Attracting New Players
The $10 Spellbook should either add more value or be removed all together.
As it stands you're only getting a $3 value through credits and the "ability" to earn rewards. That ability doesn't translate to much if you’re losing all the time or you have no SPS staked - unless you love trudging along at 1RP per win. Understandably Splinterlands is assuming the $7 helps to cover cost of adding a new player that now has a wallet and has overhead to run on the chain. The company needs to shift that mindset and assume the return will come later in the form of potion, card packs, rentals, SPS purchases.
The best solution to this is to remove the Spellbook cost or make the value equal for the player ($10 Spellbook = $10 in credits). Even if it costs the company $10 to add this new player they need to anticipate a good environment will lead to the player investing more down the road so they’re getting a ROI on the $10 they “gave” to the player.
Eliminating the Spellbook cost doesn’t create a bot issue. If there are a million bots and they’re paying to remain competitive or adding value through staked SPS it is still “good” for the game. Remember bots still require fundings and investments to works. The only issue is a game that says bots are better at playing the game than human players. If that’s the issue then we just need to abandon this game as it wouldn’t be very fun. (I don’t think this is an “big” issue as bots can’t anticipate what deck you’re going to play - but more on that in a later post). The point in these situations is to have players join, enjoy the game and then invest/buy. This is the typical freemium model. If they enjoy playing they’ll rent/buy cards and SPS. Right now the issue is new players are not enjoying the game because it is impossible to compete and win with the base set of cards. So they’re just losing and see no value.
My solution to this is to give all players all the cards in the game or at least all the cards available for modern and create a new mode “Free”. This works two fold. One it advertises all the possible cards and shows their abilities creating a market later for them. Second it allows players to see that they can win. I would have the “Free” mode replace “Practice” and be exactly like “Ranked” in every way except it removes traditional rewards (SPS and chests) and replaces them with rewards that incentivizes them to buy packs (ie. potions). This would also give a little incentive for traditional players to play in the “Free” mode if they’ve used up all their energy for the day and don’t want to buy more. This would ensure there are enough players in the match making system to keep queue times low. The cards would be maxed out at their league levels.
Let’s make this happen!
That's a better idea than increasing the current spellbook price obviously. A ranked demo, with rewards non extractable incentivizing the purchase of packs as you say.
Great idea, hope you can push it further as I fail to see that being abused, which means it's quite solid to protect ranked value, while offering a F2P mode.
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STOPIt amazes me that this game still doesn't support a tournament like the ones from MTGA. $25 entry, 2.5k prize.
(I assume entry fees are net positive for the company.)
I suggested something similar like 2 years ago.
Tournament events remain equally unattractive. Back then to own a deck, you would need like 5k or probably more cause it was the high point in crypto. All to compete for a prize of $3 or something. And that was just silver.
You can scale it down too, $500 entry, 750 prize, 2 players etc.
They've had to revamp the tournaments. Thankfully, they’re just about all free now so they're basically taking the approach of "we'll pay you to play our game" the sad part is that still isn't enough to attract players.
As you mentioned you have to invest a decent amount to have a chance at winning those tournaments. You could rent but you would probably have to plunk a good amount and if you’re not in the top couple of tiers you’re losing out. But hopefully you can make some of that back in a brawl (if you’re in a guild) or winning more games with those better rented cards. However managing all of that becomes a lot of “work” which can be tedious and isn’t fun to a lot of people.
They need to get more players in. Instead of worrying about burning cards or trying to manage the currently over saturated market as there will be an increased level of demand.
I don't think being free matters as opposed to literal pennies. The prizes are far too low relative to the costs of investment.
Who's going to spend $400 to win a $20 top prize (if even that.) (Yes, you can resell the deck, but I don't buy that argument.) You can also rent for cheaper, but then it's not exactly free.
The argument given to me before was that you can play more than just one tournament. This is a game, not a job, and people have lives so it's equally unattractive.
$25 cost for 2.5k prize. Now, that's attractive. Can splinterlands support a format like that? Idk. (Haven't tried the one on MTGA, but won't be surprised that one day I will.) If Gods Unchained wasn't on eth, think I would've tried the draft mode too.
True. I can see that point of view but I see it as an added benefit when it is free. I wouldn’t pay anything to play in tournaments, even for pennies. I’d rather use those pennies to buy more Sps.
But this is a little off topic. My point with this article is to draw in new users with a fun experience. If they want to invest $500 to play with their own cards and win in battles, tournaments and brawls to earn rewards they can. Or as you put it they can just have fun for free and not have it feel like “work” to earn money to get back a return on their investment. However, we’re not even at a point of attracting players into the game to get them thinking about making that investment. It is a no go from the start. If the game is fun and engaging I leave it up to the users to determine if it is worth investing in and that is the topic for another article.
I agree that a fun experience should be first. The creators of the game are overly fixated on economy manipulation whereas for games with economies (real money trading) even though it's not supported or banned, regardless it still happens. Those games don't pay attention to the economy.
MTG (legal), Like every mmo (illegal.) Some action rpgs (diablo etc.) League of legends too.
Games utilizing crypto should be fun game first, economy second. As for a game that succeeds on that aspect? yet to be found.
Lmk if you find one! 😆