EXTRA #13: Is Splinterlands living up to its full potential? A different point of view in 3 points.

The Splinterfest just finished, it has been an incredible in-person event for the Splinterlands community, and I thought that the big success of this event could be a nice starting point for some of the "controversial" topics I would like to discuss in the following post.

Unfortunately I couldn't follow it because I was working, but it must have been really interesting.

This is a difficult article for me to write, I researched a lot, and I drew my conclusions, it is important to start this post by emphasizing the fact that I really respect the work the devs are doing for this game and that I wrote it only because I truly like this game and because of that I would like to see this community grow in the best way possible, more and more.
I also hope to start a civil discussion thanks to this article, I mean no disrespect to anyone, in any way.

Now, the important premise is over, let's see the points I want to discuss.

I'll divide this post into three parts:

1 ) Comparing Splinterlands with non-play2earn card games.

2 ) Trying to propose a more conventional way to bring new players into Splinterlands.

3 ) Highlighting what I think is a big weakness for an accomplished game like Splinterlands.

These three topics are correlated, I just hope I will be good enough to explain myself.

1 ) When we talk about online card games, the first two that come to mind are Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone, so I made some research about these two games:

The first important thing is the landing page:

A landing page is a standalone web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. It's where the visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email or adv.

So I searched the MTG and HS' landing pages:

Magic the Gathering's landing page.

Hearthstone's landing page.

And eventually:

Splinterlands' landing page.

It is important to specify that less than 20% of people who open a landing page scroll down, because of this I analyzed only the "first" part of it.

So what are the differences between Spl and the other two games?

Splinterlands doesn't have a optimized landing page because if you know the game, the buttons on the upper left side are the in-game buttons, Spl's landing page has no written words to explain what the user would click on, and on the page, there isn't a preview of the cards or the assets, so basically, a new user that opens this page doesn't see anything else that an ordinary card game.

Personally, I would include some easy-to-do yet important changes on the landing page:

1 ) Let's specify what the buttons are instead of showing only the images...I know the user could just pass the mouse pointer on the spots and they would know what they are...but let's be honest, we know internet users, we are lazy.

2 ) In the free spot on the upper right side, let's show that Splinterlands has an app, the presence of an app is an enormous encouragement to play a game because it becomes "portable" and easy to play, everywhere.

3 ) We have a lot of talented artists in this community (unfortunately I'm not one of them), so why not organize a special art contest to draw a proper landing page background? A background where there should be enough space to show how the actual cards are and maybe a tutorial button.

4 ) Why not include some preview or links to some of the well-written posts on Splintertalk or videos on 3speak about Splinterlands? This community has some amazing creators, their work can be useful.

5 ) If I find Splinterlands, not through the play2earn hashtag, I would think that I would earn useless in-game currency so not a real earning, so even if on the internet landing pages there's the rule "less is better", I think it would be important to specify what a player could earn.

Please note: Focus on the second and the fifth point, it is essential to remember that I talked about users that don't know about the play2earn hashtag, I will be clearer further on.

Please note 2: I'm not criticizing the work of the artist and devs that created this landing page, I just think it could be improved and more new-user friendly.

After the landing pages, I analyzed the games' populations:

And I compared those stats to Splinterlands' population:

Source: semrush.com

If the presence of the Philippines and Brazil is not unexpected as you can check here they are in the top 15 countries for Crypto Adoption and active in cards games too, I noticed a certain lack of presence from European countries, researching European countries singularly I noticed that the % of European players is around 15/16% and the 13% is from the 4 top populated countries.
But, as you can see from the previous image, there is a strong European presence in both MTG and HS games...so I asked myself why? What is the difference?

And we can pass to the second point of my blog:

2 )Splinterlands, please, come to Europe!

I know, I sound like some football (or soccer) fan that asks their favorite player to come to play for their favorite team, but I would like to use this phrase to explain something a bit more complicated.

