Re: [ANN] ION [ION] | POS 3.0 | Mobile Gaming | Join the ionomy today!
I get the distinct impression that we could, finally, be moving into crunch time. Perhaps Korvas (I won't ask WildShark because he'll just come up with nonsense) could enlighten us as to his thinking here, but from my perspective they now have the platform in place (alchemy exchange and all the tertiary nonsense they’ve tacked on in sharenodes etc), the integration solution for game devs they’ve been working on seemingly forever in GameGrid is about to come out/is already in 'beta', they’re making their changes to the coin’s protocol, and they’ve released a few games now.
I feel like we’re moving well beyond being able to use ‘they’re still developing stuff to support their push’ as an excuse for lack of scale and success. If GameGrid flops and their latest attempt at a game in Quick Shift Racing or whatever it’s called doesn’t have an impact, I wonder where that leaves them? Another famous Matlack pivot?
Talking of Quick Shift, if it’s just a drag racing game, it’s very obviously doomed to failure, in my opinion. A simple search on any of the app stores will tell you that that is an extremely crowded genre as it is - there’s a shit tonne of good free games of that ilk, including some very well established and huge players. It would have to be outstanding to capture even a minute segment of that market, and Ionomy studios have done absolutely nothing to suggest they can produce anything close to that so far, despite their claims to the contrary.
Anyway, I think it’s high time for a quick recap of their yearly roadmap since we’re nearing the end of Q4 now. For reference: https://web.archive.org/web/20191207082538/https://ionomy.com/en/roadmap
For PWERRRRGRADDDDD or whatever crappy name they gave it before their latest reshuffle:
Q1 – 2019
* Team expansion - Who knows. They said they’d hired a full time marketer at the turn of the year. I haven’t seen any marketing this year, so I have no idea what he/she/it’s been doing. But I guess that’s the ionomy way.
* Improved timestamp system - Pretty sure that hasn’t happened.
* Integrated game history display - Pretty sure that hasn’t happened.
Q2 – 2019
* Announcement event: April 12th - This took place. It was a fluff piece explaining the pivot to ‘GameGrid’.
* Simplify game login - Pretty sure this hasn’t happened.
* Rumble Arena tournament integration - Don’t be silly! That’s been promised for nearly 18 months and still hasn’t happened.
* Jumpstart: first game campaign - Nope.
Q3 – 2019
* To be updated after April Event - Lol.
Q4 – 2019
* To be updated after April Event - Lol again.
Interesting that they haven’t changed anything on their main website to represent the pivot to the name GameGrid. It’s all still pweeerrgruudd nonsense wall to wall on there.
For Ionomy Studios:
Q1 – 2019
* Discount codes for hosting - Nope.
* Marketing expansion - Nah, unless it’s happened and no one noticed, which sort of isn’t the point.
* Crypto Gravity v2 public release - That happened, and it’s a flop (obviously).
* Offroad Heat updates - Nah.
* The Moon or Bust updates - Nah.
* Game Project X (stage 1 development) - Who knows? I’m pretty sure no one’ll care, though.
* Quick Shift Racing (stage 3 development) - Who knows? Probably happened, but not sure anyone cares.
Q2 – 2019
* XDM ICO - That happened, but predictably it did have any traction outside of established ionomy investors.
* XDM release + airdrops - 50% done. XDM was ‘released’ and no one cares. They haven’t done the airdrops yet, but no one will notice that either.
* ionomy Exchange supports ETH - Nope. They made a big song and dance about this in their first 'Ionomy Live' event at the beginning of last year, and then it just never happened.
* BTC Sharenode markets - Nope, at least I don't think so.
* Jumpstart: first game campaign - Nope.
* Advanced features for user coin control - Nope.
* Affiliate program starts - Nope.
* Account achievements badges - Nope.
* Advanced masternode stats - Nope.
* Direct pay/send options (email) - Nope.
* Game Project X (stage 2 development) - Who knows.
Q3 – 2019
* Auto-purchasing/selling of assets - Nope.
* Voting added for new asset listings - Nope.
* Quick Shift Racing (alpha) - Maybe?
* Voting functionality for hosted nodes - Nope.
* Game Project X (stage 3 development) - Who knows.
Q4 – 2019
* Public account update (ionomy points) - Lol.
* PWR GRD full integration - Lol. No.
* Quick Shift Racing (beta) - Who knows?
* Game Project X (stage 4 development) - Who knows?
So, three and a half things definitively achieved from their own roadmap, but a reduction in value of, what, 80% or so? This only serves to reinforce my opinion, which has been and always will be that this is a 'team' that continually over estimates their own ability to develop and deliver. They have a solid track record of making massively over ambitious goals and falling so far short it makes them look like idiots.
Anyway, what a year. Give these guys a raise!
I feel like we’re moving well beyond being able to use ‘they’re still developing stuff to support their push’ as an excuse for lack of scale and success. If GameGrid flops and their latest attempt at a game in Quick Shift Racing or whatever it’s called doesn’t have an impact, I wonder where that leaves them? Another famous Matlack pivot?
