Splinterlands' Lack of Growth... It's On Us to Turn It Around

There's so much Splinterlands content, but yet growth is stagnant.

Have you ever sold or promoted a service or product? How do you go about selling or promoting it? Usually, you have some form of funneled approach to go from cold lead to warm lead to client to a more vested client.

It's as simple as AIDA (it's an acronym).

Attention/Awareness: Catching someone's attention who may be more inclined to your sales proposition. They are aware that your brand/business exists and have a general idea of your value proposition.

Interest: You have to pique the interest of the prospect. You have to relate to their needs and show the product/service meets those needs.

Decision/Desire: You foster a desire for the prospect to go further in the interaction.

Action: The prospect takes the next step and becomes a client/customer in some fashion.

Your objective is to remove that "aw screw it" element that cuts this process short before the prospect takes action.

Splinterlands' Decentralization of Marketing

There's a reliance on the Splinterlands community to play a role in product evangelization. It is a part of the inherent decentralization element, all of us in this ecosystem are owners. We all play a role in marketing the game regardless of our intent to do so regardless of our outlook on the ecosystem.

It is less a game than an ecosystem where we all can participate in the way that we see fit. There will be an increasing number of ways participant-owners interact with Splinterlands. Each guild and guild corporation (network of guilds) will have different approaches as well.

Affiliate Marketing

Presently, almost every piece of content associated with Splinterlands is attached to an affiliate code that entitles the affiliate marketer to 5% of sales of spellbooks, potions, and packs. It's not exactly lucrative (yet it is ubiquitous), but it is a way that Splinterlands participants promote signups.

Who's the target?

Newcomers: Yes
Existing Players: No

Blogging on Crypto-incentivized Networks and Sites

Publish0x, Read.cash, and Hive related communities are home to a lot of blog posts about Splinterlands. The incentive is of course, the money associated with making the community happy (or a few select whales).

Who's the target?

Newcomers: Yes
Existing Players: Yes

Streaming and Video

There are a few who post videos and stream on streaming services. Since the game still has a small human audience, it's not as popular as more commercial games and streamers do not have the same sort of audience as other content creators on these platforms. The content is usually looser in language used and more natural than the blogs.

What's the return? Advertising, affiliate deals, networking opportunities, Super Chats, Bits, subscribers, memberships, and gifts.

Who's the target?

Newcomers: No
Existing Players: Yes

Reddit/Discord Communities

People post articles or discussion points on these platforms.

Who's the target?

Newcomers: No
Existing Players: Yes

Why is this all important to acknowledge?

Strategy and Execution are not Aligning

Data supports that the ecosystem is floundering as new money really is not pouring into it.

This is a 6 Month view of Players and those who took the next step to get a Spellbook. There's a clear decline over this period, but it becomes more alarming once a shorter timeframe is covered.

Over the course of the past 3 months, the story is not positive. It is now normal to see less than 80 Spellbook sales a day. The sale of a Spellbook does not necessarily mean that the participant is new to the ecosystem, there many who have multiple accounts and bot accounts are created all the time by bot owners who are expanding their bot farms. Is there more money being injected into the game or is there more cannibalization?

It is challenging for the developer marketing team to get a sense of what campaigns, efforts, promotions, and copy are most effective without getting a sense of what percentage of "Mages" are a part of existing bot farm operations. The partnerships and alliances with mainstream entertainers (Imagine Dragons and Waka Flocka Flame) and a corporations in the entertainment space (WarnerMusic Group) provide credibility to the ecosystem and are an attempt to attract new entrants. Thus far, the business-to-business relationships are impressive, but they have not delivered the desired growth in the ecosystem.

The Evangelization Problems Start with Blogging

Much of the same exploitation of the ecosystem that exists is present in the marketing as well. Splinterlands is rewarding BAD BEHAVIOR and INEFFECTIVE MARKETING. It's very easy to exploit and @azircon pointed this out in an article that was quite gutsy to publish and it is a must-read. However, this veteran of the ecosystem was being incredibly kind in their analysis.

