When Blockchain meets Finance, it results in a term referred to as DeFi which means Decentralized Finance, it basically entails the transformation of core traditional financial infrastructure into trustless and transparent protocols that operate without the need for a middle man.
Through DeFi system, we've been able to have access to Asset management tools and decentralized exchanges, we are able to perform activities such as Staking, Margin trading, Fractional investing, Asset tokenization and so on.
When Blockchain meets Law, we have the ability to execute contracts without the intervention of an intermediary, the laws binding the contract are hard coded into a program which are stored on the blockchain.
Upon execution, the contract is initiated in strict adherence to those laws till the terms of the agreement have been fully satisfied by the two parties involved. This is all wrapped up in a term known as Smart Contract and is applicable in a myriad of ways today.
When Blockchain meets Gaming, it brings about the existence of digital and non fungible assets and offers users a decentralized economy of in-game assets ownership and exchange.
Overtime, we've been able to experience the developments of different games on the blockchain with one of the most popular called Cryptokitties built on the Ethereum blockchain. According to this source, Cryptokitties generated a total sum of 8.7$ million as payout to its players in 2018.
This game is not surviving without its hiccups ofcourse, more users in a gaming blockchain ecosystem mean more resources and transactions broadcasted on that blockchain and due to the nature of the Ethereum blockchain and its inability to speedily handle millions of transactions, the game began to clog the entire network leading to tons of users being dissatisfied.
When thinking of blockchain gaming, it is required that the infrastructure of the blockchain is designed to handle millions of transaction at lightning speed. This is where Steem stands out as an ultimate platform for game developers.
The Steem blockchain is equipped to handle tons and tons of activities with 3 seconds transaction time. The Steem blockchain also has a large community of active users and it was these unique points that spurred the creation of one of the best blockchain games till date, Splinterlands.
-Splinterlands-
Splinterlands, formerly known as Steem Monsters was launched in March 2018. It is an online multiplayer CCG(collectible card game) that consists of specially designed sets of playing cards.
These cards are numbered, limited and encoded with unique serial codes, which means each card owned by a particular player cannot be owned by another player at the same time, a sort of proprietary rights form of ownership binds every card. Every card has its value.
The game was pioneered by the number one witness on the Steem blockchain, Yabapmatt, in collaboration with Steem witness Aggroed and other developers from Steemit. Up till date Splinterlands remains one of the most successful business on the entire Steem blockchain and this is due to the following points.
Innovative and Fun
There's an astounding improvement in the development, plot, design and delivery of the Splinterlands gaming structure since the inception of the game and till date, this proves the presence of active developers with a vision to take over the gaming industry as long as blockchain is concerned, the team works tirelessly in attempt to increase the simplicity and fun of the game while aligning its rewards accordingly.
Digital Asset Ownership
While the Bitcoin blockchain cryptographically stores records of financial transactions, blockchains can be used to store all kinds of data, including ownership of digital assets. All ownership of digital assets is recorded in a trustless environment to be bought, sold, leased, or transferred as the owner sees fit.
Security
The Steem blockchain remains one of the most secure blockchains in existence employing end to end cryptography which gives only the users access to their digital assets through their keys. To perform operations on Splinterlands a user needs to only login using their private keys.
Revenue
Splinterlands is designed to offer its users with various means of revenue streams. Everyday there are daily quests which players participate in and are rewarded for accordingly, there are also daily tournaments which has paid out over $54,000 to players in the past 6 months. Every season spans for 14 days, at the end of each season, players are rewarded in various numbers of cards based on their rank at the end of the season.
Active online community
Steem is endowed with an active online community of crypto enthusiasts. This particular calibre of people are more than ready to participate in a wide range of crypto related activities including gaming and so makes Splinterlands the center of attraction as far as gaming is concerned. Recognizing this advantage, the Splinterlands team went ahead to introduce a Steem engine tribe which gives gamers the ability to blog about their Splinterlands game play and earn rewards in SPT token, the native token for Splinterlands tribe. You can find the site at www.splinterlands.io.
-Splinterlands Gameplay-
Battle battle battle!
