It’s been four months since Riot Racers introduced rental and breeding to its play and earn racing game. And, as seems to happen with many play-to-earn games, the value of the RIOT token has been steadily decreasing as players have begun to cash in their winnings. But this latest update introduces car upgrades and staking as additional use cases for their game token, as well as a few other game improvements.
In a temporary measure to try and control the hemorrhaging of RIOT token value, Riot Racers added a daily token withdrawal limit a while back. And while they now have more in-game uses for RIOT, they chose to keep the withdrawal limit but tie the limit increases to a new achievement system. Also including car upgrades, tokens, billboards, and new rental splits, this is a major update to the race-to-win game.
What’s in this update?
This update adds one of the biggest features, and a major use of the RIOT token, car upgrades. Players can visit the mechanic shops to upgrade various car parts. Upgrading costs RIOT tokens, and at higher levels, USDC as well. And while there are seven different car parts to upgrade, it doesn’t really seem to matter which part is upgraded. All that affects the race results is the car’s overall rating, which increases with each upgrade to a maximum of 24,000.
Riot Racers has also introduced an achievement section for players, although it’s pretty basic. Achievements are divided into two sections, Owners and Renters. Owners move up the achievement ladder by owning more cars, wagering RIOT tokens and participating in paid races.
Renters earn achievement levels by wagering RIOT chips and participating in paid races. Each level increases the player’s maximum daily withdrawal of RIOT chips. It also provides additional income from free races. This last point seems a bit counterintuitive to me. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage players to participate in more paid races?
Owners can now specify two different rental rates for their resources. One for Training School races, which are free, and another percentage for paid races. This is an interesting feature that makes a huge difference in the rental market. We are now seeing percentages as high as 95% for paid runs on some rentals!
The first iteration of billboards is up and running. Billboard owners can now specify a banner that displays at the top of the Riot Racers app.
Riot Racers has added a basic staking program for RIOT tokens on their website. Unfortunately, there is no point in doing so. In fact, the only purpose of staking RIOT is to reach achievement levels 2 and above. But since reaching level 2 also requires owning 10 cars, with a total score of 50,000 (for reference, my seven cars currently have a total score of 5,000), the number of players who have a reason to bet is small. The team promises to add lock-in periods and rewards for wagering in a future update.
Additional thoughts
This release gave a nice 8% increase in the value of RIOT chips, but I don’t know if that will last. Riot Racers has been in need of an update since the release of its rental system. And while this update brings some important features, it does very little to make the game more interesting.
Riot Racers is one of the few blockchain games with an active and working rental system, which puts it in a strong position. But it remains to be seen if they can capitalize on this position.
