Few players are really good but hey, there’s the Dunning-Kruger effect
Some people play games for fun. Some play to win. Only a few play professionally to make money. Snook is creating a new gaming scenario — one that has never existed before.
People can play for fun, to win, AND to make money. The problem is that only a few will really be good enough to make a lot of money. It’s not a big problem — because today no one makes money — so what’s the worst that can happen, the player has fun. But, still for Snook to work people need to believe that they can monetize their skills. Below, we elaborate on this pseudo-problem and present the rationale that is underlying the viability of Snook as a popular mass-market game.
Few are really good but hey, there’s the Dunning-Kruger effect
In any skill-based activity, and therefore also games, some people are better than others. It’s a combination of talent and practice. The distribution of “ranking” is bell-shaped and symmetric. However, in games that include a monetary incentive, such as tournaments with money prizes and as in our case an NFT financial environment, the “ranking” distribution becomes skewed. That means that few players are good enough to win significant enough incentivizes. That’s both because there’s an added layer of stress on the players that “thins the herd” (leaving players that do not buckle under pressure) and because the payout for uniqueness and scarcity in an NFT market is not linear. These two elements lead us to assume that in Snook only a few people will make enough money to rationally justify the effort; some people will make some money, and most will not. This likely reality may sound like a deterrent to playing the game. Well, this is where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play (excuse the pun). The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low aptitude tend to overestimate their ability. This stems both from their overconfidence in their own ability and from a misperception of the skills and abilities of others. Either way, you’ll play because 1) you think you belong to the group that is good enough to be appropriately rewarded (and you might very well be), and 2) there’s no way of telling if you are right or if you are a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect (I mean, what if you are good enough and others suck?). Problem solved.
Adding to that the fact that games have nothing to lose and that playing is fun, and we have a game that most people would prefer over other games. Very much like the joke about the two people running from a Lion. One stops to put on running shoes. The other asks him: “Do you really think shoes will help you outrun the Lion. “No.” He responds. “But it will help me to outrun you…”
You think you’re good?… well, let’s play.
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Till next time,
S.L.
