I hear what you are saying about the cost of the @steemmonsters starter pack @trincowski. I do not play, but my son @bxlphabet does and he really wanted that starter pack, for all the reasons you state. I thought it was too much money for the value, and so did not do it for months.

But recently, steemmonsters initiated an $upvote service. So if you write a post about them and tag it with #steemmonsters and then put it in the right place in discord, you get an upvote. These are running about $0.30 now. I paid $10 steem for my son's pack.

So now:

• he gets a daily post out like I want him to anyway.
• he is much more engaged in the game and in steem.
• He is growing his sp faster than he was before.
• the "investment" will come back in less than 2 months and then it will be gravy.

My son chose to do a daily update for his post. So he basically shows a screen shot of something steemmonsters related and talks about whatever happened that day in 150-400 words. 15-30 minutes and DONE!

Plus he is getting a lot of new connections and friends here and this is important for steem success as you know. And with all the many contests, he is still getting a ton of cards, and now even more since he can play the game and win them there each day.