a39f3330ac627aec8cee9615c951e0171f559c82
WHAT WE ARE PROPOSING
To build tools for Splinterlands card renting... to build a fully functional and easy to use two-way rental market.
- To help make it easier and more straight forward for new players to rent at fair prices
- To automate renting and listing rentals that find fair market prices
- To build tools to have better historical pricing of the seasonal rental market
Essentially we are hoping there to be a healthy two way rental market with good data and save both sides time and help both sides have fair interactions.
WHY A PROPOSAL
We have been petitioned by many users, also the Splinterlands team and also a few large stakeholders if we could build tools for the season rental system. Which we can. However it is not a viable business decision based on rental fees.
These tools would primarily benefit the economy of Splinterlands, new players and card owners who like to rent and play or rent for land. To be honest PeakMonsters itself is not a primary benefit of this product, the income from these tools would never return the investment (we have done the math). So because the income of this feature will likely never be cash positive for us with such small fee revenue in the rental market (let alone automated rental subset are smaller players who often just transition to owning), this why we are doing a proposal to let the Splinterlands community decide if this is something they would like.
You must ask yourself do you want these features for your new users to have and card holders to have?
THE NEED
There is a huge lack of cards in the rental market. You can check stats of most every edition besides chaos and see there are very few cards available for rent for play or for land. Many cards have been sent to work on land and many owners have expressed concern to us that they have no idea what to price their cards at and or the time to do it. Many renters have expressed a desire to rent and all they care about is a fair price.
Presently the entire rental system can not support many new users that want to come in and test the game at various levels of play and they certainly do not have the ability and user interface to compete for rentals against automated bots who try to take the very best rentals for themselves and people can not compete against this, they simply can't camp on rental listings all day long.
We have also seen that getting a full team of rentals (let alone one or two) takes a ton of time and believe that the ecosystem would benefit from real users spending less time on markets and more time playing.
It's very challenging for a new player to come in and find a fair rate for rental because usually good priced cards get taken by users and bots quickly and to get a good rate they may have to check many cards many times a day and that's just not doable. And owners simply are just often confused about what the fair price should be. Thus the need for more automated systems and improved data that also help understand good ranges of prices.
FUNDING
We are asking for $14k and we will put our full attention to these features and will roll them out quickly in the month of July.
We have been informed that HBD is likely the best currency to receive from the DAO
We believe this to be a very good deal for the community... benefiting Splinterlands market indirectly benefits all of Splinterlands.
If you also believe so then vote on the proposal. If you do not think rentals is very important part of Splinterlands economy we understand. This is for the splinterlands community to decide.
RETURN OUR EARNINGS
We will not charge to use automated listing of cards... ever. This will be free.
On top of that we will return any earnings made from the automated renting of cards... for TWO years.
SECOND HAND BENEFITS
The new features would never every pay for itself BUT we do want (like everyone else) the entire market specially the rental market to increase. We believe and hope to see an increase of the entire rental market (beyond automated rentals) so there could be some good indirect benefits to building these tools for rentals both for us and the other markets that benefit from helping users fulfill rentals.
WHAT WILL BE BUILT
A simpler system for users to rent cards and list cards.
Essentially a fully functional BUY-ASK market for renting where both sides of the market are helped to find real market pricing with features that help prevent fast races to the bottom or price gouging of renters who don't know any better.
RENTING
Our focus will be on real human new users. However anyone will be able to use the data.
Rental BIDS will be able to be made with an eye toward finding the fair market values and meeting the owner in the middle and ability to increase pricing if their bids aren't being accepted quickly. We will help users understand historical pricing and how some bids may be a complete waste of their time and energy historically speaking.
OWNER LISTING
With good data and real rental bids by players we hope to help set pricing on cards that fits the pricing narrative for both that card and that entire edition and rarity.
A CHANGE TO THE FEE PROTOCOL
- After talks with Splinterlands team both parties believe cards using the automated system should have a free re-price of the card listing once per day. This is to help find the best market rates for cards but NOT a way to start bidding wars that race to the bottom. Aka no DEC fees paid by the card owner when changing the price once per day when using an automated system. This does not apply to Regular listings or systems that aren't trying to assist in getting a fair market value
OTHER DETAILS FOR THIS PROPOSAL
- Automated repricing for both Owners and Renters will be at MOST once a day. You will not see thousands of rapid re-listings crash the pricing. The hope of the system is to help owners and renters find a common ground not just beat out other listings.
- No cost to list cards or list bids by our team for both parts of the market.
- Users can of course still use manual means with regular 1 DEC market fees.
