Years ago, when I first learned about Splinterlands, I loved the idea that I could buy NFT cards for a game that was not only fun, but had the potential to earn money. I decided that it was worth investing in strong monster and summoner cards, because - unlike with assets in traditional Web 2 games - I truly owned these assets on a decentralized blockchain, and they could serve me forever, or at least for as long as Splinterlands existed as a game.
I'll bet that a lot of people who are attracted to P2E NFT games have a similar wealth-preservation mindset. That is why I always want to buy a house, instead of paying a landlord every month for an apartment that I will never own. That is why I always prefer owning a car, rather than leasing one. That is why I opt to purchase my own living room furniture for my home, rather than pay a monthly fee for the privilege of borrowing one from Rent-A-Center.
Here's the funny thing though - no one tries to make me feel bad or selfish because I choose to buy and not rent my home, car, or furniture. And yet, when it comes to Splinterlands, I am met with a non-stop barrage of proposals and rule changes aimed at making Wild players feel like they are parasites who don't contribute to the game. Aimed at making my hard-earned card collection worthless if I am unwilling - or unable - to pay an endless stream of money for the latest cards on a perpetual basis.
Sure,these proposals use the term "bot farms" to make it sounds we're fighting some evil, soulless enemy that must be defeated. But if you think about it, it is all about keeping players - whether they own bots or not - from getting any kind of value from old cards, so that we are forced to continuously spend money on new ones.
The pattern here has been clear and relentless. I think it is naive to think that this $2 fee to play in Wild will be the end of the war on older cards. If this proposal passes, get ready to see even more proposals aimed at further devaluing our card collections. How about a tax for anyone using Wild cards for land staking? Too far fetched? I don't think so.
One by one, proposal by proposal, every remaining benefit of owning Wild cards will be systematically eliminated. I don't even really blame the Splinterlands team - their actions are completely rational. They want and need your money, and your old card collection - that you already paid for - is a huge hinderance to that goal, as long as it holds any kind of income generating potential for you. Their only lever is to destroy the value of your existing collection, which is exactly what they have been, and will continue to try to do.
Hello and first of all thanks to @sodom-lv for participating in this discussion. That's how I found out about it, as we are buddies in an awesome guild. Anyway, I'm not in it for the amount of money in the game, but for the sheer existence of the markets. It's just like you say, if I own the cards, I can trade them for more cards that I enjoy.
Asking people to do this in a professional way to make it pay for their car, apartment, or home maintenance is not what I'm here for, but knowing you guys are out there makes it even more appealing to me. (I would never buy a house to live in if I could rent it out).
One thing I would like to add to the discussion: Please don't overestimate rationality. Centralized fees will kill any organization that isn't already too big to fail. This is getting political.
So I wonder, why not liberate the league mechanics? Let people start their own leagues and set their own incentives and rewards. Collect licence fees like you do with tourneys. That way I could attend "Friday Nights" with my cards where I want to pay the fees it costs. Including advertising from the organizers. Some love pets, some love plushies, some love bots, I love socializing using my cards. I'll pay for that as long as it's affordable.
!invest_vote
Really cool idea! Probably very hard to implement. Devs have bigger priorities now.
I write this as the owner of 278 Wild cards that have lost most of their value.
If there was only one league, with proper promotion and relegation, you would need to buy new cards to remain competitive and avoiud being overtaken by newer players with awesome new cards like Venka.
The pattern here is towards a better game that supports players and against those who simply extract.
This is a really honest commentary from an experienced player that has expressed so many thoughts and feelings on how the patterns of game modernization and mechanics are hostile to card owners or investors but still finds a sympathetic spot for the guardians of the game. I don't think anyone wants to see the project fail.
As players get tired of mouse clicking some will look to AI to continue extracting whatever rewards are on offer. Others will dump their cards on the market and leave the game. There will reach a time that most people will need to take a break or move on. It is interesting how these paid up players that continue with AI get categorized as bots and enemies of the game. Sometimes these players have invested thousands into the game but just the same get bundled together with bot farmers who are an entirely different category.
Sometimes I wonder from a purely business perspective if once players stop buying packs or cards they are viewed no longer as extractable by SPL and not as investors and as such expendable. If they did have this view then I can see some synergy between the anti-bot movement and SPL management.
