Hamster Kombat players are getting crafty: Russian retailers are reporting surging massage gun sales amid the rise of the viral Telegram crypto game, as players are using the percussion massagers to amplify their screen tapping.

According to Russian news outlet Vedomosti, as spotted by Protos, leading online retailer Wildberries reported a 179% month-over-month sales spike for percussion massagers in June, while rival site Ozon has seen a 33% year-over-year rise in such sales across June and July so far.

Vedomosti attributes the sales spike to eager Hamster Kombat players attempting to boost their in-game coin earnings by using a massage gun, which pulses rapidly to deliver faster screen taps than human players can muster on their own. It could arguably be considered a tap-to-earn exploit, though it hardly rises to the level of “cheating.”

And retailers—or at least, the resellers on the websites—have apparently taken note. Multiple massage gun products from the brand RELAXA have Hamster Kombat logos stamped onto their product images via Wildberries, embracing the apparent trend while it lasts.

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Hamster Kombat has seen explosive growth in recent weeks, expanding well beyond the core crypto market base of users. Last week, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov claimed that the game had attracted some 239 million players in less than three months.

That’s an enormous sum, but the game’s impact on the real world shows how broad its reach has become. In addition to this apparent sales surge, Hamster Kombat made headlines last month when an Iran official slammed the game, alleging that it was part of the West’s “soft war” and worrying that it would distract citizens from voting in the country’s presidential election.

A massage gun product shot with Hamster Kombat imagery. Image: Wildberries

Hamster Kombat is one of a growing pile of Telegram tap-to-earn games that have drawn millions of players over the last couple of months following the token launch of Notcoin (NOT), the game that kick-started the trend. The developers of Hamster Kombat plan to launch a token on The Open Network (TON) sometime this month.

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Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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