Splinterlands: The Pack Sale Problem That Never Was

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(Edited)

Hello Splintermaniacs today I would like to discuss a topic that is on everyone's mind. That topic is Splinterland Pack Sales. Discussion has quickly risen about the slow down of our current main set being sold (Chaos Legion). In total there were 15 million booster packs that were to be sold. Currently we are down to roughly 4.7 Million. That is less then 1/3 of the total supply remaining. The Splinterlands team has said on numerous occasions that they would like a set to be available for sale on the Splinterlands site for roughly one year. More recently one of the founders of the Splinterlands game has suggested the goal for packs to be sold for roughly Seven Months with a 3-4 month period with no pack sales before the next set is introduced. My personal opinion on that take: I think one year is the perfect amount of time to aim for. My only adjustment would be to have a set sell for roughly 12 months with a 3-4 month break between new editions. (If my memory serves me correctly) Chaos Legion Pack general sale has not been ongoing for 12 months yet. With all that information at hand lets dig a little deeper into the issue including looking at the two most popular suggestions I been hearing.

With ongoing talk comes ongoing suggestions. One of those suggestions was a pack burn. Personally I don't like this idea. To me if feels like taking a step in the wrong direction. Almost an admitness of slight failure or an admission of an oopsie at the very least. Plus burning all that value that could be put to future use doesn't sit right with me. I think we can move things along in a reasonable time frame without a burn. One of the other popular suggestions was to sell the packs to the Splinterlands DAO to be released at a later date (bringing the DAO some profits). Giving the DAO some packs is an idea I can get behind but selling them to the DAO is not necessary. Simply give them to the DAO and then once Chaos Legion has been sold out for a year or more have the DAO sell them and reimburse Splinterlands the company for the agreed upon value for the packs. This way the DAO does not have to spend any of its funds to attain packs that (some think) have oversaturated the market. But how many packs should it be? I think its a fair assessment we aren't talking tens of thousands of packs. Its also a fair assessment to assume we aren't talking hundreds of thousands of packs. If I were to guess we are talking at least One Million Packs. Finding that perfect number won't be easy and here's why.


Pack Buying Fomo

As everyone who has been playing or investing with Splinterlands for a year or more likely knows there is massive Pack Buying Fomo near the end of each edition selling out. As our Splinterlands community grows the timing of the pack buying fomo increases. This pack buying FOMO is one of the reason why I think there isn't a pack sale issue. I do agree that pack sales have slowed down (that much is obvious) but I feel as it isn't because there is an overly gross amount of Chaos Legion Packs on offer. Instead the reason I think pack sales have slowed down is because there is just simply too much on offer at current time. At this moment RUNI is all the craze (as it should be RUNI is AWESOME). We also have Tower Defense; now let this sink in for a moment. Splinterlands who has created this amazing game that we all currently enjoy and earn from is on the brink of introducing us another game that currently has pack sales ongoing. I feel this is not getting the attention it deserves. The reason: there is just too much going on.

If that wasn't enough there is another new play to earn game that is a hybrid of WEB 2.0 & WEB 3.0 in development by Splinterlands and its partners (GLS) as we speak with (you guessed it) pack sales ongoing. Which brings me to the conclusion Splinterlands didn't print an overly gross amount of packs for Chaos Legion. Instead what they did was introduce too much new stuff too quickly. Our Splinterlands community while growing and much bigger than it was 1-2 years ago can still only purchase so much assets at any given time. The average player isn't going to afford forking out hundreds or even thousands for three different games during the same time period. Getting back to the FOMO aspect: I suspect pack fomo to hit somewhere north of the One Million Packs mark. Meaning once we see Chaos Legion packs dwindle down to close to One Million packs left for sale (on the official Splinterlands market) there will be an increase in pack sales. The real question here is how long does it take us to get to that point and how can we speed that up.


