Prioritizing the NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE

Getting new players is, hands down, the most important thing in the world for Splinterlands right now.

I know this is a big claim. But.

BOTTOM LINE: We need new players. And we need them YESTERDAY.

Everything about the SPL economy revolves around the concept of digital scarcity driving demand. This model assumes a constantly expanding player base in order to function properly.

The problem is, the company has not spent ANY time or energy attracting new players for literally YEARS now. This is a potentially fatal misstep, and I believe this is THE single reason we are in the position we are in right now.
The reason given has always been ‘The game is not ready for that. We need to get the game ready, THEN we can put effort into getting new players.’
This is a double edged sword. Three years ago, I did not agree with this, and even in hindsight I say this was a big mistake. But today, given the current, recently altered state of the game, I do think we need to fix things before we try to onboard new players.

Given that, we HAVE to get the game ready to be a welcoming environment for new players. THIS NEEDS TO 'ACTUALLY' BE OUR #1 TOP PRIORITY! Not just in words, but in action.

Nothing is more important to the success of the SPL ecosystem than constantly expanding our player base.

At the top of the list (along with a tutorial) is getting ranked play fixed. Since the removal of league caps, things have been a mess in this regard. We’re told that liquidity bots will fix this problem, but 7 months later we still have the same problems. We’re going to need to get ranked play stable and functioning properly and as intended in order to onboard players. If getting the bots deployed to fix leagues is actually realistic, fine, let's do that. But if lack of resources and too many challenges with getting these bots deployed is preventing ranked from working, we should then consider if bringing league caps back is then the easiest, most dependable, and most realistic solution to the ranked problem.
(I will point out that nobody wants leagues as they were. We do need to address the previous league issues, and there have been many excellent solutions presented).

We are struggling with not having enough resources to do what needs to get done on a wide scale as a company, so we need to REALLY buckle down and figure out HOW to get done what needs to be done. Occam’s Razor.

And we have to remember, THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!

At Splinterfest I asked the team about the perceived importance (or lack thereof) of having tutorials and the importance of constantly bringing in new players. I was told it would be a waste of time and resources to make new tutorials at that time, as battles 2.0 was right around the corner, and after that ALL of the tutorials would have to be redone.
BUT here we are several years later, and we still do not have battles 2.0, we have no tutorials, and are not bringing in new players. And the fact that we have not been bringing in new players for the past several years has been a serious strain on, well, absolutely everything.

THERE NEEDS TO BE A SHIFT OF FOCUS.

We know that onboarding new players is THE single most important thing in the world of SPL.
We have even heard this sentiment expressed in WORDS from the team, but unfortunately not in ACTION.

Almost a year ago, I floated the idea that some of our community streamers could get paid in RB packs to put together some instructional videos as a temporary solution. BUT I was told that would not be necessary, as the NPE was now a priority and moving forward.
Fast forward almost a year, and we still have NOTHING in the way of effective tutorials. The years keep rolling by with no basic tutorials and no focus on bringing in new players. This MUST change.

Without new players coming in, the stress of ’maintaining value’ by injecting outside revenue gets placed squarely on the shoulders of the existing community and limited DAO treasury, and that burden is getting old. VERY old. And it’s not sustainable long term.

In late 2023, shortly after a change in company management and focus shifted to be 100% on Splinterlands, it was publicly declared that expanding our player base and creating a ‘new player experience’ was to be TOP priority for 2024.

EXCELLENT!!

This was a huge relief to hear for much of the community, and a much needed change from the previous management’s philosophy of, literally, not focusing AT ALL on bringing in new players until the game had been overhauled and upgraded to an insanely high level vision. Basically, a fantasy.

SO to hear that this was to be the focus of 2024 and the TOP PRIORITY of the company, I have to say this made me breathe a HUGE sigh of relief!! FINALLY!! They finally GET IT!!! LET’S GOOOOOO!!!

But… the days, weeks, and months keep slipping by, and as we approach the end of 2024, there is still no sign of this… this... new player experience... this thing of legend. At this late date, we don’t even know what it IS.