I really am interested to see the expanded plans on building the player base because the future of the game lies in being able to expand the number of real players much faster than the attrition rate. If we had a thriving growing community there would be much less fighting over the ever diminishing rewards and less focus on bots as the economy would be so much more healthy.
I know your feeling because I also invested in old cards.
My deck value dropped unstoppable from nearly $2k to $250 after a lot of changes from Splinterlands.
Seriously old cards which we bought there values going down day by day. You just want people but new packs you have to find other better solution. You can't just raise concern each time on wild players.
@anjanida denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@anjanida thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !
Yeah i get it that your against, but this is probably a really good idea. Bit like our council rates in Australia, the more your property is worth the more tax you pay. i'd certainly be for it if it helped the overall game economy.
It doesn't help the overall game economy at all to devalue old cards. If I felt my old cards would keep/increase(!) their value, I still would consider to buy new cards, as well. However, as I observe my old cards to lose value and use cases I would be just stupid to buy new cards again (which will be 'old' sooner or later, too).
figure we would all buy new cards if SPS had enough value worth mining / chasing.
Hello! Yet isn't that a downwards spiral? See my other comment for more.
!invest_vote
It is!
Thank you for your witness vote!
Have a !BEER on me!
To Opt-Out of my witness beer program just comment STOP below
@anjanida denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@anjanida thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !
Definitely respect your opinion and I know some others think the same way. I obviously disagree with your conclusions as to the effects of this change. I believe they will help to add value to all assets, including older cards, in the long run.
There are also some things you said that I wanted to address specifically:
I want to be clear that this is not about the Splinterlands team at all - that's why I published it from my account and not the company account. This change will not generate any money for the team at all.
This is about the long term value of all assets, for the benefit of the players, which will indirectly also help the team. The ecosystem as a whole does need new money to come in for it to be successful. Allowing users to continually earn rewards without needing to put more in hurts everyone and is not in the best interest of anyone who is interested in the long term success of this product.
It's easy to make the argument you're making, and I'm not surprised to see it. I just think it's incorrect, and I believe that anyone who really thinks through the change in detail with a view of the entire ecosystem in mind will come to the same conclusion. I would be happy to discuss more on the TH later today or even on a voice chat at some point, which I believe will be much easier than writing.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and apologies for attributing this proposal to the Splinterlands team (though I suspect as CEO, your personal opinions and proposals must overlap with the team's best interests to some degree... but I digress).
Edit: Then why not focus on attracting new players to the game? Imagine what you could accomplish if all of the time and energy spent marginalizing and taxing Wild players in the name of fighting "bot farms" was spent instead on expanding the user base!
Edit: I care about the long term success of this product, but with every new rule change that chips away at any benefit I can derive from owning old cards, I am less and less convinced that this product cares about me.
The problem for me is that as an investment-minded individual, I would have never started playing Splinterlands years ago, if I knew that it would require me to constantly pump money into new cards, while my older cards were all but guaranteed to lose value due to a Modern / Wild system that didn't exist when I made those initial card investment decisions.
I don't blame you for trying to ensure that the game economy has a constant influx of money. If I were in your shoes, I might be doing the same thing. The issue is that this goal is in direct opposition to my best interests as a rational player. I have no problem with paying thousands of dollars to build up a strong card collection, but I have a very big problem with that collection systematically being devalued so that I continuously feel pressured to buy new cards.
When I started playing this game, I (maybe naively) thought that it was possible for both Splinterlands and myself to prosper financially. But it seems that the reality is more of a zero-sum game, where in order for the Splinterlands ecosystem to prosper, the vast majority of current players must not be allowed to prosper (and this is perhaps a sobering reality of any long-running P2E game ecosystem that I have only recently begun to realize).
Simple as that!
In my opinion it doesn't help the overall game economy at all to devalue old cards. If I felt my old cards would keep/increase(!) their value, I still would consider to buy new cards, as well. However, as I observe my old cards to lose value and use cases I would be just stupid to buy new cards again (which will be 'old' sooner or later, too).
The fact that Matt, a large decision maker in this ecosystem/game/company believes this will be beneficial. Is a prime example of why this company has continued to fail with bad leadership for years.
"Repeating the same actions expecting different results"...sounds crazy to me
I believe it would be more beneficial for the team to receive the funds rather than burning them. Alternatively, a 50% burn and 50% allocation to the team could be a balanced approach. Burning all the value seems counterproductive when the team could utilize these resources to ensure the long-term survival and success of the project.