RE: New Account for Splinterlands Posts & My Goals / Thought Process
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Firstly, I think posting your thoughts here is a great idea, so thanks!
I may well be any permutation of naïve, mistaken or misguided, but would like to present a different perspective, which is based on the idea that the three games are the drivers of the tokenomics and not the other way round.
Why? Because if you took the tokenomics away, you still have three games. If you take the three games away, you have literally nothing.
When I first discovered Splinterlands, I played the original card game for a month without spending a single cent and fell in love with those three minutes of fun with the zany, irreverent characters and great gameplay that SPL1 is.
Then decided this was a game with legs and got my spellbook, although I wouldn't have on that, never mind pour in a small fortune, without the blockchain.
This one game alone is enough to drive massive success for the company, and for we players, but we have three very different but interlinked games with three quite different player bases, with varying degrees of crossover between them. For example, I ply SPL1 every single day, have never played SPL2 or Guilds, and am hoping to find enough time to play SPL3 or Land!
SPL1 is a casual game, more akin to candy crush than civilization, and the one that can drive both mass adoption and a revolutionary economic model.
People who like SPL1, the original card game, are into short fast games.
SPL2 (guilds) is a kind of hybrid game in that it requires teams who all play short fast games against other teams, so a bit more nerdy.
People who like SPL3 (land) are obviously into long complex but slow games.
In this scenario, separate the three games and make spl1 a gameplay only app and it will drive itself forwards and the economy up.
Let's sell fun and make money, not sell money and have no fun. I am definitely not saying the tokenomics isn't vital but market making is no substitute for fun.
You have made something amazing, that can both be fun and literally rewarding for millions of us...
I think we're mostly on the same page here actually. You're right that gameplay drives the economics and not the other way around. I acknowledge that in the post when I said "Gameplay is the product that drives value to the tokens" and "Tokenomics without a product is unsustainable".
But - it's actually a bit of a circular relationship, because the economics in this case is what gets the attention for the gameplay and makes the gameplay so much more exciting and interesting than other games.
You're right that if we took away the games we would have nothing, but if we took away the tokenomics we would have a game that no one would know about or play. So really both of them are super important, but the economics piece is the new thing that no one really knows how to do yet, and that's what's the most new and exciting for players with Splinterlands vs other games.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. How, specifically, would you suggest we separate the games and make "spl1" a "gameplay only app"?
The relationship between the games is indeed circular, but tbh I truly think saying it is the tokenomics that gets attention is selling the games short lol!
I guess it is partly a question of how you define the games.
Whilst it is true that I would never have spent a penny on splinterlands without the assets being on a blockchain, I also wouldn't have invested without playing the free version for a month and finding it to be the most fun game around on w2 or w3, and wanting to be part of that.
For me, that is our primary distinctiveness.
You guys have built a great game but fundamentally there are three very different games that have vastly different audiences. It follows then that they should be presented in three different ways.
Which brings me on to your question.
I only play on my laptop, cos of the bigger screen space. Frankly I would not want to use the current app at all.
I know there is also a problem with apple and google fee gouging so how about an app just for SPL1, the original game, and the one, the only one, of the three that could pull a mass audience due to its combo of fast fun and brevity.
Take all but the gameplay out, with all the transactional stuff in the website only, and I would play that app a lot.
Nice simple design, no clutter, no complexity, just a great fun game that is always the same but crucially always different.
Just let people have fun, whether they want casual fun by simply playing for free, as I did at first, or want to take it further, as I went on to do.
The original game is brilliant and deserves a player base of millions, at least.
Simplicity always beats complexity, indeed complexity is often just simplicity reiterated, so let's take your wonderful creation and make it simply wonderful.
And as popular as it deserves to be as an archetypal new casual game.
Or not, lol.