I think that the genesis game should still take place, just on SCRT testnet. I understand the importance of getting the new mainnet up and running asap, but now that is done, the genesis game should still take place as planned.
They can create a form that requires you to sign a transaction from the ETH address that had enough ENG at the time of snapshot to participate in the game. They can verify that you had at least 25k ENG average during their snapshot and then send you testnet SCRT so that you can run a testnet validator. Then select winners as originially intended with the genesis game.
If a current validator does not win the genesis game, they won’t get to be a validator, but can still keep the mainnet SCRT they have been gifted as a thank you for being there during the ENG testnet and early SCRT mainnet. As you recall, the reason node selection was changed from needing to have at least 25k ENG to needing to have that amount AND winning the genesis game was because the game would ensure that the most reliable validators are chosen. So if a current validator proves to not be one of the most reliable, the network benefits by having them replaced, but for the work they have done, they still get to keep all the SCRT they have been awarded.
Running the genesis game as planned will help restore trust in the team and prove that even when things out of their control happen, they are willing to do what IS in their control to keep their word. If they choose not to do what is in their control, then it does raise suspicion that this is a convenient way to hand pick who they want as validators outside the rules of the genesis game.
This is an interesting proposal, but to be fair - selecting validators is not under our control (which is really the right way to go). Also, early validators are largely comprised from nodes that helped test Discovery.
Still, the main idea around the Genesis Game was to incentivize nodes to help test protocol security, and it does make sense to revisit it in the testnet that will test secret contract functionality, before proposing that software upgrade to the validators to vote on.
Yeah, using it for selecting validators really only would have been useful for selecting the first validators, and that has already been done. It could have been handled with the team running all the early validators with the plan of switching over to winners of the SCRT genesis game, but I suspect that legal reasons prompted you to quickly pick and choose validators to get the entity running outside of team control as soon as possible.
I certainly would be interested in seeing it used for determining the first secret nodes, unless, of course, it just makes more sense to have validators assume those duties