SIDENOTE: OLD PEAKMONSTERS SYSTEM
The old peakmonsters system was built on daily rentals back when there were a lot more cards in the market, back before the 30 day unrented card removal, before the migration of cards to land and back before season rentals existed let alone season rentals only. That old technology could not work for what we have now... however plenty of what was done can be used to make this new set of features go much faster.
We also did not store historical data, in this upcoming release we will be building a system to hold the data for historical rental prices
This is getting a no from me for several reasons.
Number 1: The biggest reason that is any proposal from peakmonsters is always getting a no from me because of this:
I have purchased many cards using peakmonsters over the years. I also rented using their site for a long time, although I don't rent anymore. And yet, because I haven't purchased 50% of cards from their site I can't access a very important feature that is enabling and disabling from survival mode. So if one player has purchased 1 card total and it was using peakmonsters they can use the service. But those who bought many more but also used other services get screwed.
Number 2: 14k is a lot. If we keep paying huge amounts of money like this the DAO will soon be out of funds. Furthermore, it's difficult to see how this is worth this much. I feel like some people simply vote in favor of these things believing the DAO has infinite money.
Number 3: The free relist per day should be for every type of listing. I've always been against the listing fee when the relisting isn't being abused. If we're going to remove it, it has to be for all and not just an exception.
Conclusion: for me to change the vote, the absurdity of peakmonsters requirements for a feature must disappear. In fact, if peakmonsters is getting money from the DAO, it shouldn't have any services hidden behind a paywall or some other restrictions. The payment must be significantly lower. Above $5k it just doesn't make sense. Giving up profits is irrelevant if you don't even believe they will be anything significant yourself. The relist exception needs to be a rule for all types of relists.
Valid idea. How to handle the abuse is the question i suppose. I'm sure what the team would say is that they would honor a DAO vote on this.
Your right it doesn't have infinite money. So the community would want to decide if this is going to benefit new users, land holders and those with cards to rent to them. Maybe we compare other efforts for new users and to benefit land.
We fully agree that if we receive payment from the DAO to develop features that don't make us money that they for sure shouldn't cost.
On our side consider the countless hours developing free services to attract users with the business in mind they may use the 1-2 things that help the business. (While also creating things simply to help the ecosystem so it survives and flourishes) When after many years we did create a premium product we didn't retroactively make those services cost anything but when our own users asked for some new features we asked ourselves how could we make a service that rewarded their loyalty. We felt there were a few things we could create that could be premium with a low cost for the premium service and then later we even gave ways to avoid the cost of premium with multiple other ways to get that service besides the premium. We felt like a premium subscription was a pretty normal approach.
I feel a bit confused by your reply because the numbers don't appear to match what you're responding to.
Regarding the free relist, my focus wasn't on the abuse. By offering a free relist per day, I don't think we're going back to the abuse that existed before listing fees were thing where bots would constantly relist to make sure their cards were the cheapest ones available, which was causing massive slowdowns while playing the game. My focus is offering a free relist per day regardless of how anyone relists. They can relist manually, using this potential service or any other way. We shouldn't be making exceptions for certain services.
Do I want this feature? Yes. Do I think it is worth $14k? Absolutely not. I don't believe this is a reasonable value, especially because, while you believe it won't have enough return by itself, it will add one unique and pretty good feature to your site. So you end up getting paid $14k to develop it, give up revenue for 2 years, have an extra revenue after that time period, have that unique feature that will attract more people to your site, who can use other features that earn you money. I don't think that is worth it nor it is a fair deal. You haven't even provided any details on why $14k is necessary.
What I said is that if you're asking the DAO for money to develop something, part of the deal should be to provide that service plus all other services for free. Remove all premium subscriptions and crazy conditions otherwise you're getting paid from the DAO and from the players. A premium subscription is a normal approach. What is not normal is getting paid by an entity that represents stakeholders and also receive money from users. I'm also against the condition of "use this feature only if you purchase more than half from us". It would be much more fair if it was "after $X purchased from us you get this feature".
And you believe removing premium from the site after taking in DAO funds would be worth it in your opinion?
That alone is not enough. Keep in mind that my vote is a little over 250k SPS so it won't make or break it. Regardless, as a DAO stakeholder, I want what's best for it and the game.
What would make me vote yes: removal of any premium cost of current and future features, make all of them free. Talk to the team to provide the free relist per day to all relists. Ask for less money or at the very least provide a detailed budget that justifies the ask.
i will follow you with my 1.4 mil, i feel your points are valid.
And I will follow with 18M SPS vote.
