Splinterlands Predictions For 2021
Splinterlands 2020
I have been playing Splinterlands every single day in 2020 following all development and seeing it change over the year also growing my card collection from 492$ to over 1875$ without investing anything but time into it not even counting the 350k+ DEC earnings I used to buy some more altcoins recently or the post-earnings from blogging. (See Full Earnings Report). I do plan to make a guide on how to make money with the game next week possibly.I still see great potential in the game as the core is designed well and everything works smoothly with smart economics behind all of it. The main complaint I still have is that it currently all falls short to be an actual game that real gamers enjoy since the pay2win balance issues are too extreme and the initial user experience is still far from optimal. This shows in the chart of average daily users which has not gone up for a long time. Right now, half of the players are likely bots playing and for every new player that comes in, another one leaves. At least that is what it looks like
Most marketing that was done aimed toward 'crypto investors' and 'whales' as those are the ones the team earned most from and a lot of effort is being put in making sure the prices stay up which so far is working. Overpowered cards like Yodin Zaku and others were printed to incentivize players to buy in on the untamed pre-sale. The DICE set came out which burns DEC, a trading pair on Uniswap was introduced giving out a lot of rewards and now causing the rate DEC is printed to have increased. Land Sale was done, the Collection Power system was put in place basically putting players behind a pay-wall while the League Rankings system fractured the player base making it so that you often get matched up by way stronger or way weaker opponents depending on what league you choose to advance to.
The overall marketcap of cards has gone up over the year but the graph doesn't necessarily mean card values have gone up equally as new cards are being printed every day in the form of reward cards and packs that are being opened up. (also some are burned being converted into DEC).
Looking at the DEC value which is pegged at 1000 DEC for 1$ Purchasing Power in the shop, it ranged between 0.346$ and 1.1$. Not many new people coming on board combined with some of the biggest whales getting out caused bot DEC and cards to go out at a big discount during the year. The introduction of the DICE set made it so that a lot of DEC got burned, while the Land pre-sale and the Uniswap Liquidity pool took a lot of the DEC supply out of circulation for now. The rate at which DEC is not being produced has been increased in order to give incentives for DEC holders to keep it in there.
Right now the price is back below the peg around 0.76$ for 1000 DEC.
2020 Conclusion
There certainly has been a lot of development in the game with the team working hard to move things forward in 2021. Splinterlands currently is the #1 crypto game which on its own is a nice achievement especially looking at how it all started years back. I can't help but feel that things have gone downhill the 2nd part of 2020 making it way more of a pay2win & play2earn experience instead of just a fun game where you are able to potentially earn something as a bonus.
Splinterlands 2021 Predictions
1. The Team Will Continue to Work Hard.
I have no doubt that the team will continue to develop bringing new things to the game like the land expansion, getting into partnerships with other crypto projects, find new ways to keep card & DEC values up. If anything, following all the development around the game, is quite fun and I'm looking forward to everything that is about to come in 2021 regardless if it's good or bad.
2. Players Can Earn Good Money from the Game in 2021.
2020 allowed players to earn good rewards consistently by playing the game and I do believe this will be the same in 2021 even when coming in as a new player without being willing to invest much into it. You will have to play it smart though and many that come in will likely end at a loss or give up at some point.
3. Splinterlands Remains Pay2Win.
It basically all comes down to money, as long as there are enough sales of card packs and land, things will likely just continue in the direction where skill is completely neglectable to the point where most matches are won or lost before the first card has been selected. Sales are still going good at the moment since we are still relatively early on and the current crypto bull market on its own likely will make it that enough new people looking to possibly invest in the hope to earn something from the game.
4. No Mainstream Adoption in Gaming
I consider myself a gamer and try to keep up with the latest news of what is going on in the space. I haven't seen anything mentioned all year long about Splinterlands though and I'm sure if you ask 100 real gamers about it, only a few who are also heavily into crypto likely will have heard of it. I don't expect this to change even though Splinterlands certainly has the potential to appeal to the real gaming community. Right now, any real gamer would rate this game as 'the worst pay2win experience ever'.
5. DEC Peg Will trade below 1$
In the end, it's all supply and demand and at least right now, Supply > Demand with many bots and players grinding for-profit and not enough new players coming in to keep the 1000 DEC = 1$ peg. I don't see it going down to the 0.346$ lows (I will be a buyer at that point) but also see it having a hard time staying above 0.85$
6. SPT Gets Integrated and goes to $0.00050$+
Right now it is trading at 0.00013$ giving SPT a marketcap below 10,000$. I expect SPT which is the token from Splintertalk.io to be integrated into the game somewhere in Q2 with the "In-Game Inventory Management for Avatars & Skins" Update making it go up in price considerably.
7. Cards Retain Their Value
I don't see things collapsing anytime soon but also don't see card prices go to the moon. I expect that when someone buys, let's say 200$ worth of cards on the 2nd hand market today (especially with some insights on which are good value ones), they will be able to sell them back for at least around the same price at the end of 2021.
8. Average Daily Users 10,000
Right now the game has around 5000 average daily users and this is bound to go up as more people get into crypto with also the mobile app releasing. The expectations are nearly always higher compared to the reality which was seen with the 'millions of players' the game was going to get exposure to with the Brave partnership which turned out into somewhat of a non-event so far. They should be able to at least double their player base though and I would be surprised if the game didn't at least have 10k average daily players by the end of the year. This is still neglectable to what most real games have though not even talking about the wide adopted or popular ones.
