Hello Praetorians!
It is I, The Psi, back with another article questioning the very fabric of the Splinterverse! You can always count on me to try and shake things up with another suggestion to make the game better for our player base!
This time, I'd like to talk about the fact that I believe the best way to move forward into Conclave Arcana would be to REDUCE the pack price from the 4000 DEC point that was established during Chaos Legion, back to the "classic" 2000 DEC price that was used in Untamed and before.
There are many reasons I'd like to offer as to why this would be beneficial, and I've created both this Hive post as well as a video to explain my position in the hopes of a successful DAO vote to implement this change. In the last Town Hall, Matt himself said that IF a DAO proposal were to pass, that YES, the price WOULD be changed! So it is not a question of "if a proposal passes, the team would consider it", NO, if it passes, the team WILL make this change! That fills me with hope that we will have a lot of participation in this conversation, as well as the DAO proposal that would accompany it. (NOTE: I would love to have some help getting the DEC together to fund the proposal! If you can help, send me a message!)
The first thing we need to consider as to WHY this would be a beneficial change would be to look at the economic position and the changes that have been made to the game since Chaos Legion, when the pack price change to 4000 DEC first happened. That was an entirely different ecosystem that may have justified such a price, but those days are in the past, and with them, the huge profits that used to be able to be generated in order to fund such a price.
All of these factors will result in more OUTSIDE capital being needed to purchase packs, instead of being able to roll EXISTING collection value into buying future sets. As such, we are relying on NEW money coming into the game, whereas previously there were more ways to leverage your existing collection
You also have to take into consideration community sentiment, and the fact we have a reduced player base vs previous releases. There is a sentiment that the "buy in cost" of Splinterlands is so high, that it no only discourages NEW players, but also older players! We can see this evidently in the backlash from the pricing of the "Hall of Legends" promotion, where many players felt they were priced out of important meta cards that would never be available again.
Many of the people I have spoken with over Discord have expressed that at $4 they would NOT be buying into Conclave Arcana! Based on their previous experience with Rebellion, the large amount of money they invested didn't even materialize into a max nor competitive Rebellion deck, that they will just buy singles, if even that. Would we rather have a large number of players buying lower prices packs, or a smaller number of players buying more expensive packs?
Some of the questions become:
I feel I should also address 2 points that have been brought up around why pack prices should stay at $4.
We also need to look at how competitive we are when we compare ourselves to OTHER games people could be playing.
Splinterlands is VERY expensive.
For the cost of a Diamond deck you could EASILY build multiple Magic the Gathering decks. You could buy a brand new Playstation 5 with a ton of games. You could have a Vacation. You could buy an entire bag worth of Disc Golf discs. Heck, you could buy a used CAR!
If we are to compete with these other opportunities, there has to be a strong value proposition. It's hard to justify spending thousands on mid tier deck in the face of other opportunities and the DRAW and INCENTIVES need to be there. Lowering the cost of packs would at least lower the barrier to entry and allow more people to try playing the game instead of looking at the price tag and immediately dismissing it.
I have created a YouTube Video that you can watch that further explains some of my thoughts and goes over these points in audio format. You can view that video HERE:
I hope this post has energized you to vote for reducing the pack prices to 2000 DEC. I feel strongly that this is the best way to bring in more players, and elicit more investment into the ecosystem from existing players.
The "old" Splinterlands economy is no more, we have to adapt along with the many changes both the game and player base have experienced.
Please vote "YES" should there be a DAO vote on the subject!
Until next time, it's your guy, The Psi, and I'll see you around Praetoria!
Cheers,
Psilence
