The subject for the Community Engagement Challenge this week for Splinterlands is the new Ambassador Program program. So here are my general unfiltered thoughts on that...
My Onboarding History!
As a player who has been around since 2018, I knew the previous Affiliate program and made good use of it during the Beta and Untamed days before the great boom. The deal back then was that for every player you onboarded, you got 5% of their purchase value paid out in credits. In a time when I really enjoyed playing Splinterlads (more than I do now) and where assets were expected to hold their value, I was very willing to shill and onboard new players into the ecosystem.
The Old Affiliate Program Death!
While I did very well on the old affiliate program, I also kind of feel scammed on it as at one point when DEC started to go below peg, nobody was buying packs anymore with credits as using DEC was much cheaper. So the earnings pretty much stopped from one day to another as the team only payed out in case purchases were done with credits. I did go on discord multiple times stating that this was not really fair and they stated that DEC was not paid out because it was 'not new money entering the system'. This was total nonsense though as it was good enough for the team to earn from but not for players who put in a ton of time to onboard the players. (This totally aside from the fact that the 5% might have been a bit too generous). Basically, the situation was a loophole that allowed the team no longer to payout affiliate earnings.
This continued to be the situation for multiple years and now they come with a new "Ambassador Program" while the old affiliates have been completely removed just like that showing no sign of existence on the website. I'm not sure if the purchases of affiliates in Credits still count or not but looking at the data, the last one dates back from 23 October this year.
For all I know they all are still active but with the incentive always to buy with DEC it's irrelevant anyway. So overall it's a combination of being grateful that the old affiliate program in Splinterlands existed as it allowed me to pretty much freeroll my way into the game while I mainly put a lot of time into it. On the other hand it feels like everyone kind of got scammed with the entire credits/dec situation and now the start from zero with the new ambassador program.
The New Ambassador Program
The new ambassador program is quite good to be honest as it gives 500 credits to you and the one who signed up with your link when they buy the spellbook. This makes it so that it's always better for players to use an affiliate link which on it's own is a valid reason to share it. For those who casually are able to onboard players (below 10) it also gives 5% of the Friends end-of-season Glints. In a way you could argue that this takes away part of the SPS reward pool from regular players as more Enegry will be created from rewards.
Those who really put effort into it and onboard at least 10+ players who purchased at least 100$ in the game are generously rewarded for it as it gives the old 5% of purchases but this time not with the credits loophole but done in DEC. There is also an extra 1% of the peer-to-peer transactions which I guess come from the fees that are paid on them.
Is the New Ambassador Program Worth it to Promote Splinterlands ?
I would say generally seen, it can certainly be worth it financially to put in the needed time and work to onboard a ton of new players as an ambassador. This only if you take it seriously and aim for at least 50+ players I would say as things really can ramp up once you start getting some payouts and you use them to onboard more players.
However, given the fact that they just killed the old affiliate program there is nothing stopping them from doing this again and if you think that work now will be able to potentially 'earn forever' it might turn into a big deception. This said, for me personally I would not want to promote Splinterlands to anyone of they asked my honest opinion. The way the game now is set it is as a black hole where it's almost impossible to actually come out on top as the earnings simply don't cover the asset devaluation with nothing really in place for assets to all of a sudden start holding their value let alone appreciate.
So for me, I will not participate in this whatsoever aside from adding my link in the articles that I still enjoy writing about the game which are always brutally honest without wanting to sell anything.
The Onboarding Blueprint!
So if you want to onboard new players to make use of this New Ambassador Program to help you grow in the game organically but have no clue how to do it, this is pretty much the blueprint that worked for me in the past. The most important thing is to know that all people really want who come into Splinterlands is to earn money which is the main reason they would sign up and start doing purchases.
Right now I see 
Conclusion
If you are willing to really put the time and effort into it and play it smart, the new Ambassador Program can certainly be worth it and earn you thousands of dollars over time. I personally won't partake into it as Splinterlands is currently a Play2Earn game that I'm simply not willing to recommend to anyone as I believe they are likely to end up losing money and time.
