Play to Earn: Motivation and Rewards
Playing Splinterlands: The Good and Bad
I’ve been playing Splinterlands for almost a year now and in many occasions, I would find my motivation to play the game dwindling or soaring defending on the rewards.
When I first played the game, I was extremely excited and would play the ranked battles for hours in hope of getting more EOS and Daily Quest chests to open.
Most of the time though I would be disappointed by the rewards but from time to time, I would be lucky and pull an epic, and rarely, a legendary card. Sometimes though I’ll get really lucky and pull some gold foil (GF) cards though most of them were common and rare GF cards.
My luckiest pull was a gold foiled epic card which was worth quite a bit back then. My current target now is a gold foil legendary card but sadly I haven’t pulled one yet as they’re extremely rare.
That being said the fact that I have a chance to pull a gold foil legendary card every time I open a chest kept me playing. And to be honest, I would have been satisfied to keep playing even if I couldn’t pull a GF legendary card as the game was really fun once you get the hang of the rules.
Well, I would have been if the developers didn’t implement updates that target the lower league players after a month or so of playing.
Indeed, when the game became really popular, the developers implemented updates that were detrimental to lower league players. These updates were supposed to curb the bots that were farming the reward pool but ended up hurting legit players in the lower league instead.
The updates that really hurt the players was the removal of the DEC reward in the Novice league, the implementation of Collection Power requirement before a player could move up to the next league, lowering the ranked battle rewards for every starter cards that players use, updates the forces players to buy or rent cards, and the nerfing of rewards in every league.
The implementation of these changes disappointed a lot of players, coupled with bear market; many became disillusioned and decided to leave the game and move to other play to earn games instead.
The ones that remained were players that invested a lot of money in the game and/or the ones that still believed in the game’s longevity – me being one of them.
Fortunately, our trust was rewarded because months later, new changes to the reward system were implemented that enabled player to earn more than ever before.
The new reward system allow players to accumulate as many chests as they possibly can, of course, the caveat is that players could win ranked battles and accumulate enough focus points.
The new focus point system allows lower league players to even the playing field with higher league players in term of number of loot chests that one could open every day and during the end of the season (EOS).
Before the new change was implemented, players could only open certain number of chests depending on their league – being in the higher league meant that players could open more chests.
With the new reward system though, that limit was removed. This mean that Bronze players could open more than hundreds of chests per season if they meet the requirements i.e. good at playing the game and have rented and/or owned cards to bypass the negative effect of using starter cards, etc.
The new reward system definitely boosted the players’ motivation to play, and although Splinterlands has yet to recover due the bear market, it’s only a matter of time.
Motivation and Rewards
What I’m trying to infer by describing my experience in playing Splinterlands is that the (in-game) rewards greatly affected the players’ motivation to play the game. If the rewards were worth the trouble, players would stay, play and invest in the game. If it’s the opposite then players would leave for greener pasture.
To keep people invested in a game or a project, it must be developed with longevity and stability in mind and not just for profits.
For example in my previous article, I’ve mentioned that most play to earn games were seen as scams because their developers only have profits in mind. Worse still, there were also developers that would develop games that promise quick profit only to abandon the project once they’ve attracted enough investors – taking their investors’ money with them. This is called a rag pull and is quite common in the crypto-space.
Another way to keep investors and players invested in a project is to make sure that the reward is substantial, at the very least, substantial enough that it won’t negatively affect the economy too much.
In my first month playing Splinterlands, although the daily loots and EOS rewards aren’t too substantial, it was still okay since the DEC prices are high due to the SPS airdrop. So even though I’m not earning as much as the long time players, I was still satisfied due to the DEC price pumped.
When the price of DEC goes down though my motivation was greatly affected, and although I didn’t stop playing, I wasn’t as excited as I was during my first few months. It was then that I realized that the team should do something about the rewards, especially in the lower leagues.
Lastly, updates should be balanced and doesn’t discriminate against small-time investors.
The reason I mentioned discrimination against small-time investor because after Splinterlands became really popular, the developers of the game implemented updates that greatly affected players in the lower league.
The first update I encountered since I started playing the game removed the ranked battle DEC rewards for the novice league. This means that players couldn’t earn DEC if they stayed in the novice league even if they emerged victorious in the ranked battles. It also means that if a player only invested $10 to purchase the spellbook, he or she won’t be able to earn anything in the game.
The developers of Splinterlands argues that the update was supposed to tackle the bot problem in the game but only ends up punishing the players in the lower league instead.
Similarly, the latest updates in the game forces players to own or rent cards to be able to earn, there’s no middle ground for this as every starter cards used reduces ranked rewards. This means that if a player uses only starter cards in ranked battles, he won’t earn anything even if he wins every time.
And if you think you can get away with just renting a single deck then you’ll be greatly disappointed because the new “Daily Focus” is very random.
The new updates don’t really affect older players, especially the early adaptors but is quite hard on newer players that don’t plan to invest much in buying cards.
Fortunately, there’s the rental market balancing things out a bit. Even if players don’t plan on buying cards, they still have the option to rent as long as they’re willing to add another dollar to the initial $10 that they invested.
The only downside to the rental market is that players control the prices of cards and that they could cancel your rent in anytime they wanted – cancelling before the end of the season is a common occurrence and is very annoying. Luckily, the most recent updates fix some of these issues, at least somewhat thus making it less annoying.
What I’m trying to say here is that although it’s no longer that easy to earn in Splinterlands with small investment, it’s still very doable as long as you play smart and take advantage of the rental market.
That and the fact that the barrier of entry in the game is much lower compared to other popular play to earn games in the blockchain. Axie Infinity, anyone?
Anyway, that’s all I have for now. But before I end this article, here’s a little disclaimer: Everything written here is just my personal opinion, it’s not financial advice. If you want to invest in play to earn games like Splinterlands, please do your own research and understand the risk before you do so.
Thank you and have a nice day!
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Disclaimer: This article was checked for plagiarism using the online tool; plagiarism detector, and was proven to be 100% original.
My other articles: https://read.cash/@beastion