That's about it, I don't really have an opinion on the Land Expansion. Overall, I do expect the game to do well with continued development and the entire economy to hold up. I however continue to have big doubts that the game will actually become fun again as all focus seems to be on the rewards and the economy with likely no direct incentives to change this around if the bull market continues.
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To see what can be expected in terms of earnings from the Splinterlands game, check my detailed monthly earnings reports...
To understand what the game is about and how it can be played check the video below!
Important: Treat games in the first place as games and not as investment opportunities, Splinterlands allows you to earn some money and get good returns but you are much better off flipping burgers in Mcdonalds when looking at the money earned for the time invested. Investing also comes with a risk of card values going down.
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that's bold - basically flat is what you're saying! The stats suggest it I guess.
I'm a little more optimistic about the DEC price - buy orders slightly above that level!
No mention of LAND in your post?!? Surely that's got to be factored in!
I still think that's going to be painful for investors... where's the market going to be for everything that's crafted, I certainly won't be buying, you neither I imagine - the whales are going to be selling to themselves!
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I'm on the conservative side when it comes down to making predictions. I guess the player base doubling while card values hold up can be considered flat. In the end, a couple of people are in control of the printer button and when card prices would go up too much they have all the power to make sure that money mostly flows back to them in one way or another. It's not that I distrust the team, but in the end, they are running a business for profit which has been made very clear with all the decisions that have been made with the game this year.
For as far as the land goes, I think investors will do ok against $ values but will get crushed compared to having put the money for the land into crypto during the time of development. That was basically the entire point of the Land and the pre-sale, devs getting money now to put into crypto just before the 2021 bull run to see their bags pump. I do believe they will put a good part of their gains to good use in a way that benefits the game.
Also, there are so many things that can go wrong. They invested a great concept with the economy which anyone is free to copy and I'm sure many competitors will pop up along the way which might be way more attractive for real gamers.
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Your outlook makes me want to sell my sell my second deck asap. One maxed deck is by far enough. I was already considering before your post but you added salt to the wound. I am way to overinvested into Splinterlands - but I still love this game (although not so much for the actual game but for the ecosystem, the community and the NFTs).
What makes you think that the SPT in-game shop will open around Q2? I didn't see that on the roadmap. They only mentioned that there will be a new way to manage skins but that sounds more like a foundation for a future in-game shop but the actual thing. I doubt they will implement it in 2021.
The land extension will shift dynamics of cards and prices around a lot. I will probably stop lending my main deck away and concentrate 100% on resource farming by sending all my cards into the mines. The question remains where the money for that will come from. If it is only whales serving whales, the longevity is questionable. I remain optimistic that they will adjust what is necessary to improve what they can. But some things seem broken at the core.
Monster Upvote SPT (Splintertalk.io)
Delegate SPT to @Monster-Curator with LeoDEX or Hive Engine and earn daily SPT payouts.I'm in the same boat with my 2nd account (it's only Level 3 which I barerly play aside from completing the daily quests these days) and I also still love the game more for the entire ecosystem. They have really made something new and interesting and everything is so close to being an actual game both real and casual gamers would enjoy playing. Currently, the target audience is limited to crypto people who are looking to make some money (by investing or grinding, running a bot) and that's about it. It is too much pay2win for real gamers as skill has become a non-factor. It also doesn't offer the initial fun experience for casual mobile gamers to get to the point where they become addicted since both investment requirements and the learning curve are too big at the start.
On the SPT, I guess it's also wishful thinking. They mentioned a couple times in the past during the AMA's that they were planning to integrate SPT as a payment option for cosmetic items possibly using nftshowroom. So when reading the roadmap which stated "In-Game Inventory Management for Avatars & Skins - Q2 2021" I guess it can be assumed that SPT could play a part in that. I don't think they will wait beyond 2021 to start giving SPT more of a function in the entire ecosystem.
I also remain quite optimistic that they will find ways to make it all work so they continue to earn good money while players stay happy as the bubble continues to grow. We are still early on and what they already have is a lot more compared to any other crypto game. The big question remains when to sell and to get out, in the end, there are not that many games from 5+ years ago that still hold up strong today.
Regardless of what happens, I'm looking forward to seeing it all unfold.
The thing about multiple decks is that nowadays ROI probability is not as high as before. Yet new players that join are unaware that the rewards scheme was swayed much better in the past. It has always been like this from the start, early adopters earned the most when they started versus players who started a year later and so forth.
I do think in the long run this helps Splinterlands increase value of its cards with the current rewards system. I noticed many cards that were half of what they are now just about 3-4 months ago. Demand on the cards appear to me increasing.
On the note of selling a secondary deck will definitely help spread the cards to more players and at current prices cards seem to be closer to all time highs, which is an ideal way of trading. Buy low sell high.
The reason cards were half the price 3-4 months ago was because some whales were dumping their entire collection. I also get the sense selling a secondary deck might not be a bad idea at the moment. Then again, who knows how irrational prices will go at some point, especially for cards that are fully printed even though I have a hunch devs will make sure the money flows to them one way or another which istn't even that unfair.
Thanks for sharing! - @ashikstd
You just crushed my hopes and dreams LOL
A lot of people saw the guy from Zynga games partnering /joining with splinterlands and got excited
i bet none of them know of the devs writing bots to cheat on the backend - i'm not saying he had anything to do with it - but here we are with all the f***ing bots AGAIN
i wrote my own bot for myspace mobsters back in the day - that was a lot of fun - maybe i'll see what i can come up with for splinterlands LOL
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