Thanks! Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
a huge part of PKM premium was when we created auto listings in it's first state for daily rentals. This would be more sophisticated and since it would be funded by DAO there may be little reason to have premium anymore. This is certainly on the table. What are the features you don't get access to that you're really wishing you had access to right now?
The only one I encountered so far behind a wall and it rubs me the wrong way is making cards available or not available for survival mode. Now it gives that message which at least gives alternatives and is more especific but it used to be something like "you used other services to buy cards so you can't use this". It said nothing else.
But, like I said, this isn't the only issue I have with the proposal. It is a lot of money and there's nothing in the proposal explaining why you need that much. When you ask so much money from the DAO, I expect a detailed budget.
There's also the relist fee exception which I would want the proposal to say it wasn't an exception for this service but it would work for players, regardless where they tried to relist (once per 24 hours).
Finally as Azircon mentioned in another comment, this would be much better if it was integrated into the main site instead of peakmonsters.
That orange box will be the reason for my NO vote. Also you should never ask to vote your validator node directly like this. Bad things happened to people at various places when they asked for vote this way.
? people can ask all they want for all sorts of stuff
like i'm asking you to change your view on what people can and can't ask for. 🤣
Sure they can.
In that case be ready for the consequences.
and with a removal of the orange box do you think it's worth a vote?
no, I am sorry.
I prefer the feature to be in-game.
Definitely supporting this! It's a needed feature and the values involved seem more than fair!
Rental market is huge for the success of the game, I'm glad y'all are working on it!
I will support.
(1) Peakmonsters has consistently built great features that Splinterlands players have relied on for years, and I trust them to be able to build this in a way that adds value to both card owners and renters.
(2) I believe rentals are a very important part of our game and economy and want to see the systems around rentals improved.
I will NOT support.
I agree on both points (1) and (2); however, I believe the solution must come from the game as opposed to a 3rd party. Team can consider sub-contracting PKM to do it, but the rental system must be in-game.
Just a couple of days back we had a discussion, one of the biggest weakness at hive is that there are 10 different place you have to go to for 10 tools, and it is incredibly hard to accomplish some simple tasks for a new comer like you.
Where we have the ability, why would I want to repeat the same mistake?
You made a good point that I didn't consider. Most features, especially those that new players are most likely to use, have a much more meaningful impact if they are in-game.
It can be easy to forget that most players just play the game. This is valid for all games. I'm the type of player who has always checked other sites for knowledge, tips, etc. and I also find like-minded players at those places. It's easy to forget that the majority don't do that because we're way less likely to interact with them.
👍
The current rental system seems like it could be improved upon, I'm happy to go yes on this. $14k seems well worth it.
Here's a little bit of data analysis for today
a quick look at the market for the "ON MARKET" column
It does NOT get better with Gold level and Silver level cards.
We have thrown away so much money for less useful things, that's totally worth it, for me it's a yes
A tool like this is definitely necessary for the future success of the game. If @peakmonsters doesn't make it, Then Steem Monsters Inc, will have to do the job. I have seen how much development has been done by the team and how much they have helped myself and others. I fully support this Proposal. We need to make as many quality of life improvements for the new players. Without that, a large portion of our marketing efforts and expenditure will go to waste.
Please bring back daily rentals and forget season rentals altogether. Daily rentals allow for people to rent for specific tournaments and guild frays, and season rentals make no sense from that perspective. Furthermore, daily rentals was a good way to find out for a decent cost if a card was useful in your deck so you could decide to buy it or rent again. I'm not sure how this season rental thing was brought forward but the rental market has not recovered much from it. If the server costs of daily rentals are too high, then I would suggest we apply a small fee for renting.
We already apply listing fees as well as rental fees.
The decision to remove or restore daily rentals is not up to PeakMonsters ;)
I'd only vote for this if it's an in-game feature. New users aren't going to find peakmonsters right away. We need more features directly in the game for a better experience.
That said, I use Peakmonsters all the time, it's the most user friendly market there is. I don't have a problem with the funds or idea, I actually like the idea. However, I'd like to see it built directly ingame.
We need an in-game "1 click" solution, you want to rent a full deck of Chaos Legion, Untamed, etc. , then the system will give you the best available market price and rent all the cards at once. If you don't like the price, you can place a bid to rent a full set that someone else can fulfill. With the build out of set rentals already ingame, I don't think it's that far fetched to streamline this.
So we went to seasonal rentals because of the transactions from bots, etc, and now we get a proposal for this? I'm actually not sure of what is being asked, but I am a software developer, and this seems underpriced. This seems like we are digging deeper in hole.