Like many people here on the Hive blockchain I was excited about the many things Splinterlands has had to offer as far as being entertaining, as well as raising the profile of our humble little corner of the blockchain space. I have had periods where I have complained about the bots and still am. But only recently have I decided I'm pretty much done with the game.
I get that in the blockchain space that announcing partnerships is a great way to expand the brand and generate hype. The Splinterlands team is great at this, and on the basis of small increases in value of their NFT's the game has managed to dupe a large number of investors as to it's potential someday. But lets look at what a game must be in order to survive... Fun. Plain and simple. Strategic challenges new gamer's and old gamer's can go up against and figure how to overcome. Next is community. Though Splinterlands came baked in with an inbuilt community here on the blockchain, it is quickly becoming bot centred. The game now resembles a cheap shovel game with unrewarding grinding. No sub features, alternative challenges, and a dying sense of community for the weaker or novice player.
I get the changes around the larger invested players having their own precious leagues protected from less invested but equally skilled players clawing up. I do. It's a system that was supposed to curtail certain behaviours and hopefully bring the bot issue under control. Oddly I didn't mind it as I don't game for monetary reward. It hasn't bettered the game though unless you are in the top tier. For the novice player there are no incentives or progressive challenges to feel a sense of reward over. Just...bots. Splinterlands successfully punished anyone stupid enough to pay to play. It has made the issue of user retention now what's going to kill the game long term.
I know there are a number of occult like supporters behind this game. I've been buying and selling crypto since 2010 and played a lot of games in the block chain space. I know how followings can get. But ask yourself if a game can survive if after a couple hours of play it becomes a chore and loses all entertainment value? Yes there will inevitably be a sharp rise in NFT value when we have the next bull market kick, but the game has no long term prospects if it can't get and keep long term users. Pay to win is largely despised by most smart gamer's, (not to be confused with pay to play which is widely accepted) and the game is to clunky with zero value for entertainment past your first couple hours of play.
From where I'm sitting it seems that Splinterlands studio has screwed up majorly. It soon will be down to players who are too largely invested to back out so are going too Hodl while being delusionally optimistic about it, and bots. New users, and players who enjoyed the game for the most important part (fun) will leave. Many already have. The hype I've seen in discord as well as here on hive that is pushed by screaming "partnerships" by the crew over at 
Look, I game for fun. That's it. I don't care about the NFT rewards as much as I care about the game and the challenges it presents feeling rewarding. I don't mind bots, but if it's all I'm playing then why the fuck should I continue? Where is the community that
If SL cared about their product then they would create more entertaining features to the game. They also would address the bot issue in a balanced way. Instead they have finger fu***d around with more focus on rejigging the rewards, favouring bots, favouring elite players, and completely left the new player and mid range player with very little reason to stick the game.
This little area of the blockchain world has been filled with unrealised hype since the days of Ned Scott , Dan Larimer, and Steem. Hype and internal conflicts with very little promised being lived up to. Splinterlands through a serious of umms and ah's is heading straight down that path. If you are invested in it as a game and intend to dump and jump when the unrealistic euphoria kicks then great. But that euphoria may never come. There are far better places to invest that are less risk (some areas of defi) and far better games that are working on user enjoyment in a balanced way against rewards.
I don't mind meaningful changes and reforms to a gaming platform. I really don't. If they are balanced and help onboard new players and thereby create a more diverse environment then great. If I have heavily invested, and I have a super strong deck but get my backside kicked by a weaker deck on the basis of their arrangement I don't care. They showed more skill. The match was rewarding. The other player feels rewarded as well by beating a stronger opponent.
So in this post I've bitched thoroughly. I'm rarely negative on my blog, but sadly this is a logical response to damaging changes to a product I used to enjoy interacting with. Having made my feelings known on this I'm doing the following:
I will log in over the next three days to check out my mystery potion rewards, then I'm done playing. I won't be playing another match though. Done.
I'm taking five other players with me. Human players. Not alt accounts. People I got into the game with me and enjoy playing with over skype, in person, and when we feel like mucking around. They used to play all the time until a couple weeks ago until we all started to feel doubts about the game as it is now. This isn't large but if the game doesn't figure out how to favour new and mid range players and not penalise them then I have a suspicion that may grow.
I'm going to actively discourage anyone from wasting their money on the game in it's current form. I've gotten over a dozen people to sign up and play in the past year. Most have quit except those that play with me who will be walking to play better games with NFT's elsewhere. In the past week however I did manage to get over ten people to sign up to play Hash Rush and we actively game on twitch. I'll be pushing people to games that are more fun, challenging, and rewarding. Splinterlands won't be one of them. I've never included SL on my twitch channel anyway. I've kept my hive and steem id's separate from twitch and my 3,000 plus followers there. Not a big number, but their active and I carefully built the following. Here I can say what I want, on twitch I have to be a bit more pc and careful. So I keep them separate. I'm more active over there anyway. But no way would anyone promote SL as it has just become another crappy over valued card game. I certainly won't.
I have no doubt that my actions will have no impact over all in the game. I know this bitching I'm doing in this post isn't going to change anything. Splinterlands will become a niche of high dollar players at the top, and a bunch of suckers feeding the bots with every purchase they make. In short the game will become what it's founders and designers want. A cash grab. Splinterlands will become a dump and jump game at a market high peak with zero top no reason to carry forward. There will be "exciting partnerships" but like with so much in this corner, it will fizzle out into hype and unrealised promises. There will be exciting announcements no doubt like most do when plugging a shitty product. Again, with a tilted system that's bot ridden and can't hold new players... how does that work long term? It doesn't. There will be small appreciations in value on the NFT front, but again.. there's better places to put ones money for a better return.
If you've made it this far into reading then thanks for sticking.
Thanks for reading again guys and best of luck on your posts and projects. If anyone from the SL crew has read this all I have to say is:
.... Until you improve your product. Until then you've lost yet another player.
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