Today finally has been the day I've been waiting for for weeks - the day of the first Splinterlands land presale. As I had reported in may last Play2Earn Report, I had decided to go all in and buy a ticket to the region lottery for 7,500$.
Without any more unnecessary buildup - I was among the lucky winners and was drawn, so I'm now the proud owner of the Praetorian title and a shiny Land Region Claim!
In the end, there were 50 entries to the lottery and only 27 regions to be raffled away. While I'm aware that chance has no memory, I was always under the impression that I'm rather unlucky in raffles, so I fully expected to not win anything and was already planning on getting the region in the second round.
So now that I've won my claim, let's talk a bit about my reasoning for getting into the lottery in the first place - 7,500$ is quite the sum after all. Basically, there are 4 reasons all playing together to help me make the decision.
1) I really believe in the vision of Splinterlands
Splinterlands might not be the most revolutionary blockchain game out there, it might not be the most complex, and it certainly is not the best looking one (although I LOVE some of the artwork!). But all of these things are of little consequence to me because, in my opinion, it is the most complete on. The game itself is already really solid and fun to play, it's scalable and it should be able to keep growing indefinitely. But to any blockchain game there's more than that - the economy is just as important as the game itself. And it's safe to say, they really have that one figured out.
There are many clever mechanics implemented, all working together to ensure long term viability of the whole project while retaining the value of all ingame assets that players hold. Unlike many other blockchain games, you always list your cards in dollar value instead of some wildly fluctuating crypto currency. And no matter what currency the buyer uses, you are always paid in DEC, a currency that should prove to be rather stable over time and even it if dips temporarily, it should always rebound to its PEG eventually.
2) Land is indeed a rather revolutionary conecept
When I first heard about the whole land stuff back in summer, I was like "meh, I'm not interested in that kind of stuff". I had heard of other land sales for games like League of Kingdoms or Decentraland which, in all honesty, sucked pretty bad in my opinion. It only was during some of the AMAs where aggroed laid out the basic idea beyond the land expansion when it really clicked with me.
What the land expansion does, is basically add a new category of cards to the game, namely spells and equipment. These new cards are not only fluff but will actually alter the way Splinterlands is played by adding a second round of decision making to the game where both players can see what teams have been submitted and then use items or cast spells before the battle actually starts.
The revolutionary thing about that is the fact, that these cards will never be sold by Splinterlands directly. Instead, they will be crafted by players using the resources gathered on their lands. This introduces a completely new way to interact with the game and its players. The market and everything offered there will be completely dictated by the players. All of these cards will have to be created by players first and it will be up to them to decide what these cards should be worth. Demand and supply will dictate the price and we'll thus see an actual free market inside the game that's in no way regulated by the game or the developers in any way other than setting the rules for how these cards are created in the first place.
I'm really stoked for that feature and as far as I'm aware, no other game has been doing something similar so far - it certainly is miles ahead of what the non-blockchain CCGs are offering!
3) The deal was just too good not to take it
That's a pretty important aspect as well. With all the discounts going on, it was just too good an offer not to do it:
Land will be sold at 20$/plot after the last presale concluded.
In the first presale, you got a 50% discount for buying land, so that's 10$ a plot.
For buying a whole region, you got another 25% discount on top of that, bringing us down to 7.5$.
By buying through an account referred by myself (I had validated that this was okay and it was), I also received 375$ worth of Splinterlands credits.
If you factor that in as well, the final price is 7.125$ per plot or a discount of 64.375% - that's huge!
It doesn't even stop there, though. I also got the Praetorian title and 7,500 raffle tickets. Looking at their loot table, they should be worth enough to bring the final price per plot below the 7$ mark.
This whole deal simply was amazing and it's no wonder the Splinterlands servers were completely overwhelmed when the actual presale started!
4) My personal financial situation allowed for it
This might be the most important reason of them all. As I already laid out in my recent Play2Earn report, I did not go on any big vacation this year and my usual winter holiday to Florida and 70000 Tons of Metal won't happen either. Basically, I spent the money saved from not attending these events on buying the land.
To be perfectly clear here - this investment is highly speculative and while I trust in the success of Splinterlands, there's no guarantee for anything. I might very well wake up some day to all my cards and land not being worth anything at all. So while I'd advise anybody that did not already get their lands to join in on the 2nd (and even 3rd) presale, only ever invest what you are willing to loose!
So what's happening next? This was the single biggest investment in a game I ever made. I spent about 2,500$ on eXode and I might invest some more there down the line, but for Splinterlands, that's it. I'll certainly keep reinvesting (parts) of what I earn in the game and especially from what I will be earning from working the land, but I certainly won't invest any more outside money.
In the end, it's all a game to me. I have a good paying job and a very stable financial situation. If all this crypto stuff never goes off, well, I'll be good anyway. But if it does go off, if these games I invest in ever make it to the mainstream world... who knows, one day I might see returns from these investments rivaling my monthly salary from my "real" job.
This still is some years away obviously and it might very well never happen. Until then, though, I'll keep chasing the dream!
Thank you all for reading and see you next time!