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!
