A day or two ago (or was it a night? I lose track of time on Hive), @azircon wrote a post comparing some of the play results and earnings using Splex from @abh12345, himself and myself (and @xawi to put us to shame). While it is super interesting, it is also very limited, because only the last 50 games can be analyzed to see the trends, which is not really enough.

When I used to be an avid FPS player between the ages of about 18 and 30, statistics were a huge part of the gamification model, because at least back then (and largely still today) there is no money on the table so the ROI is your ability to win rounds, and bump stats for enjoyment. For example, things like Kill:Death ratio, hit percentage on different weapons, headshot count etc were all tracked and I remember moving from Ghost Recon over to Battlefield and being impressed by how much data was available through free websites. These would then come up in-game too, as people would check handles and compare themselves to to others.

All for the glory.

The irony is, that on the blockchains where all the data is meant to be transparent, it seems incredibly difficult to do similar, where for example, Hive histories often only look back at the last 30 days of information, making accurate accounting of transaction events (everything is a transaction) impossible.

Now obviously, there are some technical challenges in this at the base-layer, and hopefully some of those will be addressed in the coming hardfork. But when it comes to Splinterlands, I think all the game data should be compiled and available to query and build data sets from, giving broad and deep player and game information, as it enriches the Splinterlands ecosystem in fundamental ways.

Improving connection

Firstly, having those stats available means players are far more likely to spend time analyzing their gameplay and comparing themselves to others to improve their own skills, as well as develop new connections with the game, outside of just playing and managing cards. This is hugely beneficial as a gamification hook, because especially in crypto, people love numbers and in gaming, there are also bragging rights to consider. On top of this, as gaming develops alongside the investment model, players have to consider who they play for and, which teams are willing to take them.

As gaming becomes more "sport-based" in nature, if I am looking for a guild to play for, how do I know which is suitable for me and which is going to provide me the best benefits. Similarly, how does a guild decide whether I am worth it and analyze whether they are willing to attract me from another guild?

For instance, I have been involved with and playing Splinterlands for a year now. I own a lot of cards and even though I am missing some key cards, I am happy to rent what I need to play. And, even though I don't use many of the cards like Yodin Zaku (or Fire), I consistently rank in C2 with 4200+ points every season.

Who wants me to play for their guild?

There are benefits to playing with a guild built into the game, but what benefits are the guilds offering players who play for them? How am I meant to know who is going to "treat me" as a decent player, or who is going to take advantage of me?

Does this sound entitled?

Building Franchises

If we look at what is happening in the NBA or in Football as examples, there are all sorts of trade negotiations that go on and contracts spreading multiple years for hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a business, and they can do this because they have built up a sporting footprint with fan bases and the like. eSports is now doing the same and even though it is early stages, some of the teams are valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with one floating on the NYSE valued at something like 1.5 Billion, before crashing down on release.

In order for this kind of thing to start happening on Splinterlands, it really requires robust statistics for both players to improve and guilds to build their teams with the "best" available. It also gives the guilds more sponsorship potential, as they are able to prove their performance and the likelihood of outcome, where for example, there could be a year-long overarching season or for large tournaments with large SPS prize pools, where teams are incentivized to field the best they have in order to win significant amounts. A million SPS is 50K worth, 10M 500K worth - what if there was a tournament of that size or an entire season, where like in Formula 1, there is a "constructors" championship, the best guilds competing for the prize.

For this to happen, rules need to be introduced and trackable, which means a lot of data required, otherwise like in all things, incentivization will also bring the incentive to cut corners and cheat. The more potential value on the line, the higher the incentive and as we have seen in crypto, anonymity means that the checks and balances need to be in the code itself.

Developing Content

Taking all of the "business" out of it though, I believe that most serious players and many of the casual players will be highly interested in their own stats, if not the global stats of the game also.

At every end of season, there is a lot of content generated using the Season Report Card tool, created by @kiokizz. Whether people read these or not, for the players who create them, it is a chance for them to analyze their recent past to understand and compare against themselves and, create game-centric content for Splinterlands, which already probably has the most content of a game generated by the community for it on any blockchain, because you know, *this is Hive, * so there is a monetized ecosystem for content creation. Not to mention the other tokens associated with it, like OneUp and SPT.