My Suggestions For Pack Sale Increase


  • (1) Loan One Million Chaos Legion Packs To the DAO
    (To be paid upon sale of packs one plus year later)

  • (2) Introduce special buy days
    (Halloween is in days/ Christmas just around the corner)

  • (3) DO NOT introduce something else that requires our purchase
    (let your player base pockets cool down a little)

  • (4) DO NOT introduce something else that requires a purchase from your player base. Yes I put this suggestion two times. Its an important one, updates are awesome, new stuff is awesome but you don't want to spread everyone too thin.

  • (5) Rethink the sale point of future packs. Tower Defense face value is $8 USD. That is a giant leap from Splinterlands original price point for its Alpha packs which was $2 USD. Sure we have Vouchers now that bring down the price of purchase but lets not forget that lower costing packs are much more attractive than higher costing ones. It was the tiny entry point of $2 USD per Alpha pack that helped launch the success of Splinterlands. Lets not lose that aspect of the game. This is not wanting more for less. This is wanting the packs to look so attractive that non blockchain people and none whales go, "I can afford to take a shot on that". This helps to increase our player base thus increasing the number of people buying packs.

  • (6) Lets hear what you think of these suggestions below in the comment section. If you have some of your own, I'd like to hear about them as well. Pack burn (whats your thoughts on that).

FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out

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33 comments
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It is the problem of expectations, it is always better to fall short than to exceed.
I also think it has to do with the drop in Hive and other cryptos. In the end there is less value in the entire market and it shows. If the market changes, perhaps we will see the packages fly like donuts.

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The overall market being on the downtrend certainly doesn't help pack sales or card prices any. We been here before, the next bull run could be just around the corner.

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Good stuff. Its basic retail. Too opportunities sucking up Hive community resources. Instead of waiting to time their panic (burn, give away, etc) about Chaos sales, they should wait to introduce new things to buy based on Chaos sales.

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Yeah enough of these shitty side projects literally no one gives a shit about.

No burn I agree, I think the FOMO point could be as early as 2M with Chaos, probably 1.5M with Rift.

Not too far off!

Of course another problem is those pools offer a better return than card rentals, and there's probably enough funds in there to suck up at least several hundred thousand packs, maybe over a million.

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Pack Sales: I was thinking the same but went with my low end guess of one million. I think once we see 1.X million people will take notice.

ROI: Pools>Card Rentals>Playing the game for rewards.

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I am with you all the way. With (5), I assume that whales would simply have taken more packs, which could certainly be good for the card prices. However, newcomers would then probably have no advantage.

Here is !PIZZA I hope.

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(Edited)

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I do not understand why team becoming restless for selling packs. If pack supply sits there, it give them opportunity to implement and enhance land in peace.
But what I am hearing they are working for "Rebellion" set.

Still not much info related to land is released.

!PGM !CTP

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That's a good point. I wouldn't be against just letting the current packs run its course to free up some (what I assume is) much needed time and resources for land.

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Splinterlands Inc's business model is to keep selling packs because that's its revenue, and the sooner it can get the new series out the quicker pack sales go up.

But from my perspective, the sooner rebellion comes out, the sooner the untamed cards will lose value, because they wont be able to be played in modern anymore. So the team really need to release land and introduce value for the untamed cards before rebellion comes out in my view.

having said that, we need splinterlands inc to remain profitable and pack sales need to be at certain levels to maintain their cost base. Like with all start-ups that are successful, they will likely over-recruit increase their cost base beyond their revenue and unfortunately need to make redundancies in the future. So now is the time for them to be disciplined in their costs, and not require enormous pack sales to survive into the future. This is very challenging to do in the moment, especially when things are exciting and there is much hubris within the organisation, the next year or two will be telling how things pan out. I have confidence in the team to make the right decisions. My only thing is burning chaos legion packs to bring rebellion forward doesn't seem right for the players but right for spl inc, why not just delay rebellion?

