Second thoughts about buying a tract of land

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(Edited)

A few days ago I was happy to invest another $850 into @splinterlands, now I'm not so sure!

@splinterlands recently announced that they are going to reserve 27000 of the first 30 000 plots of land from the first pre-sale for individuals or pools buying whole regions (1000 plots in one go), with only 3000 plots left for those interested in buying tracts (100 plots) or individual plots.

This now means that most of the cheapest land in that first pre-sale is going to go to large buyers, rather than smaller buyers like myself, and a further corollary is that smaller buyers are now more likely to have to wait until the steeper prices in the second or third presales.

There's quite a difference in price:

  • Presale wave one: a tract costs 850K DEC
  • Presale wave two: a tract costs just over 1M DEC
  • And the full market value for a tract is apparently going to be 2M DEC.

I get the argument for giving the largest discounts to larger buyers, as they're taking more of a risk, but this has left a bad taste in my mouth, and a lot of other mid range accounts too judging by some of the comments on the announcement post and the Discord chat recently.

And by 'small' I mean accounts with over $1000 invested, so actually not that small at all!

I feel as if I've been promised something at a certain price, then that changed to 'potentially' at that price with the three waves (which weren't mentioned first off I don't think) and now it's 'you'll probably need to buy that tract for another 200K DEC mate'.

Now, until this announcement, honestly, I was just going to get online in a few days time and just BOOM invest another $850 in Splinterlands, and now I'm thinking 'fuck that' if that's how they regard my middle of the road money.

The plan was to buy a tract, guarantee myself a Keep, and a couple of dozen plots in the same area, and then sell/ gift the rest, however, now I'm not so sure as this announcement also made me look more carefully at the maths behind the risk of buying 100 plots....

I'm not sure they'll be that much demand for land

There are going to be at least 150 000 plots available in total (NB I think there are more, that's just what is for sale, there's the uniswap pool Land to add on I think), but let's stick with the 150 000 figure.

There are only just under 6000 active players. October saw almost 0 growth.

Screenshot 20201031 at 18.27.42.png

Many of those players are either too poor or don't care enough to even buy one plot of land, many more might buy just one or two, so that accounts for maybe 10 000 plots in total. I think I'm being generous here.

Around 300 players are very active, playing tournaments, these are the ones who will want larger stakes, maybe even whole tracts each, but given that you are going to have to pay to build things on the land, and maintain the land, and stake monsters, most of these accounts simply don't have the funds to manage anywhere near a tract.

Simpler maths tells me there is currently enough land for 25 plots per 'real player' (150 000/ 6000). That sounds like about what I intuit what I'd want, and I'm one of the more active and invested players.

Whales will buy and have to sell cheaper than expected

I think that's a very likely outcome from the pre-sale, several months down the line.

Of course we don't know how land is going to work exactly, but it looks like there's going to be costs associated with doing everything, and that's going to limit the manageability and profitability of land.

And more importantly I don't think there's going to be that much demand for the stuff, given that practically every player I know is going for a small-in during the pre-sale.

It might be more profitable to keep my DEC in the liquidity pool.

I originally put 500K DEC into the liquidity pool then pulled it out thinking I'd want to buy a tract, now I've put it back in again! I'm on for around 25-30 plots with my stake, possibly more if a good wedge of that DEC gets pulled out for pre-sale one.

And no, I won't get land in the same region, I might not get a Keep, but I figure I'll probably be able to swap land/ trade at a small loss and buy 20 contiguous plots on the market for not much more than I'd get them for in the presale.

I mean, remember the Untamed Kickstarter - the prices of the packs ended up being half what you paid for them during that!

I'm still undecided

I might still buy a tract in the pre-sale, I've got a couple of potential pool offers but TBH this announcement has left me a bitter, more over a little analysis of the lack of growth of the game has really made me think twice about investing this much.

The next couple of weeks might just be a good time to sell a good chunk of my DEC, this might well be the peak of excitement over land!

Finally, very finally, there are LOT of unknowns about this land pre-sale purchase... that might be the nail in the coffin for my tract purchase, well that and the zero growth in the last month - there's going to be precious little demand for any artefacts that come out of the land usage as far as I can see.

My hunch ATM is that if I buy a tract, I might just be forced into selling most of it at a loss in 2021!

HONESTLY, up until that announcement, I was HAPPY to invest another $850 in the game on trust, NOW I'm not, not at all.

In fairness to the @splinterlands team, they don't have to offer anything at a discount to anyone, there are options for everyone with a little DEC to get something, and it's up to us individuals to make our own risk assessments and buy, or not buy accordingly.

At the end of the day, I think what's really lost me is the fact that they mentioned (never promised in fairness) a price and then kind of reserved that for the larger buyers, leaving only a very small possibility of smaller accounts getting a tract or plots at the same price.

I can't stand that one rule for the rich and another for everyone else mentality.

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31 comments
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House always wins. And bots.
You're smart. I would wait.

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The thought had crossed my mind about bots and LAND,

That would just make the whole experience shit!

I can kind of see it coming though.

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Let people will whether the game turn around as more and more funds are needed for newcommers!

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better get some (more) real land an invest in real crops. Nothing provides a better ROI than an fruit tree in the times to come.

