How Telegram Game Hamster Kombat Got 300 Million Users—and the Ire of Iran’s Military

The founders reveal their third inspiration, and this one’s less obvious: TikTok.

“First, there was Musical.ly, and it almost died,” say the founders, referring to the original incarnation of TikTok. Then ByteDance (which acquired Musical.ly) found ways to incentivize sharing. “People underestimate the effect of these tiny mechanisms,” say the creators. “Sometimes, they can turn the tide.”

Tiny mechanisms are everywhere in Hamster Kombat. You earn coins for inviting friends to the game, watching YouTube videos, subscribing to the Telegram channel, and so on. “We knew that the only way for us to grow was by making everything inside the game viral,” claim the founders. “We simply didn’t have $50 million for marketing.”

Going viral doesn’t happen by accident. Every day, the founders obsessively follow real-world events and incorporate them into the gameplay. “When Dubai hosted a crypto conference and suddenly got flooded, it was a devastating situation, but you could feel the irony,” say the creators. “We went and made a card [in the game] about this. And then people just started getting this card, taking screenshots, posting on social [media].”

The game is deeply self-aware and packed with crypto Easter eggs. “I can open Hamster Kombat and see this inside joke that reflects what the community is saying,” says Amanda Cassatt, the CEO of Serotonin, a marketing firm. “The game is fun, and it’s funny.”

When you first open Hamster Kombat, it looks so simple it doesn’t even feel like a game. Tap, get coins. Tap, get coins. “I wouldn’t consider it a game. It’s sort of entertainment,” says Matvii Diadkov, the founder of the crypto advertising network Bitmedia who has created and analyzed crypto games. “It’s even more primitive than hyper-casual games.”

But then something weird happens. When you explore the app, you’re confronted with a dizzying menu of options for scaling your hamster’s crypto exchange, such as investing in your UX and UI team, building an NFT metaverse (remember those?), or obtaining a legal license to operate in Nigeria. These options are deep cuts into Web3 nerd-dom, often requiring a bit of research if you’re an outsider. Each option has a cost (in the free coins you earn), but investing in it can boost your hamster’s profit-per-hour. This can get addicting.

“I realized that strategy helps save time and improve efficiency,” says Liliya Chumarina, a 24-year-old freelance marketer who lives in Milan. At first she just clicked, then she watched the game’s educational videos (racking up social media views for Hamster Kombat), then she created a spreadsheet to help her optimize yield. Thanks to this automation, Chumarina says, “now I usually spend no more than one hour per day.” (Cassatt considers the game not as simple as tic-tac-toe, but not as complicated as chess. “It’s checkers.”)

The founders seem exasperated by the game’s “hyper-casual” label. “Some people call it a tap-to-play game. It’s not exactly right and dumbs it down,” say the creators. “You only need to tap at the very beginning. Very soon, you get access to all the passive income streams which quickly outweigh everything else.”