Now the ‘New Player Experience’ can be interpreted in two basic ways. The ‘NEW PLAYER experience’, meaning the experience the brand new player has who visits the website and wants to start playing the game, and their ability to successfully navigate entry into the game/ecosystem.
Then there's the 'new PLAYER experience’, meaning what the typical player, new or veteran, experiences daily as they interact with the game and website, making this smoother, more intuitive and more engaging/interactive. (I WILL say the general player experience has been getting better with QOL improvements being seen with each and every update)!

The NEW PLAYER experience was to include VITAL new tutorials that guide the new player through the rules and guidelines, teaching them the basics of HOW to play Splinterlands and how to interact with the HIVE blockchain. This tutorial is absolutely essential to the onboarding process.

Again, bringing in new players is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE CAN DO TO ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF THIS GAME AND GENERATE MUCH NEEDED COMPANY REVENUE.

We keep kicking the can down the road and trying to force all of these band aid fixes that, in my opinion, are the REAL wastes of time, energy, and resources.
If we bring in waves of new players, these ‘problems’ fix themselves. The tokenomics work as designed, the oversupply of cards is corrected, etc etc etc etc etc etc etfriggincettera.

So, the question becomes WHY are we not seeing this NPE? Why do we not have any new tutorials yet? Why have we not been hearing about progress in the town halls? Basically, wtf is going on here lol?

I suspect (and this is pure speculation) that PART of why we have not seen progress is the ENORMOUS new SBRC set that was recently released. Obviously, a huge set like this would require a significant amount of time, energy, and resources to create. Resources that get diverted from the NPE.

And now, a new ’miniset’ has been proposed?? This would undoubtedly funnel even MORE resources away from making the NPE a reality and pushing it even further away into the future.

We have to remember, THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!

This mini set proposal (after being told repeatedly there would NOT be a miniset) says to me that the company needs revenue, but instead of fixing the revenue problem by addressing it at its CORE and getting STRAIGHT to the point of actively onboarding new players, this proposed miniset is again a band aid solution, and one that further stresses the ‘burden of maintaining value’ that existing players and the DAO are already experiencing. Further, we do not need more card inflation at this moment.
The community has been pushed to their limits. We simply cannot absorb another card set at this point in time. If the team needs revenue and that's why they want to put out a miniset, the most important point is again being missed, and valuable resources would be misdirected instead of attacking the real problem head on.

It is also absolutely essential to time the release of the next main card set with the upcoming marketing push!! We market the new set while targeting new players. It’s a no brainer!! BUT we need to have our house in order and our ducks in a row before we can do that.

ADDRESS THE CORE ISSUE regarding revenue, which is ONBOARDING NEW PLAYERS!!

I understand that 'tech modernization' was an obstacle that needed to be tackled. But we are finally at the finish line there, if reports are correct!

We have a crypto bull run coming. Web3 gaming is on the radar. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity.

We need to be sure we have a fun, rewarding and comfortable (but still challenging!) game environment for these new players, which means bronze and silver leagues need attention. It won’t take much to tweak and fine tune the lower levels of play, but these areas of the game have been neglected for far too long now. And these are the MOST important areas of the game imho.

We need to do whatever it takes to make this happen. EVERYTHING ELSE SHOULD BE SECONDARY!! No more excuses. No more card sets, no more land development (controversial I know, and I hate to say it, but we don’t need more tokens released before they have real utility anyway! This just creates MORE AND MORE future problems, we need to stop repeating the same mistakes).

For the love of everything holy, let’s get the game ready for tens of thousands of new players to be able to onboard themselves before we do ANYTHING else! Get these tutorials out and integrated! Get ranked fixed and working! We should also be given time to test these things as a community before attempting to go mainstream. Even more reason to get all of this out, integrated and tested ASAP. Time is of the essence right now. We know the problem, we know the solution, and we know what needs to be done. The team themselves have said it.

So... let’s FINALLY DO IT!! PRIORITIZE the NPE NOW and COMMIT TO IT!!!
We cannot afford to wait any longer.

JIMMY!!!