Will Steemmonsters/Splinterlands ever take the next step?

This is something im wondering.

See, Steemmonsters is a app that i can thank for multiplying my stake on Steem.
I now hold about 3-4 times my initial investment in Steem because of Steemmonsters.
People tend to be critical of Steem:

You cant earn anything here. Whales wont vote me!

Well theyre not supposed to vote you if you dont contribute.
I dont contribute much via my content.
Im a guy with a big mouth that was here long enough to get noticed sometimes. I can help push an agenda but my contribution to content quality on Steem is beyond miniscule. Id even say its the opposite. Lol.

But i adjusted, i managed to recognize the opportunity steem presented in the form of a card game and i sort of came out on top.

I bought about 1500 Steem and about 2000 steem i use was earned by @silentscreamer. (Check out her blog lol)
The majority of my other SP came from @steemmonsters.
So naturally im "emotionally" invested in the game regardless of my personal opinions about @aggroed.
Massive value was created for me there.

The guys in charge didnt come out of this with their underpants on a stick either. They profited greatly and rightfully so.

But there is one problem i see.... Steem is small. There really arent any other succesful games like SM out there.
You could say that SM has a monopoly on steemian attention.
Sure, you could point to Drugwars, Nextcolony or even Steemknights but they dont have nearly the trust SM has or a succesful economy.

My point being that monopolies are bad for inovation and growth.

Will Steemmonsters take advantage of that and not grow, simply continue with minting cards, simply doing what worked so far?

That wouldnt be good because stagnation is what leads to value diminishing.

That will happen to SteemMonsters as well if they dont improve massively.
Id bet anything on that. Give it a year and it will start happening.

My question is simple:

"WILL STEEMMONSTERS TAKE THE NEXT STEP AND MOVE AWAY FROM THE DRAFT SYSTEM AND LEAP INTO A FULLY PLEDGED CARD GAME?"

Take Gods Unchained as an example.

They decided to challenge Hearthstone and are doing a pretty good job there.
Their gameplay is very similar to Hearthstone, many cards even stolen directly but they want to challenge the mainstream.

Without content and content creators (ive said it many times) or without apps that can compete with the mainstream we will never be able to achieve mainstream adoption.
Steemmonsters with its gameplay cannot achieve that.

How much $$$ does the SM team need to gather to start thinking about appealing to the mainstream?

Will they be happy with what they got and just stop?

We did a lot so no one can fault us for not improving.

Sure... But id bet that investors and those that put in their hard earned cash wouldnt be happy with that response.

Im not saying they dont have something in mind, i cant know that, but there is an organic evolution games like this have and based on the early responses by their dev team its pretty clear they are aware of that fact.

Will we see them make the next step?

I do hope so... They will either have to make a massive improvement in another way, if they do not indeed decide to do what im hoping, or they will eventually diminish.
You can only hold the attention so long with "the same" until people start moving on.

A few thoughts and ill see you around. 😉