Motivation for playing

Rationale

Some people play games for fun. Some play to win. Only few play professionally and 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. However, for Snook to work most players must aspire to do better. They must believe that they can do and earn more. And that's the magic. Snook monetizes skill and performance. It does that objectively and empirically. It does not care what players believe. And oftentimes there's a gap between what people believe they can achieve and what they actually do.

Few players 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. Most ranking distributions are bell-shaped and symmetric around the mean. However, in games that include a monetary incentive (as in our case, an NFT financial environment,) the ranking distribution gets skewed. That means that few players are good enough to win significate-enough incentives, while most win very little or none at all. This phenomenon stems from the added layer of stress that "thins the herd" (leaving players that do not buckle under pressure). In the case of NFTs this is exacerbated by the fact that the rarity-based NFT payout 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 (again excluding the exhilaration and fun); 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 (pardon 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. And this is where it gets cool. Either way, you'll play because: 1. You think you belong to the group that is good enough to be appropriately rewarded (and perhaps you do) 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?).

The promise to monetize your skill and performance stays true. The thing is that sometimes people have a misperception of their skill.

Now, we can add to that the fact that gamers have almost 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 I'll outrun you…"

You think you're good?... Well, let's play.