Milk nipple music or software war? Hamster Kombat, which is popular in Iran, has caused political criticism.

Original Author: Zen, PANews

In recent times, in the streets and alleys of Iran, at subway stations, in taxis and buses, and even in any random place, you can always see someone tirelessly tapping on their mobile screens. These seemingly leisurely Iranians, eight or nine out of ten, are users of Hamster Kombat. They repeat this mechanical tapping not for enjoyment, but for the purpose of making money.

Hamster Kombat, which attracts thousands of Iranian users, is a Telegram-based clicker game, where the core gameplay is to earn gold coins by clicking. This simple casual game, which would be ignored in traditional gaming, has gained popularity in the cryptocurrency industry. Following the success of Notcoin in proving the value and feasibility of the ‘Tap to Earn’ mechanism, similar projects have quickly emerged and achieved rapid growth. Hamster Kombat is one of the outstanding ones, showing great potential.

On June 24, Hamster Kombat announced on Platform X that its gamer base had reached 200 million, while the project’s X and YouTube accounts had 9.8 million and 28.7 million subscribers, respectively. From the perspective of user scale alone, this mini game, which was only launched in March this year, is undoubtedly the most popular phenomenon project after Notcoin. However, Hamster Kombat, which has recently become popular in Iran, is clearly not “welcomed” by the local government and mainstream media.

Information Risk and the Value of “Empty” Investment

The invitation mechanism of Hamster Kombat is one of the main means of achieving viral spread, which makes every user willing to invite friends to join the game and obtain one-time and continuous rewards from it. Regarding this situation of rapid spread, Hossein Delirian, spokesperson of the Iranian National Cyberspace Center, issued a warning, stating that he has read a large number of discussions by Iranian users in many supergroups recently, and using games for cryptocurrency mining has become a hotbed for hacker crimes. As a spokesperson for the National Cyberspace Center, I remind those who participate in these games to pay attention to protecting their information and accounts.

Esmail Qamari, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Affairs and Crime Prevention at the Ministry of Justice in Ilam Province, expressed doubts about the value of the project. He pointed out that if blockchain cannot achieve complete decentralization, it is not very trustworthy in the field of cryptocurrency. He even bluntly stated: “Notcoin and Hamster Kombat have no value because they are not scarce. Due to the presence of the community and external investors, they have found some value, which makes some people happy. This has led these people to bring their friends into the market, and ultimately, the main funds have entered investors’ pockets from outside the narrative.”

This controversy has also attracted the attention of the religious community. Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a famous Shiite scholar, described cryptocurrency as “the root of many evils” and urged people to avoid games involving Bitcoin like Hamster Kombat.

The enemy paralyzes the Iranian people’s “nipple delight”?

In addition to expressing concerns about information and financial security, Dr. Alireza Chabkeru, a professor at the University of Tehran, also expressed concerns about the decline of intellectual and cultural development. “Phenomena such as artificial intelligence and games of this kind have already taken away people’s attention,” he said. He believes that in an era where tapping on the phone screen has become one of the main activities for many people during the day and leisure time, one can deeply feel the domination and degradation of people’s thoughts by the cyberspace. “The virtual space places people at the biological level of eating, sleeping, and breathing, which is an expanding vicious cycle. Today, people’s concerns, worries, and goals have become very superficial under the influence of cyberspace, which is very dangerous.”

Hamster Kombat has also been interpreted as an enemy’s ‘software war’. Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army, Habibollah Sayyari, has criticized it more fiercely. It is currently close to Iran’s national elections, but the public lacks enthusiasm for the upcoming election. He believes that Hamster Kombat is intended to divert public attention from major national events and is part of a wider strategy. ‘One of the characteristics of the enemy’s software war is the ‘hamster’ game,’ he said. The purpose of this game is to divert public attention from the presidential election and encourage a lazy culture.

The ‘livelihood’ of ordinary people in economic difficulties

Due to Western sanctions, Iran has long faced problems such as high inflation, currency depreciation, reduced job opportunities, and exacerbated poverty. According to data released by the World Bank, in the first decade of the 21st century, about 9.5 million Iranians fell into poverty. Faced with macroeconomic challenges, many Iranians are seeking alternative ways to secure their financial management and gradually affirming a positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies as emerging risk assets.

Hamster Kombat’s unprecedented popularity in Iran inevitably recalls the glorious days of Axie Infinity in Southeast Asia. In the midst of the Philippines’ wave of unemployment, Axie Infinity players can earn an average of over $300 per month through the game, surpassing the local average salary. Many of these players come from the underprivileged living in slums.

Iran’s state-run newspaper JameJam criticized Hamster Kombat’s popularity, saying: “If a society does not work hard and make money, but plays this game, looks for shortcuts and profiteering, then the society will gradually lose its culture of hard work and entrepreneurship.” ”

However, for the bottom-tier people who have been in a long-term economic downturn, perhaps they don’t care much after working hard to numb themselves, and all kinds of worries and concerns are irrelevant to them. Even after participating in months of Hamster Kombat, in the end, it’s just watching a ‘mirage’ wonder.