Last week, the Splinterlands team mentioned we should keep our eyes on this week's AMA for some major announcements. And... here it is if you missed it:
We've already got used to Splinterlands having a lot of partnerships and the team feeling it is the best way to grow the ecosystem, including the game that got everything started, Splinterlands, and where most of us have a vested interest.
I tend to agree with this approach (if what they've disclosed so far will have the desired effect for us), there is only so much Splinterlands can grow with just one game, catering to one genre in gaming.
And big players from the field are coming into this reality where players own their assets and earn rewards with real value, for sure. Why not be Splinterlands one of them, but with a web 3 mentality?
What was announced during the AMA was a new game called Genesis League Soccer, which will be "a play & earn soccer game that will be built in partnership with the Major League Soccer Players Association (MLSPA).".
What is interesting about this new game?
Here's what we know about the gameplay so far:
Players will manage a team of MLSPA players, in the form of trading card NFTs, and challenge opponents in a fun, quick soccer game. Winners of each game will receive rewards, similar to how it currently works within Splinterlands; however, the gameplay of each match will be different from how battles are waged in Splinterlands.
There are a few points very important to drive home:
- this marks the entrance of Splinterlands into the e-sports games, a big market, which could expand into other partnerships
- Splinterlands already has a partnership in the music industry with Warner Music to create another game
- there is another "tower defense" type game developed by a third party where Splinterlands cards could be used
Where is the ball going?
Matt talked about this Genesis League Soccer game, but more to give us an idea of where the ball is going.
There will be a separate platform on which the game will run, I believe it will be called Genesis League. This platform will have a governance token of its own, much like Splinterlands has SPS, and validator nodes dedicated to the platform.
Initially, Genesis League Soccer will run on the platform, but they expect other games will be added.
At the same time, they also expect other games to be added to the Splinterlands platform too, where SPS is the governance token.
How does something like Genesis League benefit Splinterlands' asset holders?
For every partnership Splinterlands strikes outside of the original game and its ecosystem, the team said they will attempt to give back as much value to Splinterlands asset holders and Hive, in general, as possible.
Staked SPS is key! Matt already announced SPS stakeholders will receive airdrops for the new governance token on Genesis League. I heard a brief mention about licenses too, so other assets may be included (land, please!).
Another benefit is in the price of SPS, which will rise because of the airdrop and other use cases that will be introduced (SPS and probably DEC can be used to buy assets on Genesis League, alongside other tokens).
Then, it's the potential influx of new users from the new platform to Splinterlands. Aggroed talked about a potential audience of 100m people. That accounts only for the US (or maybe North America) reach, where MLSPA is organized. But football worldwide (as in soccer for Americans) is the #1 sport.
From here, we can think that, if the price of SPS goes up, then after rewards are switched from DEC to SPS, it makes sense for card prices to go up and the rental market to revigorate to get those rewards.
There's more to talk about the price of SPS, but maybe in another post...