WTF is Mech Master?

Down, Down, Down. Would the fall never come to an end?

Anyone with a working keyboard and Internet connection can type up the various methods of making money that have proven most profitable in the past few years. Free for all to see are oodles of empirical evidence detailing the rise of cryptocurrencies, scams, scalping, cryptocurrency-related blockchain scams, and of course, the billion dollar games industry. The way I see it, the universe is very clearly laying out the future all of us need to pursue in order to secure that ever elusive, but oh-so-tantalising liveable wage. (Or it that just the turning gears of capitalism I hear? I get them and the ephemeral will of universe mixed up more often than you'd think.) But it takes a special kind of person to shut-up, pull up their bootstraps, and then sit behind a computer screen making desperate calls all day trying to scam old man Pete out of his pension check with your quick-wit and decidedly deceased morals. The kind of person who isn't going to settle for just ensuring the 15th pensioner that week can't even afford a casket for their own funeral, the kind of person who's going to say: "What if I scammed in the big leagues; setting my trap in the very profitably games industry?"

Now you might think that's a pretty aggressive attitude I've taken right out of the gate without even detailing what this 'Mech Master' thing even is; but that's because I'm on the cusp of getting actual paid-for Youtube ads regarding this thing Mech Master thing, and I just know this is going to become the theme song of every bloody video I watch for the next six months until I've memorised the script even more than those 'wacky zany manscapped adverts where the narrator dances around the topics of pubic hair on your nuts and deflects with puns and jokes to describe the fact they're telling you that your balls stink and need to be shaved.' Hey, here's an idea: my shaving habits have nothing to do with you or your pay master company you insipidly intrusive, unsubtle, pernickety, played out, washed up, irritating, beggarly, schmekle-sucking creeps! (Woah, I got a little of track there.) Look at this as me airing out some future frustrations which are inevitably going to bubble up in a few month's time because of all these impending ads, and make no mistake that this is going to be a mess, considering we're talking about an NFT-based video game. (BOO!)

"Mech Master is a fully immersive 3D Metaverse on the Moon, where each project is a virtual city, interconnected into an ecosystem. Come to Mech City, people can socialize, relax, join in various activities and enjoy life truly in Mech Metaverse Ecosystem in a breath taking 3D Universe!" (Do you want to die yet? I do.) A lot of what is written on the official site detailing the mission statement of ' Mech Master', borders on gobbledygook for the dual reasons that it's all written in buzz word Crypto-bro speak, with perfunctory jargon chucked haphazardly in the middle of sentences to make it look like the writer has a single clue what they're talking about, and the fact that I'm fairly certain this entire project is based out of Vietnam, and the website scribe for the team hasn't quite nailed down perfect English sentence structure just yet. They're really close, but miss the mark here and there. Still, I've suffered through this cringe-topia, so how about I break things down for you?

So Mech Master is a concept that is two fold, it is both a game and a blockchain backed Metaverse social space with NFT addon's slotted in there somewhere. Basically every popular keyword of the year so far, these guys couldn't decide on a singular grift to run. The metaverse side of this project is vague, heck a lot of this site is vague, but as far as I can tell the 'Metaverse' is represented by this idea of virtual cities that 'adopters' take control of, each of which will house your 'project'. I don't know what they mean by 'project', but they use that word a lot on this website without any remote extrapolation. Each player will have their own 'city' which appears to serve as a HUB for all the various metaverse projects that Mech Master will come to represent, from hosting the game to displaying advertising from other cities. (Advertising... something I'm sure) Also, users would be able to engage with the interconnected nature of the metaverse to "interact with (other players) participating in each other's gaming ecosystem." That was all infomation listed under the header that was ostensibly about their Metaverse. So either they've mixed the definition of metaverse and the games they're making into one amorphous clump, or there's literally no sense to be made from what this Metaverse of theirs even is. I'm guessing it's meant to be a theoretical social hub that will seamlessly connect with that theoretical game they're making. Oh, speaking of games!

