without ever investigating any other abuses.
Damnnnnnnn yeah....
That is very honest and from what I see that is just exactly what has happened here.
Excellent and honest analysis.
It does seem like this is just a hatchet account. Opened by WHO!
Who is behind this?
It will be revealed eventually.
Can't freely put out dirty laundry if I can be threatened to get a witness vote removed.
Why misunderstanding? The purchased NFTs were not allowed to be further sold under the license agreement, but that´s exactly what happened. Please let me know where I misunderstood. Thanks!
Here in the form it was downloaded means, you can't sell, give or assign it to someone the model files you have downloaded. It doesn't mean you can't sell something where the model was used.
The first image you shared depends on whether the NFT is part of the project or not. An NFT that is part of the project, would merely be a component of the project.
Well, I am not convinced if your interpretation would hold up on court.
I am pretty sure it would hold up. Otherwise, any game that would make use of an asset market would not be able to be sold. Which is not the case.
Integrating assets in games and selling single images as NFTs, is quite different.
The asset was not sold, given, or assigned to another person or entity in the form it's downloaded from the site.
Buying an NFT in Psyber X allows you use of the stats and an integrated form of the licensed art wherein the gameplay is the focus.
What you can not do is repackage the image and sell the art to another user for use in their game. Creating an aesthetic NFT with no other uses would certainly fly dangerously close to this use, but our use falls well within the language of the license.
The next line even assumes you are using it in a commercial project, which means, they expect you to sell a product using their license. What they do no want you to do is to provide the asset in its entirety for unlicensed use.
None of the assets are given in a standalone state, but instead as integrated into the larger game.
Hm, I can´t judge, but it sounds a bit far-fetched if you say "we didn´t resell the art" when you "only" sold an NFT containing the art.
Also I am not familiar enough with the game. So far the NFTs can´t be used in the game, or can they?
NFT's on hive do not contain images. The NFT cannot contain art.
NFTs on Hive do contain images.
IPFS hashes that in most cases are readonly.
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And that is the case for psyberx too.
They admitted their wrongdoing and are now finally talking to the artists to try and sort this out.
The metadata of the NFTs cannot be changed though. Remediations can only be put in place for apps that consume that data, but they need to be aware of the issue.
cc: @stayoutoftherz
Speaking with artists to ensure they are aware of how their licensed asset is being used is not an admission of wrongdoing.
Let's agree to disagree.
Please feel free to suggest projects / games / proposals in our new Discord. And we appreciate more reviewers coming on board as well.
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PS. Disclosure:
He is part of the psyberx team, as many others in the replies section
I am not a team member for Psyber X. I am a volunteer discord admin for the project. My opinions are my own.
Thanks for clarifying.
Sure thing. I look forward to seeing your future investigations. Lots of shady happenings on hive.
I agree completely. This account was just made yesterday, obvious smear campaign. From what I read, PsyberX is within the legal confines.
It doesn´t matter how old the account is. Smear campaign or not, the facts are deciding, and indeed it is clearly stated that the NFTs are not allowed to be sold further. Yes, they can be used, but the selling aspect is the relevant one. Only fulfilling one clause doesn´t mean you can ignore other clauses :)
Absolutely if this was some long-running project it would give them credibility.
Just made account to smear and attack an established hive business? Is this really going to be allowed?
The age of an account has no relevance to the validity of the assertions. It's an ad hominem to attack the one making the argument instead of the elements of their argument. Yes, age adds credibility, but that also does not make anyone immune to criticism or incapable of error either.
Hurt your bags?
A couple of RC Delegations are appreciated, if you spare some.
All set.
I've read through it.
First, CGTrader license allows for whatever PsyberX is doing. You are and to that extent, ChatGPT 3.5 is interpreting the wording wrong. CGTrader license disallows you to sell the files downloaded from the site. Whatever you create using the files is fair game. It can be a just random JPG.
Second, you can argue that NFTs are "Incorporated Products" and the 3D Assets themselves are not the actually valuable part of these. So, there should be no issues regarding licenses.
Third, I don't know you but a purchase of a license is both permission from the original author and proper compensation for the original author.
So I have to call this for what it is, a smear campaign and a nothing burger.
I have to make clear, that I do not hold any PsyberX assets, and I am not in any way associated with PsyberX. I only hold some DLBN, it was called I believe, due to testing out their Discord game to see what it was.
If advertising or gaining your initial support from the Hive Blockchain. Then maybe, it might be a thing to have the items of the game on the chain from the start. Not the case, looks bad.
Creating an Unreal game integrated on-chain is a significant undertaking that typically requires a large corporate or VC-backed team—something Justin, an independent developer, did not have. Despite the ambitious nature of the project and the associated risks, many of us supported it. Now, there are three playable games, with a couple of them successfully integrated on-chain.
Our approach involves onboarding and fundraising primarily off-chain, using fun playable games as a means to attract interest. Despite challenges and detractors, we remain committed to building, onboarding, and contributing to the growth of Hive. It's important to note that the individual making these statements is a former admin/player, known for toxic behavior. Their discontent stems from being banned due to toxicity towards other players. Despite attempts to stir drama and garner support for downvotes, we will maintain a constructive and positive presence here.
Not really. Once the game is present everything else is Childs play.
Well I am about to leave my own reply. It looks like what I said would happen happened. and your token has gone down. Back then though when I talked with you, You had no interest in providing some assurance that your game token would hold and possibly increase in value. You could not see the benefits that would hold for you. Or you demonstrated your only interest was the taking in of HIVE.
I remember you laughed at me.
That was me replying to you, I have never laughed at you sir. Don't think we are allowed to give reassurance of future token value legally. We do have token buy backs and hope to increase the support levels.
I built it in the digital world. Tested and proved.
Now I am about to start in the physical world.
I tried to give you this two years plus ago.
Working with the COLT token now,
You were correct yet that was not possible then and the difficult path was the only possibility several decided to take helping make what we have today possible. As a decentralized project the founders voted for the opposite, moving the game to unreal, raising budget and ambitions of all involved and now we have an unreal game with 5 maps and 3 modes to play, a card game utilizing the same NFTs and token integrated on chain in testing and a discord game with a Hive token. Not trying to argue just stating regardless of how it got done it is still getting done.
you both did
Read my reply if you care to, none of that was hidden and shared in the open since the beginning, these clowns are jealous, we have 3 playable games with none of those assets as shown in them.
Who cares about using them in the game. They were/are sold as NFTs.
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We were gonna stop here and move on to other reviews.
Since you won't admit any fault, we now have to put out another 3-4 posts...
Shared that they were purchased assets yes, when you sell assets to a store you don't get your name put on things. We also voted to move from unity to unreal changing all those assets.
Our connection to the chain is a scam? please tell us how so? token is integrated as well as NFTs with Psyber-Decks. There is no lying, just tough times and not everyone will understand what it takes to build 1 game, we have 3 games to play today and not going anywhere.
Scroll up to see MrTats replies, he is not associated with us nor a holder and seems to be able to comprehend things.
There is no promise A very decentralized plan of game asset ownership and building fun games.
Many of us are taking a gamble on an ambitious project and know the risks, thank you for your opinion.