RE: Now Vs Future: Real talk on Splinterlands
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I agree, the card oversupply is a massive issue that is totally overlooked as everything is pushed toward giving SPS value not even directly as it's channeled into DEC first. This at the cost of card values after collection power requirements was replaced by SPS Staking Requirement. SPS going to 0.10$ would solve a lot as price tends to drive adoption (and less so the other way around). But it's hard to see 0.10$ SPS anytime soon since it pretty much trades based on 'use-case' from actual players and less so as a speculative meme coin like all the other crypto gaming tokens who have ridiculous fully diluted valuations. I do believe a top-tier exchange listing would help a lot but it also comes at a high cost.
The crazy part of all of if is that Splinterlands actually has a good game in their hands.
Yeah, I agree that price drives adoption but because we're not a meme coin, price is driven by, and is a reflection of, the splinterlands economy. SPS will not lead us out of this until we first lead SPS. The trick is to get the economy healthy enough that the price of SPS starts ticking up until it gets to the point of attracting wider attention. That's when the fireworks start. But with this many cards out there that just keep dropping in price, the main utility of SPS (rewarding players) is rendered useless because if you own cards, there's no way your SPS rewards are keeping up with your loss of card value.
Mine dropped another $2000 this week. I sure as hell didn't make $2000 in SPS.
It drives me insane because you're right, we have a good game. We have an amazing economic structure. And we just continue to ignore the fact that all this work and innovation is useless if we don't fix the supply imbalance. We continually expect demand is just around the corner but until we fix the supply, it's a hard sell for new people and it's becoming a harder sell for people who've been here for a while and are leaving. So if we can't get demand to meet supply, we need to stop waiting around and work on what we can control, which is lowering supply.
It's about as economics 101 as it can get but we keep pushing it off thinking it will deal with itself later.
And there are so many ways we can fix it! It's been hard this week watching my card values go back into a tailspin. Watching rentals completely dry up after a 2-week pop. I don't know how much more of this I have in me.
That is exactly my issue with Splinterlands, the almost certain drop in card values doesn't even come close to the earnings that compensate for that right now. At the same time, this expectation of actually making a profit can only be achieved by new players acting as exit liquidity. For as far as I know, every Play2Earn game suffers from this one way or another.
If there are crazy high returns (like Splinterlands in the past, Parallel now, Sorare some months back,... ) it helps to drive some adoption but they are simply never sustainable and always are followed by a collapse. If the returns are realistic and more long-term based they are not attractive and too risky for it to be a reason for players to start playing.
In the end, having a realistic stable economy and a game that is actually really fun, shareable/streamable is key along with a continued inflow of new players. All easier said than done.
It sure is a pain to be invested in the game right now, especially with the rental market totally dried up also which was one of the things I kind of counted on.
Yeah, the whole play to earn thing is quite possibly the definition of a ponzi. The concept only works in short bursts unless people want to play the game. Most of the players need to be here for the entertainment value and be willing to pay for it through time or money. If its just about earning for most players, it can't work. That's why I love that Splinterlands has a fun game but its now a game that requires thousands of dollars to actually play it if you want to own your own assets. By all rights, Splinterlands SHOULD be able to grow the economy based on the rental market since players can come in and play at the highest levels for a buck or two per day. Except battle wagons kill that since no new cards are on the rental market. So now they once again have to buy thousands of dollars in Rebellion if they want to compete at the top.
But none of that matters when the story is "Play-to-earn" because it means people are always going to be more in tune with the monetary side than anything else. Whereas other games people would just play even if it cost them a lot of money they'd never recoup, there is now an expectation that Splinterlands is an investment and needs to pay out or its time to go elsewhere whether you like the game or not. And it makes the community unbearably salty even if you do like the game.
We have such a good set up but it always JUST MISSES. I really wish I could get Matt's ear sometimes.