The better this content becomes, the more consumable and therefore, the more attention it receives. In so doing, it gets traction and feeds back into the greater ecosystem of Splinterlands (and Hive in general) to further connect players to the game and build stronger communities. In time, the guilds themselves start to build their own interfaces and experiences, as well as player stables and fan bases more publicly, developing a feeder system into the game through content creation and audience experience development.

When people turn to the sports pages, what are they looking for?

Is Splinterlands providing the necessary "number hooks" that enable even non-players to become part of the game, through spectatorship? I know that for my Splinterlands content, more people who don't play read it than those who do play - weird hey? Not really, because of the way I present the content I write. For example and at a glance in the Splinterlands community, which post is mine?

The reason that I make my content like this is so that it stands out a little from all of the pictures of cards and Splinterlands logos, because it is not the same kind of content in general and, I have my own style for content creation developed over the years. This doesn't make it more valuable than the other content at all, it just positions it differently. Bringing that style to Splinterlands brings content differentiation, something that most of the content form tools people use don't, because people do not edit their posts much after, they just use the template.

Engage the Ecosystem

If there are tools where people can build their own data sets from easily, they are more likely to use it to develop better content. And while most people won't, those who do will become Splinterlands content creators that have a fanbase that can spread beyond the Splinterlands and attract a wider audience, pulling some of them in.

Engagement is vital.

And why is engagement important?

Because as I was scrolling through the content in Splinterlands, what had the most comments were the giveaways, but I came across a lot of zeros too, like the one posted above from two days ago. I haven't read the post, nor do I know the player, but I recognized the name from a reply to a question I asked @azircon two days ago.

I didn't know that! Where was the hype, the fanfare?

Grandmaster Rathe is the creation of @moriarty95 and well done mate, I really like it!! I play it often with Shieldbearer (that I have to rent) and often will sit at the back, using Jared Scar as the tank up front, with a couple Triage healers if I can and a Repairer. Works a treat!

But, that means, that the person who created this legendary summoner is also one of the largest buyers of Chaos Legion and looking at the main account;

Is holding.

Worth a read? I have no idea, but I think that I am going to throw a follow and see what comes of it, because this content looks interesting!

And obviously, @moriarty95 isn't doing it for the vote value.

They do it because they love the game as an investor.

I feel that a lot of people undervalue the content creation side of Splinterlands, as it doesn't necessarily return anything directly to them. However, for any investor, it is a vital part of adding value to the ecosystem and turning it into a gaming powerhouse in the broader market. Because of the opportunity we have to directly monetize content creation, it should be an absolute no-brainer to encourage and incentivize content creation, even if it isn't going to be a big earner for most people, because creating content connects people to the game, getting engagement on the created content keeps them connected.

Use the Force

While I might not be a top ranked player and a "little fish" Splinterlands investor (in the grand scheme of things, I do know a bit about content creation, engagement and the value it brings to the blockchain ecosystem. The reason that Splinterlands is such a blockchain success isn't only because of the game, it is also because of the opportunity it had to immediately have a community that backed it and a mass of content creation that convinced people to convert their HIVE (STEEM) into cards back in the day. I wasn't one of those convertors, I joined in very late.

No other blockchain game off Hive has had this kind of opportunity, because they had to start from scratch with gamers who largely had no idea about content creation at all, let alone experience creating for a community and a platform to create on, where that community already resides. It would be a felony not to use this power.

But, for most, they aren't going to spend three hours writing 2000 words on a post like this one a day for Splinterlands, but thy really should create something for Splinterlands, other than submitting transactions for battles. The reason is that it ingrains them into the culture of the game, not just the game play and this is a differentiating factor in the industry - Splinterlands has a culture.

Not only that, it gives them an opportunity to earn on the game, from the game, off the game, which gives them HIVE and a chance to build an ownership and investment profile that supports the Splinterlands ecosystem too. Or, they can convert some of their earnings into cards or resources in-game also. For the lower-end players, they will likely earn more on good Splinterlands content than they do from many hours of playing, so saving some ECR while creating a content is a good strategy.

But, we should be making it easy to create content and give the opportunity for many kinds of different content and, better stats would go a very long way in this regard. However, the on-chain data is not enough to do this, so I think the Splinterlands team need to build some kind of robust data interface or give API access to do so, which provides tools a lot more than what they currently have access to and, for a much longer period of time.

And speaking of longer period of time, this is pushing out there now and the attention span of most people is about the same as how long a LVL 1 Chicken lasts as a tank, so I will finish it up here and see who has read this far and what they think about Splinterlands statistics and content creation.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]