Splinterlands just turned 8 years old and what a journey it has been. From the heights of SPS/Land launch, to the lows of post Chaos Legion. The road has been eventful along the way. Whether your new to Splinterlands or been with us from the beginning, I really feel like we all have a story to tell.
Splinterlands originally launched under the name Steem Monsters. The game opting to incorporate the name of the blockchain it was built on into the games name. Steem Monsters was the first game launched on Steem and was supported by the Steem community. For those of us that have been around since then, you would remember that before there was a game you could only buy packs. We had to hold them and hope for the best, putting all our faith in the developers, trusting that they would develop the game.
Steem Monsters was launched and we got our first taste of what would become Splinterlands. With our Alpha cards in hand and a battle mode. We were able to battle against friends and others in the community. That was massive now that I think about it, as so many projects that came along later would rise and fall. Many of those games being fun to play, some offering massive payouts and others being on par with web 2 games.
Splinterlands was destined to leave it's legacy chain as Steem was sold off and taken over by Justin Tron. This fractured the Steem community as Justin spoke about delisting Steem as a coin and making it a token on Tron blockchain. Due to this and other issues that the two sides could not agree upon. It led to Steem using a Hard Fork to break away from Steem and Becoming a new Blockchain called Hive.
In a move that would have killed most games off Splinterlands successful changed chains and kept going. It would also see massive success when they launched Land seeing some strong sales all the way through. The first land plot allocation was a absolute buying frenzy with the plots selling out in seconds of coming up for sale. I was one of the people waiting for the doors to open only to miss out, it really was that fast.
The other big event being SPS, the games government token, launching. All of a sudden Splinterlands was the name on everyones lips as the market exploded and people selling up their collection at this time were boasting about buying cars and homes with the money they made off the sales. As all good things though it led to a downward plunge shortly after as the market tried to correct as demand dried up. This all lead to Chaos Legion being over sold and the cards being worth very little.
For most other projects I feel like this is where the story would have ended as layoff's followed in an attempt to reign the costs back in and even the CEO Aggroed could not avoid the cuts. With the CEO stepping many of us were worried the writing was on the wall and Splinterlands time was coming to an end. But 
Rebellion undersold as this was a time when the game struggled to stay alive, but as chaos legion launched like a long forgotten ember caught by the wind just right, Splinterlands sparked back into life. Since then the game has just been going from strength to strength. Constant updates, the return of streamers and a more positive out look on the game have really changed the perception of Splinterlands I feel. While other games shut their doors and their communities are left with nothing, Splinterlands is thriving. Not only that but The Splinterlands DAO has even help those from games that have gone under get at least something back in the form of 
The last things that I wanted to point out was Matt stepping down and Dave becoming the current CEO of Splinterlands. This was a bit of a surprise for me, but a pleasant surprise as 
I hope that you enjoyed my brief history of Splinterlands. Should you want to join please consider using my referral link: https://splinterlands.com/?ref=mickvir
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