That was the reason I came into this most-detestable of folds: because there was a mech based game that was supposed to be at the bottom of the deep well. Or 'Mecha' as they say within the text on the site. (D.VA called, she wants you to "Nerf this!") There is an 'arena area' within these presumed metaverse city project things which presumably threatens to serve as our portal into the video game section of this pitch. And this game has got to be a big part of all this, because when I first started getting the ads shoved into my face this Mech Master game was what they led with. All this Metaverse crap is just the extra garbage I've discovered in my journey of discovery. They talked about the game before anything else, which makes it kind of galling that any actual infomation on what this game is amounts to little more than a few haphazard mentions on various pages here or there. (The entire website is named after Mech Master- why not put more effort in advertising the damn thing?) 

Under the 'ecosystem' tab we have the heading "For the first time ever, with only one Mecha, you can play multiple different games in the Mech universe" Which sparks just the cusp of my many questions surrounding the sense of any of this. We're also told that there's a desire from the team to create "highest quality" 3D games (which is going to be a tall-ask given that so far it looks like they've only got 2D stylised assets and one mock-up 3D model of the red 'Legion' mech.) And they've teased how the project may "develop many different game genres" in the future. (Again, slight problems with the basic English here, hurts the professionalism a tad) So as far as I can tell, what we're looking at here is a 'budding franchise' around a brand they call 'Mech Master' (I bet that trademark is totally filed) which will encompass a slew of different game types for their victi- I mean 'adopters' to play around in. The 'only one mecha' rule seems to imply that these machines will each be NFTs, (Which is reinforced by the currently active marketplace selling these, currently still only 2D picture, mechs for Binance Coin) with the big selling point being the ability to play the same machine across their different, as-of-yet-non-existent, games. Now divorcing the fact that offering a mech shooter game where you only ever get to play as one mech sounds totally boring, it also isn't even remotely impressive to tout the ability to share your mech across their one insular gaming ecosystem. Of course I can transmit my progress from one crappy Mech Master game to another, they're being made by the same idiots. You don't need NFTs or the blockchain to facilitate such a system, you just need a miniscule amount of server space.

And of the games themselves? Well, we have the titular 'Mech Master' and 'Mech Frontline FPS', but the FPS game has no details on it apart from a 'coming soon' placeholder, which is a shame because that sounds like the more interesting one here. Mech Master is described as a "3D Mecha showdown on the Blockchain" which is so non-sensical it makes my head spin. What do you mean 'On the blockchain'? Is every hit going to need to be registered on the blockchain before it counts? (Because that would take time, even OpenSea opts for off-blockchain website changes before an actual purchase in order to keep things smooth) Am I going to need to mint my bullets before they're valid? This is peak buzzword nonsense, right here. In gameplay this is said to be a "Strategic Turn Based RPG where players are free to build their own territory with future technologies and protect their homeworld", which, again, is a flawed description on just about every level. 

First 'Strategic turn based RPG', now I may be a fan of those words, but the wider community of mech loving gamers are not. Just take a look at all the big classic mech games over the years, Mechwarrior 5, Steel battalion, Hawken, Titanfall, Zone of Enders; all of them are real-time games that focus on the spectacle of live action and the thrill of commanding impressive mech robots at will without any turn-taking nonsense, sort of hinting that the community veers towards live action titles. Even more strategic mech games, like Iron Harvest, are real time. So either the team are cleverly hopping on a gap in the market, or making a game for an non-existent audience. Then the whole 'build territory' and 'protect their homeworld'. What's that all about? I was led to believe that the Metaverse project around this concept focused on cities, all of which are based on-the-moon. Wouldn't this game, given it's serving a wider Mech Master universe, want to neatly slide into that premise of defending your moon-city, rather than this odd 'homeworld' idea which came out of nowhere, so that each proposed mingame in this metauniverse is immersively interconnected? Did the team even think of that when they wrote this mock-up game description in order to make-believe about this project? I guess not.