"Share Your Battle" posts are instruction manual articles that are written to make one or two Hive users satisfied, namely the Splinterlands Development Marketing Team. They are clearly written with a template and offer no value to the reader at all. There's no wisdom, personality, fun, criticism involved with these articles. It's soulless and it doesn't sell, in fact, the spamminess of these articles may scare people away. It's not too different from the aggressive open air preachers who come to college campuses on the dime of their local communities without any intent to change hearts and minds.

Who sells anything based on the instruction manual?

It's a grift.

Appealing to upvote bots and checking off boxes to make the Splinterlands Development Team feel good has not delivered the desired results. The message sent is that there's no room for personalities in the Splinterlands community, at least on the Hive blockchain.

What value do "Splinterlands Art Contests" add? Who is the target market? Is this bringing people to the actual ecosystem or is this just another grift that can be exploited?

Every post/comment is made with the intent of getting an upvote regardless of whether there is a connection made the audience or the value it provides to help with user retention or evangelism of the ecosystem. There is a place for automated content, but it has to be actually good automated content and it has to be timely. Why are a select few incentivizing evergreen content that provides no value?

The cards are rooted in fantasy, but the ecosystem is based in reality. There is not enough of that reality and the reality of the ecosystem is an incredible sales proposition that is completely ignored in this particular vertical.

It's okay to be multilingual with this ecosystem, it gives the users an opportunity to be able to communicate more naturally and evangelize without coming across in a stilted fashion. It's good for the ecosystem. The objective should be to let people communicate without coming off spammy and inauthentic.

If the ecosystem was not stagnant and the percentage of bots in this game were considerably lower, it would not be necessary to point these problems out as it would effective to a degree. However, it is not.

Personalities Should Be Welcome... The Video/Streaming Element

There are some personalities in the Splinterlands realm who stand out:

• @luke-wtp with the refreshing and necessary "Splinter Talk" stream.
• @infidel1258 and his videos/streams with his particular perspective of the game. His YouTube videos are great to play on the Brave app when working out. Get your reps in while hearing about how Pelacor Mercenary should 100x (disagree on this one, Pelacor Bandit is the star of the Rewards Commons that are in circulation).
• @gameboyali brings humor to the space.
• @synist3r goes deep into it all with his videos.
• @macfillet has great videos about Silver League and bridges the global nature of Splinterlands.

Hopefully, @ueyuey and @schnapoon get started with streaming, they are stars in this ecosystem.

It's all great for retention, but balance is key to attracting new players. It requires different approaches and personalities that may not necessarily provide Splinterlands content for an entire stream or use Splinterlands as a backdrop for other activity that may be a bit zany, informative or find ways to make the audience FEEL. Give people a reason to come back that is more than just the ecosystem. Building that connection will encourage new people to join in and become part of this world we have all created.

Every guild should have someone streaming and giving their guild a bit of a face to it. The logos are generic, but the amount of personality to it helps forge a greater sense of community. Guilds are like fraternities and sororities, except without unusual and secret initiations (there are exceptions, Delta Upsilon and Alpha Kappa Lambda are generally non-secret).

Who is the Target Market?

It is acceptable to have multiple user personas in mind and for the marketing to be regionalized, in fact, it is common practice. However, the marketing effort is generally haphazard and the incentives reinforce it.

Everyone in Splinterlands is an owner to some extent, we have a vested interest in the ecosystem and thus we can be marketers too. What type of people do you envision being active in it? There's more to the outreach than just a simple affiliate link and a few cards offered, which is both spammy and ineffective. It's a hard-sell and that will not be able to gain traction.

The best target market is the one YOU can connect with best.

We can absolutely grow this game, but we are not going to get there continuing to do it this way. Oh and maybe not using the words "Play to Earn" would be helpful as well.

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