Talking of Quick Shift, if it’s just a drag racing game, it’s very obviously doomed to failure, in my opinion. A simple search on any of the app stores will tell you that that is an extremely crowded genre as it is - there’s a shit tonne of good free games of that ilk, including some very well established and huge players. It would have to be outstanding to capture even a minute segment of that market, and Ionomy studios have done absolutely nothing to suggest they can produce anything close to that so far, despite their claims to the contrary.
Anyway, I think it’s high time for a quick recap of their yearly roadmap since we’re nearing the end of Q4 now. For reference: https://web.archive.org/web/20191207082538/https://ionomy.com/en/roadmap
For PWERRRRGRADDDDD or whatever crappy name they gave it before their latest reshuffle:
Q1 – 2019
* Team expansion - Who knows. They said they’d hired a full time marketer at the turn of the year. I haven’t seen any marketing this year, so I have no idea what he/she/it’s been doing. But I guess that’s the ionomy way.
* Improved timestamp system - Pretty sure that hasn’t happened.
* Integrated game history display - Pretty sure that hasn’t happened.
Q2 – 2019
* Announcement event: April 12th - This took place. It was a fluff piece explaining the pivot to ‘GameGrid’.
* Simplify game login - Pretty sure this hasn’t happened.
* Rumble Arena tournament integration - Don’t be silly! That’s been promised for nearly 18 months and still hasn’t happened.
* Jumpstart: first game campaign - Nope.
Q3 – 2019
* To be updated after April Event - Lol.
Q4 – 2019
* To be updated after April Event - Lol again.
Interesting that they haven’t changed anything on their main website to represent the pivot to the name GameGrid. It’s all still pweeerrgruudd nonsense wall to wall on there.
For Ionomy Studios:
Q1 – 2019
* Discount codes for hosting - Nope.
* Marketing expansion - Nah, unless it’s happened and no one noticed, which sort of isn’t the point.
* Crypto Gravity v2 public release - That happened, and it’s a flop (obviously).
* Offroad Heat updates - Nah.
* The Moon or Bust updates - Nah.
* Game Project X (stage 1 development) - Who knows? I’m pretty sure no one’ll care, though.
* Quick Shift Racing (stage 3 development) - Who knows? Probably happened, but not sure anyone cares.
Q2 – 2019
* XDM ICO - That happened, but predictably it did have any traction outside of established ionomy investors.
* XDM release + airdrops - 50% done. XDM was ‘released’ and no one cares. They haven’t done the airdrops yet, but no one will notice that either.
* ionomy Exchange supports ETH - Nope. They made a big song and dance about this in their first 'Ionomy Live' event at the beginning of last year, and then it just never happened.
* BTC Sharenode markets - Nope, at least I don't think so.
* Jumpstart: first game campaign - Nope.
* Advanced features for user coin control - Nope.
* Affiliate program starts - Nope.
* Account achievements badges - Nope.
* Advanced masternode stats - Nope.
* Direct pay/send options (email) - Nope.
* Game Project X (stage 2 development) - Who knows.
Q3 – 2019
* Auto-purchasing/selling of assets - Nope.
* Voting added for new asset listings - Nope.
* Quick Shift Racing (alpha) - Maybe?
* Voting functionality for hosted nodes - Nope.
* Game Project X (stage 3 development) - Who knows.
Q4 – 2019
* Public account update (ionomy points) - Lol.
* PWR GRD full integration - Lol. No.
* Quick Shift Racing (beta) - Who knows?
* Game Project X (stage 4 development) - Who knows?
So, three and a half things definitively achieved from their own roadmap, but a reduction in value of, what, 80% or so? This only serves to reinforce my opinion, which has been and always will be that this is a 'team' that continually over estimates their own ability to develop and deliver. They have a solid track record of making massively over ambitious goals and falling so far short it makes them look like idiots.
Anyway, what a year. Give these guys a raise!
My perspective is when companies like Ionomy offer a market-leading proposition; they get somethings right & somethings wrong especially when there is no benchmark or company to follow. Opportunities, obstacles, challenges & problems WILL manifest themselves in markets that are in a continual state of evolution. The fact that Ionomy is still here after four years shows me they are intelligent and agile enough to navigate the treacherous but rewarding waters of crypto/gaming.
2020 will be the year when all their work and learnings will start to come to fruition.
For instance, PowerGrid evolves into GameGrid. Apart from the GameGRID developer-centric services, GameGRID also offers a unity plugin meaning it's easy for a game developer to implement crypto/tokens across multiple platforms (PC,Mobile,Console). Rumble arena will be the first 3rd party game to incorporate GameGrid. Currently, on the google playstore alone Rumble Arena is sitting at 100k+ downloads. My prediction is by the end of next year, over 1 million gamers across multiple games will have used Ionomy's transactional-based blockchain.
I see an opportunity you don't that's cool this thread is all about debate
