What's the main thing separating web3 activities from web2 besides "true ownerships"? To me, it's the earning potential. No matter how much I love a game or a platform, in the end, it all comes down to numbers, and right now, the numbers don't add up on Splinterlands.
It breaks my heart to write this, especially since Splinterlands has been an essential part of my morning routine for years, but now it's time for a change. In this post, I'm going to share some reasons behind my decision and also shed light on my new plans for the Hive Ecosystem.
First things first. I was never a SPS whale, nor did I own Land or have fully maxed out card decks. I was just a casual player who was buying a card or a pack once in a while, staking 10k SPS and earning a decent enough amount of SPS rewards, using my hard-earned cards.
I was staking all my earnings, and even though the SPS price has been declining for quite some time, I was confident it would surge at some point. Then, something happened.
Someone decided to do the craziest thing ever, and turn a play-to-earn game into a pay-to-play game. Yes, they forced us to pay to be able to play in the Wild League, the only league where OG players can still use their old cards, which btw, have lost about 80% of their value over time.
Sure, the Wild Pass doesn't cost that much, maybe a couple bucks. This made me purchase it for a few seasons, and I paid the price by unstaking some of my SPS. However, I soon noticed that the amount of SPS earned from battles wasn't enough to cover the cost of the pass. The numbers didn't add up.
In other words, by introducing the Wild Pass, Splinterlands sent a message that old school, casual players weren't welcome no more. Can't really put it in any other way.
Then there's the Modern League. This had better SPS rewards, and I was happy there until some time ago, the Chaos Edition was removed from Modern, meaning I would've needed to buy (or rent) a whole new set of cards to play. For those of you who haven't played the game, creating and upgrading a competitive set of summoners can be very expensive. And then you would need monsters, a lot of monsters.
If I zoom out and take a look back, purchasing a massive amount of cards and packs is not an option. Throughout the years, I've spent quite a lot of money on different card sets, mainly Chaos and Untamed. To be honest, I'm actually a bit scared to even take a look at how much their value has come down and to do an investment like that again? No, that's not an option. With the SPS price going down and card value inflation, there's just no chance I would ever break even.
Just recently, Splinterlands introduced another gaming option - Frontier. In this mode, we get to use Foundation cards, which are free and can be earned by completing campaign quests. Playing Frontier doesn't earn us SPS, but instead, we earn more Foundation cards.
Seriously, Splinterlands is taking the web2 path here, and soon, it's just like Clash of Clans, a web2 you can play for free but get some advantages by purchasing items.
In the future, we get to tell our grandkids that indeed, there was a short time window in the past where we actually played to earn, but those times are long gone now.
I loved Splinterlands, I really did, but I also have to protect my capital (or what's left of it in this case) and move on. Therefore, I've started the SPS unstaking process and am gradually swapping SPS into other assets. I have enough capital on other chains, so I've decided that the funds I get from selling SPS will remain in the Hive ecosystem. My first thought was to move the funds into HBD staking, but then again, this is the bull market, and something is buzzing on Hive.
Inleo, the micro-blogging platform we all use daily, has recently evolved into an ecosystem of its own. Or at least, it all feels like one is starting to form. With the launch and all the new features of LeoDEX, and the LEO token turning deflationary, adding to my LEO holdings seems like a very solid option at the moment.
In addition to that, Leo Strategy, a financial layer on top of Leo, also seems tempting. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the LSTR works similarly to Michael Saylor's Micro Strategy (now just Strategy). Even though their initial sale is now over, LSTR prices are still relatively low in my opinion.
I always like to invest in protocols, apps that I actually use daily. To me, that's a good basic rule. In this case, Inleo is something I'm definitely using daily and am planning on becoming a regular LeoDEX user as well soon.
Unfortunately, I can no longer say the same about Splinterlands. Still, this might be just a passing phase and the SPL team & DAO might come to their senses with the whole Wild Pass craziness. Therefore, I'm planning to leave some amount of SPS still staking there, and also, not planning on selling my cards.
If someday Splinterlands returns to its web3 roots, I would swipe the dust off my old cards and would prepare for a battle once again.
Thank you for reading!
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