Hamster Kombat's Latest Scandal. What's Going On With the Beloved T2E Game?
A corporate conflict is building up around the Hamster Kombat project, jeopardizing the listing and airdrop of tokens. What is happening to the notorious tap-to-earn game?
The essence of Hamster Kombat's internal conflict
Hamster Kombat is on the verge of a crisis, and all because a serious conflict is breaking out inside the company. One of the investors, the company AD.RU accuses the Hamster Kombat team of withholding profits.
AD.RU opinion
According to Anton Gorshkov, CEO of AD.RU, in an already deleted article, in 2020, Eduard Gurinovich, the possible founder of Hamster Kombat, approached AD.RU with the idea of developing Arenum, a mobile gaming and eSports portal. AD.RU got excited with Gurinovich's idea and invested $600,000 into his concept and asked for an 18.6% stake in the project in exchange. As it turned out AD.RU continued to invest in the project and allegedly engaged in marketing Arenum, which led to the growth of its stake in the project, which eventually amounted to 25%.
It is also alleged that a year later Arenum had to raise another $10 million through IDO. AD.RU also helped with marketing at this stage. However, Gurinovich's team did not distribute the profit.
Gorshkov also claims that his company not only invested in the project and handled marketing, but also developed some of the mechanics that are now implemented in Hamster Kombat. Despite this contribution, the investor did not receive any profit, and the Hamster Kombat team allegedly made empty promises.
Hamster Kombat's team's view and Gurinovich's ambiguous behavior
In June 2024, when Hamster Kombat reached the peak of its popularity, the first accusations from AD.RU also appeared. However, Gurinovich stated that Hamster Kombat had nothing to do with AD.RU.
According to the same Gorshkov, in June he offered Gurinovich a meeting to discuss AD.RU's withdrawal from the deal. This meeting seemed strange to him, as he first promised to pay the profit by the fall, and then said that AD.RU had nothing to do with Hamster Kombat. Gurinovich allegedly then told him: “Yes, we used the team. But the name is different.”
Evidence
Gorshkov intends to take the case to trial and has provided some evidence of AD.RU's involvement in Gurinovich's concept. AD.RU submitted a technical report, which shows that Hamster Kombat's servers use the same hosting as Arenum. The hamsterkombat.io domain was registered to a corporate email ap@arenum.games associated with the company's co-founder Alexander Pasechnik.
Gorshkov hinted at further serious problems for Hamster Kombat as he sent a pre-trial complaint to Gurinovich.
How this will affect the average users of the app
AD.RU emphasized that Hamster Kombat is cheating players out of their fair share of profits. The internal conflict has already affected the operational processes of the game itself, when the HMSTR airdrop promised in July was postponed, and new dates were never set. Back then, the Hamster Kombat team cited TON technical issues and concerns about network congestion.
Employees leaving the project
This decision caused a lot of negative comments about the game and its team. Community members complained that the team did not properly communicate new airdrop deadlines. Their concerns are confirmed by the decision of marketing director Nikita Anufriev to leave the project. Although he did not give the exact reason for his departure, he hinted that if the situation with internal and external conflicts of the project is not resolved, he will disclose it for the safety of investors, influencers, and users.
Anufriev said that the Hamster Kombat team promised him 25% of the revenue, but never paid him a share. Although Anufriev has been promoting the game worldwide all this time and making important collaborations, including DAOs, which invested about $450,000 and more than 200 bloggers.
Regular users will be affected as well
The internal controversy directly affects regular Hamster Kombat players. The airdrop postponing is already one such unpleasant consequence. Taking the conflict to the next level could potentially lead to a massive audience exodus. And legal battles could stall further development of the conflict, including airdrop.
The market is already reacting to the situation. Hamster Kombat futures fell by 50% from their peak, reaching a new low of $0.1586. On the one hand, this has no impact on the price of a possible listing. But there is still no token, and futures are the only way for users of the game to express their discontent. Such a sharp drop in price, even only for futures, indicates a decline in interest among users and investors.
