people have better things to do with their time than just play hot potato with greater fool theory.
One would hope so but the world we currently live in has everyone glued to a screen so sadly I do not believe that to be the case. If people are willing to sit for hours playing games like Candy Crush they will sit and play a game that earns them currency. The trick is making that currency easily spendable for those earning it. I come from traditional card games (mostly poker), Splinterlands is first of its kind I have played. Thanks for the convo, I'll give the video you posted a viewing once I got the time to do so.
Play to earn sounds great until you do the math. I don't even think the game is worth the initial fee and then you have to buy overpriced NFTs and probably sps. Its an accessibility problem. People need to recoup their initial investment before they actually earn money which takes quite a bit of time. Its very reminiscent of a pyramid scheme And then the game is pay to win so you'll need to buy a lot more to stay competitive because the skill ceiling is low. On top of that, they botched the opportunity to make an accessible modern format. It probably has more problems than the original format. I started disliking the game when they did collection power and land but the beginning of sps is when dumb investor money starting piling in so they started taking advice from people who took the game in a horrible direction.
Re, Entry Fee: I disagree, I think the Splinterlands game is well worth the $10 entry fee. I have and many others have shown that worth by starting from scratch on alt accounts and earning our $10 fee back relatively quickly. In fact having just the $10 starter cards and potentially a handful of other cards was so lucrative that at one point some players decided to form armies of bots to farm rewards. Other players decided to play numerous alt accounts in low leagues instead of building one account to play in higher leagues. For most traditional games cost money with no return. How many checker/chest boards has one purchased. How many tradition 52 decks of cards that give no return. There is people who spend $80 plus on XBOX games and then much more on added content for said game with no return. If instead they tossed $80 into a play2earn game like Splinterlands they can almost instantly start earning that spent money back. One can be successful in Splinterlands without spending thousands all one needs to do is adjust their expectations (being competive at the Novice League wouldn't require big bucks spent). One can't expect to make bank with a $10 entry fee investment.
Its funny how much low hanging fruit people pick to make apples to oranges comparison. People spend money on crack too. Might as well just compare Splinterlands to that. My favorite is when people compare NFT card games to MTG arena when Magic online exists.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgo
Part of the fee for splinterlands is making a Hive account which I already have. Back when I considered paying the fee, I watched Aggy give a bunch of vouchers for free accounts to someone in Decentraland. That's why I turn my nose up to it. I'm not into getting cucked out of my money and pay into something that is selectively enforced. I didnt mean that you couldn't make your $10 back and then some. I just don't think the base game is worth that fee personally since it doesn't come with any NFTs. People are really struggling in the lower ranks so this problem isn't something I'm just imagining. You'll have to excuse my sardonicism though. This is mostly for bantering and not meant to be a 1 to 1 representation of the value of the game. It's more of an offset to the sycophanticism I see but I like talking to people willing to explore the nuance.
Your comparion of crack to Splinterlands can be applied to anything. All gaming is addictive, MTG included. As for ROI, it was mention due to your claims of the $10 fee not being worth it and your added claims that it cost too much to be competitive. I see selection bias in your responses. I find your own words, "ts funny how much low hanging fruit people pick to make apples to oranges comparison", very fitting for your response.
Keep the sardonicism, it doesn't bother me as I do the same myself.
As for some paying the fee and others not. That is normal in any company. I worked as an affilaite for many different companies and its not uncommon for X people to get A deal while Z people get B deal and the masses get C deal. Its a form of marketing that helps brings eyes to the product when done correctly. For example, if the person who got a free Splinterlands account(s) did affilate work than giving them free accounts to hand out to investors could be positive ROI and/or Positive PR. You are painting things black and white but such things can't be painted as such.
I didnt say crack to make a comparison to how addictive it was. It was about using things that are a waste of money as a baseline instead of something worth investing into. I'm aware of what is normal but I can calculate how much value is added or extracted from these free spell books and what I could do if I promoted the product as well. This is why they had to pull bulldog from his star wars gacha instead of bringing in legit TCG players. I just think they could have wasted less resources by being authentic about their product instead of the masquerade they have going on. Oh well. I know many people in the greater TCG community and what their impression is of this kind of product.
I'm aware, I address ROI directly after mentioning the addiction comment.
Its in the paragraph directly after that one sentance about addiction.
I'm not sure how BullDog got his position, he very well might have applied for his position.
Who knows maybe he will chime in himself (@bulldog1205).
The claims made by @rawbe are completely untrue. Splinterlands did not pay me to come here, and up until I was actually on payroll as community manager, I have never received a single penny from Splinterlands in exchange for promotions. The only thing I ever received was 100 packs that they gave me to use as giveaways because my stream caught their attention and they thought I was making good content. I did not request them, and there were no strings attached or even guidelines on how I was to give them away (I gave most of them away every time I got a chicken kill on stream). When I first started playing Splinterlands I didn't even try to reach out to the devs, and not once have I ever requested payment for any promotions nor have they ever offered any payment for promotions. All of my Splinterlands content has been 100% organic.
As for my CM position, they posted the job opening and tagged everyone on Discord. I applied, and I got it, thanks in large part to my existing relationship and status with the Splinterlands community.
Originally he got paid to do sponsored content as part of their SPS influencer program. I witnessed all of this unfold and have an outside perspective so not sure why you would try to build an appeal to authority out of someone who has an invested interest in furthering the greater fool theory hot potato. In Bulldog's defense, I have seen him make posts about the interests of those struggling in lower ranks before he got his position so he can't be that bad even if his opinion could be compromised from his current position.