Ripples of decentralization

As I was travelling all of the last week, I didn't play a round of Splinterlands at all. This is rare, as generally, in a season I am around 600+ and up to around 1000 games per season. This season however, I started from Diamond 2 and my first rounds were on Saturday. This meant that I was able to get into Champion 3 in just 61 rounds and with a pretty decent strike rate (for me) also!

Then, in just 6 more rounds, I was able to move over halfway to Champions 2!

It has been downhill from there however, as I am falling back after winning only 2 of the last 14 rounds.

Still, I am pretty happy to be in Champions with under 100 rounds played at all, however, I am wondering if this is the best way to do it these days, because of the changes in rewards. So far, I have only managed to complete 2 daily quests, but with the new reward incentives, the reward cards are far better than they were in previous seasons. These might not be "that valuable" but I think it makes a difference, especially a year from now.

Speaking of a year from now

One of the key cards I play is Byzantine Kitty, which is a brilliant card, especially now that there are more high manner rounds. I don't own one (they are ~4000 for a max) and have to rent. The problem is though, the one I rented got cancelled and there are currently zero MAX Kitties available. Even if I wanted to pay more to rent - there are none!!

Thankfully, I was able to get a loan from @revisesociology and pay in dick DEC directly

But, what does this mean in the future? When there are a million more players, how many are able to compete at the top? Currently I can rent what I am missing, but scarcity is going to set in very fast on some of these cards and what that means is, the "second choice" cards start to come more into prominence in game - I might be able to compete against many, but once I meet the "full of deck", I am going to struggle heavily.

This is great though!

Because what it means is that more players will be able to compete at the top with lower level decks, because the full decks will be scarce also, meaning that perhaps at the pinnacle there will be the some old players, but snapping at their heels will be a mass of high level and talented players who if they prove themselves, will be able to get loan cards given to them. This definitely shifts the direction toward eSports territory and it will be interesting to see what kind of values can be generated on this in the future.

This does raise issues for renters like myself and whether we can afford to play at the top, but this is the way of all sports, isn't it? Not everyone has "what it takes" to compete at the pointy end, but that doesn't mean fun can't be had and, money can't be made.

In pretty much all other games out there, the majority of the value goes to the creators and distributors, but in Splinterlands, the players and investors are the stakeholders and the recipients of most of the value the game enables. As the platform grows, more values will be generated and increasing opportunity for secondary goods and services will be created alongside, giving people more opportunity to participate and earn.

If we look at a platform like Facebook for example, a lot of wealth is generated outside of the Facebook company, but because of the centralization of the platform, they are all at the mercy of the parent. That is not the case in decentralized experiences, so the users are owners and as owners, they always have options in how they participate. As I have mentioned before, it is entirely possible for someone to fork Splinterlands into another game and use the same assets there. THis is unlikely now perhaps, but I do see that in the not too distant future, more experiences popping up that enable owners to use their assets in different ways, perhaps even in different play formats, earning different secondary tokens.

What is brilliant about decentralized platforms like Hive is that there are endless possibilities through development and configuration at the second layer to provide all kinds of exciting assets and services, whilst still maintaining a uniform experience at the base layer. This gives devs a lot of room to build and still provide guidelines, certainty, security and a mobile userbase. This also protects users, as blockchained assets are their own, not the developer's, which means they are only ever a snapshot away from a renewal. This doesn't mean automatic value, but a strong community can rebuild and generate value in the same way it has on Hive, after splitting from Steem.

There are so many paths that a community on a decentralized platform can take through the second layer, which is why it is so critical to make sure that the base layer is robust, secure, fast, scalable and easy to build upon. This is also why Hardforks and economic mechanisms need to be run smoothly and aligned toward this end - but it is easier said than done when so many people have to agree. Still, while there are challenges in building in a decentralized environment for all stakeholders, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

Now--- I should wait until later to play a few more rounds to see if I can claw back the losses and squeeze myself into Champions 2 for the second time...

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]