There are 5 Splinters in Splinterlands, they are Fire, Water, Life, Earth and Death, and each Splinter has a summoner card representing the Splinter. When a battle is initiated by clicking the ranked button, the system matches the player with an opponent, a set of rules are given to the player who will use skill and experience to select a set of cards from his available deck of cards to head the battle.
If the player wins, he is rewarded with the in-game currency called DEC, the DEC is short form for Dark Energy Crystals which will be subsequently explained below.
The player also gains increased rank which has a direct influence on the rewards at the end of the season or at the end of a daily quest. If the player looses a battle the rank will be reduced.
DEC - Dark Energy Crystals
The Dark Energy Crystal, DEC, is the in-game currency on Splinterlands, it is earned by winning battles and used to purchase in-game items like potions, skins and even packs. The DEC can also be acquired by burning of owners cards or can be directly bought on Steem-engine exchange. It can also be traded for other tokens or Steem and converted to fiat if need be. The amount of DEC earnable during gameplay is directly proportional to the players rank level in the game.
Shop
The Shop is the in-game market place for all your needs as regards packs purchase, Potions, Skins, Orbs and Gifts. Each pack contains 5 cards and are sold for 2$ each. An amazing thing about the infrastructure of Splinterlands is that cards/packs can be purchased with more than 5 different most widely used cryptos, Visacard/Mastercard and giftcards. This eases the bottlenecks experienced by newbies when entering into the cryptospace.
Market
This is where all cards are sold and displayed for purchase, there are cards with prices ranging from 0.02$ to 1000$. Also as earlier mentioned, the cards can be bought directly with Steem, Dec, SBD or Tron.
How to Play
To be able to operate on the Steem blockchain, you need to have a steem account, however new users can sign up by choosing a username and paying for a starter pack. Yes Splinterlands offers new users a steem account upon purchase of a starter pack.
- The first thing to do is to go to Splinterlands homepage then click get in the game, purchase a starter pack which costs 10$, the cards provided are the minimum required cards to be qualified for battle.
- After selecting the preferred username and checking its availability, you then pay through paypal, giftcard mastercard, visa and over 5 major used cryptos and even Tron. You then proceed to open the cards. (The cards are randomly generated through a specific algorithm trackable on the blockchain.)
- Clicking on the ranked button initiates the operation to seek and match a player, when this is done, the next screen displays the stage to select the splinter and cards intended for battle.
The next operation loads the battle ground after both players must have submitted their teams.
Clicking on the Rumble button spurs the game into action and the cards begin to attack each other based on their abilities.
Please see the FAQ for succinct details on the mode of operation of cards in each splinter.
Conclusion and Recommendation
According to the State of Dapps network
Splinterlands is ranked number 7# with a profile strength of 91% and daily usage of over 2,000 players. Splinterlands market cap just surpassed $3million at the time of writing this post, that is just amazing.
The gaming industry is a multi billion dollar industry and this has only been able to be achieved through centralized operations. About two months ago, a 16 year old boy won a tournament worth about 3 million dollars in the Fortnite game The world of gaming has gone past the days of just playing for fun, now people are more inclined towards games that have the potential to earn them some sort of monetary rewards, games that pay.
The evolution of blockchain in the gaming industry proves that items and collectibles can be worth real world value, moreover, it takes out the need for centralization which is a lot of risk for those playing in that sphere due to the fact that the central server can collapse without warning and all items owned can be lost forever, if you will ask me which I'd choose, I'd say I'm up for decentralized gaming rather than the centralized ones.
I play Splinterlands everyday and its been so since the launch of the game, though I haven't invested so much, I've been able to see my deck grow in size and value over time. It is also worthy to note that cards rewarded are based on randomness which means a new player can be rewarded with a really expensive card and such opportunity is not limited to only the big players.
If the Splinterlands team can improve anything it will be the reward system for low level players, it is so hard to climb up the rank without investing so much, I have reasons to believe that higher ranked players are the ones benefitting the system more, I'd love if the difficulty of low level players can be reduced somehow. Also I'd love to have the option to physically ship my cards to my location just for fun.
I rate the Splinterlands game a 4.5/5 star. Thank you for reading, if you're a gamer this is absolutely for you, if you want fun in a ccg environment with a chance to earn, you've come across the right post.
See you in battle!
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All images are screenshots from Splinterlands.com gameplay.
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