This specific part of the article is more speculative because I honestly don't know and I didn't find anything through my research about the advertisement of play2earn games.

Probably the real difference is that Splinterlands is seen as a simple "way2earn", not as a game to play, which should explain the strong presence of countries bonded to crypto and the lack of presence of countries that play card games.
I would like to show partial proof of my thought, during the last January I interviewed the Leader of the biggest Italian guild in Splinterlands (I'm Italian, so I thought it could be interesting), I want to quote his answer to a specific question about playing:

18 )As a not very active player, do you keep playing Splinterlands because of the fun of playing it, or do you see the game more as an asset “deposit”?

I’ve never been a person who played a lot of trading card games, that’s why even if Splinterlands is funny to play I prefer to rent out my cards gaining a daily reward than spending my time playing it.

You can find the complete interview here.

So what does this answer tell us? That in Italy, a country with less presence in Splinterlands than in the Crypto World, most people probably arrived for the "earn" not for the "play" part of this game.
Reflecting on this, I got an idea... Splinterlands is a nice game, it is funny, it has an app, it's easy to play and it is possible to buy assets even using credits, so not using Cryptocurrencies...why shouldn't Splinterlands compete against those giants of online trading card games? As a player, would I prefer to play and spend my money in jpegs useless assets that have no value and stop having value for me if I stop playing the game or spend my money and time having fun and having real money value?
I mean, playing a game for fun and earning a little money is better than gaining nothing, isn't it?

So I developed the idea of using the inverse way of thinking...I know cryptocurrencies -> I play2earn but why not use Splinterlands as a "university"? Why shouldn't it be: play while you learn about Cryptocurrencies?

As I said, we have numerous talented content creators, the Splintertalk rewards could be redirected partially to a University (or a magic school, to remain in the fantasy universe), where valuable creators write posts for every type of player, for the Crypto educated and for the Crypto uneducated.

Taking advantage of the fact that Splinterlands is already a well-developed game to attract new players and pull them into the Crypto world, would that be so bad?

As always we have to talk about numbers because the market is saturated with card games, so how could Splinterlands be introduced to the non-Crypto World?

Well, festivals are not only in the USA:

These are the 5 top videogames festivals in the top 4 European Countries by population.

Please note: those festivals are not related to the Crypto world (yet). Splinterlands could be the first play2earn game to become a connection between the gamers and the play2earn gamers.

Some other numbers:

The numbers and visibility these festivals have are enormous (the Milano Games Week had 70k visitors even during the Covid-19 pandemic).

It would be a big investment to participate in these festivals but if we count 200'000 people and a conversion rate of just 5%:

The conversion rate is the percentage of users who take the desired action. In our case, convince users to play Splinterlands.

there would be 10k new players per festival, adding a precious new generation of players who came for the game and not only to earn.

Obviously, to incentivize players there could be a special card for those who are already Splinterlands players if they buy a special ticket, as for the Splinterfest for example.

A sort of non-tradeable token, just to collect the presence, aesthetics are really important in modern games, just think about totally free-to-play games sustained only by the microtransactions like Rocket League or Warzone.

Talking about aesthetics, I think it would be important to take advantage of a renovated passion in card games, collectability.

NFTs and card games are both collectibles, why not take advantage of that for Splinterlands? Creating a sort of Splinterlands binder that shows the cards you own, divided per collection, simple but impactful.

Another thing to improve the collectability could be adding "special" cards to packs:

Please excuse the poor layout, I'm not really good at artsy things, it just shows my idea.

Unique cards, not mergeable but sellable, think about a unique card, already max leveled how interesting could it be in the NFT world?

Or, for example, why not include a 1st edition badge on the cards bought during the pre-sales? The pre-sales would become even more interesting, and the 1st edition badge would be visible only for non-merged cards or for cards merged between 1st edition cards, the collectibility would raise, but the possibility to sell and rent cards wouldn't be affected.

Obviously, I'm not a developer so I honestly don't know if it could be possible.

