TB21, old friend... I wonder if you guys are still going strong. If you ever come back to Repspace I hope you update this thread, it's been a long time. I remember stating a few years ago that I thought FantaZ had a tough struggle ahead because of game quality, and the ever expanding growth of various platforms on which games can be played and managed. As of now, we have "Steam" (the king of digital gaming media), Uplay, EA's Origin and an entire universe of phone apps which is another topic all together, but closely affects the market.
I took a personal interest in FantaZ because anyone that knows me as a person knows that video games have been a major part of my life since the day my father hooked up an Atari2600 over 35 years ago. When I first read about FantaZ, I was a bit offended (we'll get to that shortly). I felt it was doomed for a few reasons; The biggest, being that the only way you can get the majority of gamers on board in any situation (look at any console past or present) is with a good game library. You can mass produce a gaming machine that can outperform the fastest computers in the world, but if all you have to play on it is Madden 1 through 12,718, you may as well rest a grease-soaked pizza box on it while you argue with a friend over Star Trek "facts".
I've spent a decent amount of time studying MLM companies. It started as a bit of a hobby but then I became fascinated, of course never so much so that I actually joined one and became a rep. In that time, I've seen some pretty decent companies hidden within an ocean of scams and rip offs. So when I heard about FantaZ for the first time, I thought; 'wow, someone is going to try to use video games to rip consumers off with' (as if I had completely forgotten about movie-based video games). Go ahead and try playing Terminator 2 for the NES, I dare you.
I did get to try a few FantaZ games and they had a few "gems" in their library which despite consisting of simplistic screen scrolling and semi-gimmicky game play, managed to deliver some fun in short doses. Right off bat, I had to give a little credit to the designers for making something out of "nothing" from a technical perspective. The problem with those games is that at best, they have a Facebook app level of quality. It can make you a few dollars, but going by their web site, in the 3-4 years after it's launch, it has $80,000+ in pay outs thus far. Now there is a good chance I'm going to look like a total math failure here because I'm the first to admit that I am one.
At the time of this post, I divided the number of FantaZ pay outs by the number of reps (both are posted on their web site). The result was 2.002252534100863. Sorry I don't even really know how to use/read a calculator properly. There are countless variables to be fair though, like having no way of knowing which of the 39000 players received which amounts. For the sake of argument though, does that number seem like this program has even a reasonable success rate? Also, do we know that these numbers are even real? If I'm not completely failing in my attempt at interpreting that figure, I think it's a little over 2k per person on average. Someone please save me if I have brought infinite fail to the Gods of arithmetic.
So to break this novel down, I am expressing my suspicions that this company is doing how I thought they would do. It might bleed a few dollars once in awhile for the average person, and maybe a healthy sum for the experienced "go getter", but overall I think it is too little too late as far as the gaming industry.
This post is already way too long, but I'd like to discuss FantaZ and it's platform a bit more in detail in a future post. If I haven't lost you in this text ocean so far, thank you for reading!
Ps.. Anyone that actually understands math, please hit me with a newspaper, and say "NO!", followed by the correct formula.
Thank you in advance.