A testnet is just that - testing infrastructure that has to be useful to the project.
Testnet tokens have no value and expectations should be that it can be reset (including balances) as necessary.
Testing the particular behaviours we need to focus on requires incentivisation as you’ve stated and we’ve always been transparent that accumulating a big bag of TAI3 would not necessarily bring an advantage to Game of Domains participation. There’s also a counter argument to say that more participation would be attracted due to a level playing field.
For operators and nominators, the goal is to reward breadth of participation rather than depth. This means that having lots of tAI3 on Taurus does not automatically grant an advantage. Ultimately, Game of Domains has some goals to test and we will be working on ways to align incentives with the behavior we want to see rather than proportional to stake as in the original Stake Wars. More details on the exact mechanics will be released before the start of stage 1 though the rules may evolve as the testing plays out.