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(Edited)

Splinterlands Inc's business model is to keep selling packs because that's its revenue, and the sooner it can get the new series out the quicker pack sales go up.

Agreed that Splinterlands INC needs revenue but just think about all that has sold already. 10 Million Chaos legion packs ($4 Each), All of Alpha ($2 Each), All of Beta ($2 Each), All of UNTAMED, ALL the mini sets and the Promo Card WAKA. Plus lets tack on the pack sale of Tower Defense, RUNI (Whitelist) and GLS ($5 Packs) and Land. If there is a shortage of funds I would be in complete utter shock. To be fair they don't get full value for these sold assets but even if the profit side of ROI is $1 a pack that is a massive amount of funds.

But from my perspective, the sooner rebellion comes out, the sooner the untamed cards will lose value, because they wont be able to be played in modern anymore. So the team really need to release land and introduce value for the untamed cards before rebellion comes out in my view.

Agreed, some value seems to shift from the previous set of cards to the newer set with each new edition. The fact a set gets pushed out of modern will almost certainly have an impact on its value. I don't see this changing. As you pointed out Land being introduced before the new set would be the way to go.

Like with all start-ups that are successful, they will likely over-recruit increase their cost base beyond their revenue and unfortunately need to make redundancies in the future. So now is the time for them to be disciplined in their costs, and not require enormous pack sales to survive into the future. This is very challenging to do in the moment, especially when things are exciting and there is much hubris within the organisation, the next year or two will be telling how things pan out.

I was going to touch on the very things you mention but opted out of doing so. Truth be told we might not of seen the worst of the current dip. There is allot to take in, I wouldn't want to be either founder because in the end its them that have to make all the tough decisions.

I have confidence in the team to make the right decisions. My only thing is burning chaos legion packs to bring rebellion forward doesn't seem right for the players but right for spl inc, why not just delay rebellion?

I have the same confidence in the team. As for the talks of a pack burn. Hopefully its just that, talk likely caused by the overall market that is trending downwards. Hopefully by the time they are seriously considering doing the burn we won't need one.

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Thanks as always for your analysis. I am pretty much in full agreement.

I especially could not agree more with suggestions 3 and 4! I think too much too fast is a big part of what is going on. And with it happening right into the teeth of an economic/crypto downturn... Well, yeah, things slow down.

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...too much too fast is a big part of what is going on. And with it happening right into the teeth of an economic/crypto downturn... Well, yeah, things slow down.

You said it, the dip is worldwide. Spending isn't high on the things to do list due to today's economy.

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I agree with your suggestions and I am also against a pack burn. I don't mind the team holding onto it to distribute as prizes or for special sales.

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Interesting read and I agree with most of your points. Not sure what's the rush - can't Rebellion wait till 2024 then? The issue is with all these recent changes made to the game, more and more people are leaving, and I don't see how new players are enticed to play a game where you earn close to 0 SPS for battles in Bronze, have to accumulate 1 SPS to claim and 4 weeks to unstake.

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The issue is with all these recent changes made to the game, more and more people are leaving, and I don't see how new players are enticed to play a game where you earn close to 0 SPS for battles in Bronze, have to accumulate 1 SPS to claim and 4 weeks to unstake.

To be fair, one can't expect to earn much with just the starter cards. Toss a handful of dollars on top of a starter pack purchase and moving out of bronze is relatively easy to do. I do agree that more needs to be done to attract new players/ keep existing lower league players motivated.

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This.

My thoughts exactly. Can't really understand why the hurry, and totally agree that tower defense and gls are more distractions that aren't helping at all. Plus, in one of Yaba's latest posts regarding cards combining, according to his math (if I recall correctly) all CL commons combined to L3 would create less cards than the current number of playing accounts. Hence... why the burn, if we're thinking long term?

Create more incentives for demand seems a good thing, such as special sales in festivities as you suggested: that's an awesome idea! !PIZZA

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