Splinterlands is now the number two blockchain game based on number of users.
There are now 176,000 users that have registered for the game. This doesn't include how many have purchased a spellbook or even play the game. The number one game still remains Alien Worlds. In terms of the volume of money being used per day, Splinterlands is still is far, far behind Axie Infinity.
$15 million has been spent in a 24 hour period, while only $1,900 has been spent in the past 24 hours for Splinterlands. I would venture to guess it's because there isn't anything to buy at this time. There are no more card packs, the quest potions have been nerfed, guilds prices are extremely inflated and the price of Hive just skyrocketed.
In the past 30 days, the volume is closer to $500 million, while Axie Infinity did close to $1 billion dollars. The volume of players increased nearly 400%, while Axie seems to be dying out with an only 6% increase in player accounts.
This chart tells a more interesting story about what is going on within Splinterlands. The number of transactions has dropped from 4 million down to 1.5 million per day, after what looks like the end of the untamed and land plot availability (I could be wrong). It has flatlined at 1.5 million, even though the user base has increased from 40,000 to 176,000. At that same time, the volume has been sporadic.
This data leads me to only one conclusion. Farming. With the recent release of the spt token airdrop being based on your DEC amount and card value (among other less manipulatable variables), the rise of farming accounts have taken off. Taken off in a way that can ruin the ecosystem . Axie Infinity and Cryptoblades have been the two biggest games for farming, specifically in the Phillipines. Filipinos are not known to HODL, rather they do it as a job to feed their family. Ingenious I think, but it doesn't help the game's economy.
https://playercounter.com/axie-infinity/
40% of all active players for Axie Infinity are from the Phillipines. If you search on Facebook and other social media, there are tens of thousands of farmers you can hire at the drop of the hat. For those unfamiliar, you can delegate out Axies and split the profit. Since it takes about $2000 USD to build a fighting team, most can't afford to buy one. Generally the employees (called scholars) earn 60-70% of the daily profit and the Axie Owners (managers) keep the 30-40%. Managers hire out dozens of scholars at a time to farm the in-game currency called SLP (smooth love potions).
The problem is that the economy has crashed since mid-July. The price has gone from 37.7 cents to 11.6 cents per SLP.
Not only that, but the game developers have altered the economics to halving some of the SLP earning modes.
www.coingecko.com
I talked to a couple of these scholars that have been doing it for a while. One person said they were making the equivalent of $70usd in mid-July. I can only guess he's making less than $20 on a good day. This is still a great amount considering the minimum wage in the Phillipines is $8-$10 A DAY. Keep in mind, there are internet cafes where people use up to 6 phones at a time playing the game.
Cryptoblades has seen a similar crash for their in-game currency. It has lost 86% of its value since mid-July and has a very high user base in the Philippines. This makes the conditions perfect for migration to more profitable games, namely Splinterlands.
via coinmarketcap.com Price of a cryptoblade.
Most of what I'm seeing in the groups is people renting out cards to reach Diamond and then sharing strategies to do the same. Also, a massive amount of account buying to earn the daily quest rewards and to delegate cards to reach the high season rewards. I'm sure this is the reason for the non sticky season rewards that start next season.
Thanks for reading? Any insights are helpful and appreciated.