But I'm stepping on this universe before they've even put their first game out. (Assuming anything ever does come out, which is already a few steps removed from reasonable expectation.) What about this universe they've dreamt up- maybe the bones are really solid! Thankfully, they've already offered a teaser on their website for what to expect and it's all poorly written with vague names and minimal tangible worldbuilding. You have the main mech called Legion, which is close to being worldbuild worthy in name at least, (although there's no substance to that name provided in the description) and then you have the winged mech called Aerial. It- it's just called 'Aerial'? Because it's an aerial unit? (No- yeah, that's great worldbuilding already, great job.) The big one is called Giant, the transforming one is called Shapeshifter, the weird one is called Alien; you get the picture, right? They're all represented with 2D assets, and I'll be amazed if this project ever gets around to rending a single additional one in the third dimension like they promise, let alone fleshing out the significance of any of these all-important mech units in this mech-themed universe! But that's not all, we also have a preview of the pilots for these mech units and- oh god: they're all 2D boob waifus. I'm not kidding, this is as bottom-of-the-barrel as it gets; no names, no backstories, just three pictures of sci-fi themed anime girls with large breasts barely contained in skimpy skin suits. There isn't a single iota of effort on this entire website, is there?

Finally there's probably the most predatory thing on the entire project- do you remember those cities, which are apparently also projects of some sort, which I let slip were stationed on the moon? Well, what if I told you that they were all based on our actual moon, and you need to buy your NFT parcel of land in order to found this city and, I guess, access this "Next generation of Blockchain & NFT gaming" as website, TechBullion suspiciously puts it. (I'm not accusing them of charging for sponsored articles, especially as no such sponsor is disclosed on the article which would put them in trouble with certain commissions out there. I'm just saying that this article is impressively ill-researched in relation to comments on the desires of the gaming community so either it was written by shills or these article writers are terrible at even the most basic research.) As with Earth 2 and other virtual land scam auctions, (looking at you, Cryptoland, you godawful abomination of man) this is another part of the Mech Master project which is live right now as a storefront, so you can preorder a parcel of moon land in order to get it good and ready for when the metaverse launches and your land becomes worth a vIrTuAl foRtUne. Of course, this is the way the team are trying to amass some funds before they pull out and leave everyone high and dry, and I really hope the several dozens of already purchased plots I see when I pull up the demo moon are bots to make this look legitimate. It would suck if that many people were really suckered in by such an obviously fruitless scam.

Don't be fooled, this is an illustration of gameplay; not actual content.

I've done the gambit, looked through the website, strolled through their Youtube, checked the LinkedIn of the few listed employees who actually link to their credentials, and I can say with certainty that this is a project doomed to crash and burn before it ever even takes off. Heck, it won't even make it through the countdown before bursting into flames! No one on the team has experience with making actual decent budget 3D games, there's just a couple veterans of the mobile-trash circuit, none of their Youtube content speaks to any degree of professionalism, from the bad tech demos to the poorly written 'lore' teaser video and there's not a single actual game company listed under the 'backed by' tab, just Crypto crap companies, implying they don't have any ties to the games industry, let alone a publisher. According to the provided Roadmap 'Master Mecha Arena' (which isn't even the same name as the game they listed earlier under 'games') is set to launch on the PC anytime between right now and next Monday. Which, on-top all the thousands of reasons that seems unlikely, also could run into issues considering its name is dangerously close to the actual mech-based game 'Mech Arena' by Plarium (the RAID: Shadow Legends, guys) which is on mobiles and looks basically competent.

On the off chance that you've stumbled upon this particular blog because you've accidentally happened upon the Mech Master project and find yourself seriously considering getting on the ground floor of something that promises to be revolutionary- please take it from someone who understands some basic things about the gaming industry these numb-nuts claim to be trying to springboard off: this is either a scam or one of the most embarrassingly incompetent indie dev projects I've ever seen. Even if none of the evidence to that point I've already provided does justice, try this on for size; a typical AAA game made by a practised and stacked studio of industry professionals takes, at absolute least, 2 good years of solid non-stalling development in order to come out and be functional; this team at Mirai Studio don't even have a website of their own, and as far as I can tell have been working on this for about 5 months, or at least that was when the Youtube was first made with that single bad lore video. There is no game here and likely never was one, please move along.