Splinterlands has just released the reward card update, bringing the good news that a new collection of rebellion cards are coming to the game starting August 15.
For players like me, who am not willing to invest a single cent in cards unless the obvious problems in the game mechanics are corrected (info here), this new set of cards encourages me to continue playing from time to time.
However, despite the positive emotion that this new set generates in me, I am left with the unpleasant feeling of an unfulfilled task, which was to complete the levels of the cards. Above all, because perhaps I made a very serious mistake by combining all the cards immediately knowing that I was not going to be able to reach the next level. Thus, practically hundreds of cards become useless as they do not achieve enough for the next level.
Of course, with the prices that Splinterlands imposed to unlock the soulbound cards, those cards were most likely going to suffer the same fate anyway, since in the same way after 180 days the cards will be permanently blocked as soulbound in each of the accounts that have not paid the price of the extortion or ransom.
All of this leads me to wonder who is the big beneficiary of this very specific way of unlocking soulbound cards?
Perhaps the most beneficiaries are the players who have their complete set of cards with levels 10, and who have hundreds or thousands of additional cards that are not useful for battle and want to use them on their lands, or simply sell them.
But is the investment of unlocking soulbounds reasonable when there are cards on the market with higher production points at a much lower cost? The math indicates that it is stupid to pay to unlock soulbounds cards for any purpose other than selling them at a higher price in the distant future when they are truly scarce.
But, some really believe that unlocked soulbounds cards are going to be sold at those prices that are being imposed. I am convinced that they will never be sold this way.
So, who benefits the most from this way of releasing soulbounds cards?
Obviously those who can benefit the most are those who managed to obtain the greatest number of soulbound cards and who achieve an effective mechanism for selling said cards. If we analyze Splinterlands user or player data from recent months, we find that 3 or 4 months ago there were just over 30 thousand average players per day. Then after the fateful payment was imposed to be able to play in wild, the number of players has been decreasing until today that there are just under 9 thousand average players per day. (source https://peakmonsters.com/dashboard). It is assumed that most of the accounts that stopped playing belong to bot farms. That means that at least 70% of the players several months ago were bot accounts, and therefore, being light on the account, those bots obtained on average 70% of the soulbounds reward cards.
Simply put, those who stand to benefit the most from releasing soulbounds cards are bot accounts, if they can find a way to sell said cards at a profit.
Everyone will think that they are not going to risk investing exorbitant amounts of dec to unlock soulbound cards, and then try to sell them on the domestic market at a profit.
But the bots now have an ace up their sleeve, courtesy of yabapmatt by permanently blocking the soulbound cards after 180 days, and that is that they do not have to pay absolutely anything to benefit from the soulbound cards.
Bot farms are assumed to have thousands of accounts under their control. Accounts to which they have no type of attachment beyond the economic benefit that these accounts provided.
If very few are going to unlock soulbounds cards, because the price of such cards would simply be excessive for a rewards card, then bot accounts are going to be worth a lot of money.
So, what I think is going to happen is that bot farm owners are going to directly sell the account with the soulbounds cards included. Suppose someone has 1000 accounts with a large number of soulbounds cards, and sells each account for say $100. That would allow them to recover about $100K, perhaps much more depending on the cards the account has.
Who would they sell those accounts to? Well, to new users, taking advantage of the great advertising campaign that Splinterlands plans to create in the near future. They may have to invest a few hundred dollars in Adsense, but they will surely be able to sell those accounts much faster and easier than Splinterlands.
Keep in mind that for $100 the new user does not have to pay for a spellbook or a pack of cards in which he does not know what he could get. They can examine the accounts they are purchasing and know precisely how many summoners they have, how many legendaries, and perhaps even a lot of SPS included.
Perhaps, this mechanism of unlocking soulbound cards was decided to be done this way to provide a profitable exit for bot farms. Personally, I don't care if they benefit from this mechanism or not, but what worries me is that it will begin to be exploited with future reward cards.
In the end, the only true beneficiaries of this rewards card unlocking mechanism are those with hundreds or thousands of accounts who stand to gain real financial benefit from all of this. The rest of the players like me will not have the opportunity to complete our sets, and we start again from scratch, in a race in which we almost never reach the finish line.
Posted using Splintertalk