Please note: I found this idea reading the Splinterlands' Discord but I don't remember who had the idea, so I can't give credit.
I also took inspiration from parallels card collections, you can find them here an example (with jackass cards).

Speaking about Discord, I read another conversation where users were saying that the team is more interested in having a small user base, more loyal, and easier to manage, so the idea of finding new players and advertising the game could be totally useless...I want to use another interview to bring to light an interesting fact, I was lucky to be able to interview Thebadwitch aka DaveMcCoy one of the first supporters of the game and a recognized helpful user, leader of one of the biggest Guilds in the game, here the complete interview.

I would like to focus on this question:

19 )Do you think players with big cards collection could influence the market? For example, deciding to call themself out and sell all their cards?

Few users mean bigger collections

Sure a big collector can influence the market. But only for a period of time. As stated above, we've seen a HUGE player not only exit but try to tear the game down in the process. So while it affected the prices for 6 months or so, today I don't think there's a person around from that timeframe that isn't ecstatic to have been able to participate in that firesale.

The answer Thebadwitch gave me was really interesting because while it is reassuring to know that a single player can't influence the game thanks to all the loyal other players, at the same time it says that it took 6 months to reabsorb the sale...I'm not trying to scare anyone or FUDding, that is absolutely not my purpose, but if the game begins to only be based on big players, what could happen if more than one decides to stop playing and sells their collection?

I think that new-generation players should be scouted, especially where there is a passion for games, and not only in the Crypto world because I think that the real purpose of Cryptos is not to be elitist but to reach out to as many people as possible, bringing them to "our side".

The Cryptos' goal is mass adoption, and having new players to educate could be refreshing and useful for the environment.

3 )And now, to finish my long post I would like to talk about a big problem in Splinterlands, something that honestly bothers me a little: the App.

For mass adoption or simply for better usability, an app is vital, for every industry, game, or whatever. With the app the game is portable, you are incentivized to use it because it is on your phone, and it is convenient.

Source statista.com

Practically everyone will use the phone in 2025, so why not focus on the app's improvement?

I want to quote parts of this article dated 2021:

Mobile app downloads will likely reach 258 billion in 2021, which is about a 45% increase since 2017.
As mobile app usage is increasing, in 2021, the industry is expecting to generate approximately $156 billion, and more through customer app spending.

Besides, mobile apps help in enhancing business accessibility. It equally facilitates businesses to develop a robust relationship with customers, permitting strong customer loyalty and a genuine customer base...

Stats say customers spend more time on the company’s mobile apps instead of on the company’s mobile site. Mobile app development can help brands in attracting new customers and attain success.

As I said before, I'm not an expert developer, but I can imagine that an app with the same full functionality as the Splinterlands' website, could yes have some restrictions because it would work as an exchange, but the importance of having a well-developed app, which is working and updated, should be essential for the present and for the future of an online card game.

As I already suggested, why not ask our amazing artists to create a new loading page? Something fresher and more eye-catching, and what about removing "updating assets" and writing something more Splinterlands related to like: "waiting for the Riftwatchers" or "Unleashing Chaos", just to take care of the details.

I also highlighted some important missing functions on the app, like the impossibility of buying packs, it really lowers the hype and the involvement.

Well, my infinite post is over, if you read it all, thank you, personally I really like this game and my suggestions are just constructive criticism from a passionate player. I'm totally enthusiastic about all the news about Splinterlands.

I particularly want to specify that I talked about Europe because it is where I'm from, and I know those festivals better, but that argument could be applied to every country and continent in the World.
Because the Cryptos belong to the World.

I also recognize that a big investment in an advertisement during a bloody Bear Market would be unwise...but you know Bear Markets are the moment to plan the future, and in-person events are important to strengthen the community, 2024 is not so far away.

I want to finish this post by already thanking all the people who will want to discuss all the arguments I brought up here.

As always, best regards,
Magalli

P.S. my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=magalli

Posted using Splintertalk