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What I can see is that I've teamed up with my guild - Team Possible - and we are pooling together. Hopefully we can grab some regions and get the most discount out there. I am not a big Splinterlands investor, my accounts value is about 1500$ and for the Lands pool I am in for 10 Plots. Hopefully this will be enough for me to build up and forge weapons.

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Best of luck to you, I know a lot of people doing this, which is why I think a tract might be a bit much - so many people will get their land this way! So where's the demand going to come from if i want to sell on - risky!

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To be honest, Splinterland created the design in such a way that biggest spender get the bigger discount.

Instead of doing three presale, they just need to do one presale with 150K land for fixed amount of time (like 1 week) . Whatever left will go to presale 2 or just go to sale.

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The next couple of weeks might just be a good time to sell a good chunk of my DEC

Now you're are thinking smart. Did you buy lots of Untamed packs when it came out? There is not enough information for me to decide and people are getting all hyped up.

I get bored playing Splinterlands these days, I hope it spices things up but I am not going all in.

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No I didn't take part in the kickstarter thankfully - I bought most of mine when they seemed cheep - around $1.30 ish.

Would have been better off buying none! just cards.

It is the lack of info that might just be the clincher!

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Man you kind of lost me with this post as I don't have a clue what splinterlands is, but since you are a bit disappointed about how things have changed and not sure any longer if you should invest those dollars into that plot or not have a look at AVA. I guess I recommended it to you a few days as well, and it just started to boom... again. Not saying to FOMO, but if you have some side powder you might consider it... I have a good feeling about it. No financial advice, no nothing. Won't even mind if you trash my comment as it is a bit inappropriate for your post, but I really feel excited about this coin.
Over and out :)

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I did noticed it went boom, I did put it on the list to look at, just a shame it went up yesterday, i might still buy!

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Yeah... when I saw the boom and the price it went from, I thought what a great trade would have been. It's easier to look back and ramble about it now. I could have sold something and buy more, I could habe done this and that... Be careful so you won't catch a falling knife as I did.

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And I thought you were talking about Portugal here...

Investing in a real plot of land ( make sure it has its own water mine ) is probably a wiser investment ;<)

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@revise.leo, Looks like your Splinterlands Journey shifted towards the Rollercoaster Ride. Enjoy your Ride and good wishes from my side. Stay blessed.

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I'm having second thoughts too after the announcement. I'd pulled enough funds for a tract but now it sound like there will be very few tracts in the first round.

If i do decide to bid but i'm unsuccessful at 850k then i won't be trying again.

I'm getting the feeling that splinterlands is turning into a pay to play game. If you don't have the funds then your at the back of the queue.

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It's a lot more to come up with to buy in the second wave, and a risk, a risk too far if you ask me, but we each have to make our own choices!

I thin it has been pay to play for a while now, it's just you don't notice it when you get free money from Hive, and a Steem powerdown of course!

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This is exactly why I quit the game. I only hope some greater fools come in to buy my cards at a profit.

The game will only get more expensive and I am done trying to compete for low low returns.

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I imagine they'll design the land expansion so that it's got its own league tables in its own right, silly titles and in-game benefits for those at the top.

I still want to be in it - because if we have another explosion in crypto interest, well, this game is going to be of interest to everyone!

And I've seen a decent return on the value of assets so far!

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I personally was pleased with the announcment of the lottery system. I was certain the presale would sell out in the first minutes. Now at least it will be a fair system of who can get in. It would have been sad to miss out just because the node you were using wasn't working at that time.
You are right that there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to the release of the land. It will certainly be interesting to see what it does for the game.

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It will hopefully be interesting!

Although another fact that's put me off is how crude V1.0 is going to be - stake higher value cards to land and get a better return - all I can see now are the dollar signs, NOT the cards or lore.

This game is an investment, but is also a game, I was hoping land might better trick my mind into thinking it was more of a game, but after all this, no chance of that happening!

I may as well stake any old token in a pool somewhere!

And DEC's done a 3 times for me - I bought in a good 500K a while back, selling is very tempting ATM.

I need to re-read the AMA's and see if and when that DEC from presale 1 is going to be put back on the market!

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(Edited)

I'm a small fish (OK - small dolphin), on Hive as well as on Splinterlands and I participate in my guild's pool with only one plot. I want to know how that will work out with the more RPG elements, which is my favorite element of games. Investing in the lands probably won't pay out - though if you want to stay at the top of the rankings, you might need it.

For me, it was always a game - that the cards are worth now more than double what I "invested" is nice, but money paid for hobbies is always well spent in my opinion.

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i get you one this one...my initial thought was also just go for it..boom invest and be happy..but I havent been coming back on my decision more and more...

not even sure if I will buy land at all if I am honest..

on the other side...splinterlands are partnering up with a lot of things so there is room for expansion with more users...

but 850...i think not from my side...
getting the dec now..letting it soak..maybe will sell just before the release date

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It is a lot of money to invest when there are so many unknowns.

I've opted to go for 10 plots as part of a pool now, a compromise, enough to play the game at some level, and now I've got a shit load of DEC to play with - I've already sold some - It is a good time!

This could be the best thing that's happened to me - I'm not a massive gamer and you can bet that they're going to design LAND so it just requires you to sink more and more DEC to get anywhere!

In taking profit terms, selling with this crazy DEC pump might just be the way to go.

As to expanding, there's no evidence people are interested at a lower level, it's crap down there, there's scant demand for anyone investing thousands to make a profit from below!

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