My 1850+ Day Splinterlands Journey So Far!

Lately, the Social Media Challenge in Splinterlands each week has a theme which is a way helps to find topics to write about keeping up with the weekly blogging routine. This week It's all abouts Sharing your Splinterlands Journey.

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Splinterlands Discovery!

As someone who was onboarded to Steemit in 2017 as a blogger, I got to see the birth of Steemmonsters but I hesitated at first to get in since I was too cheap to pay the 10$ for the starter pack (which at that time even included the actual starter cards as NFTs including the summoners). I also just wasn't sold on the visuals of the cards and the battles being used to playing Hearthstone in the past.

What eventually got me in by October 2018 was the fact that there was starting to get more hype around the game in the Steemit community, friends that I had made on the platform playing and talking about the game, and the fact that I got a Promo Code for a free Starter Pack from @clove71 (Thanks again for this!)

Since I'm a blogger, Splinterlands always was part of my content starting out with an initial impression 4+ years ago (Link) and this is what I had to say...

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1860+ Days & Counting

While it took me some days to really get into it and understand the mechanics, It did manage to capture me and I never stopped playing and building my investment ever since! As I started in October 2018, It's been roughly 1860 Days of me playing, building my assets and earning something along the way.

I'm not planning to stop anytime soon but at some point in case there is another adoption wave with prices going crazy, I will have to take the step to move on mainly since it would make sense financially.

Time Spent in Splinterlands

Honestly, I have spent way too much time in Splinterlands not only playing the game but also following the development and making content around the game. The good thing is that I generally enjoy all of it very much although at times it's a bit of a love/hate relationship. I had some time when I used Archmage/Splintermate to play for me but now I'm just doing my battles manually on both my accounts each day. I do see the time requirement as one of the main issues in the game as it really does add up. In the past it was possible to quickly play the daily battles, but they are taking much longer nowadays with multiple game rules and so much more cards available.

I also still make 2 weekly blog posts entering the Battle Challenge which helped me to get better in the game and the Social Media Challenge. While I enjoy wrting about the game. these challenges also make up for a large part of the earnings from the game which I use the re-invest and grow my assets.

Accomplishments

I guess one of my main accomplishments in Splinterlands is that I'm a fully Free2Play player as over the years got more out of the game compared to what I put into if even if all my assets would go to zero tomorrow. I never really got hung up on buying packs (even though I did buy 610 for Chaos Legion which I got crushed on) but instead always aimed to buy cards off the market using earnings from the ecosystem.

While my collection at some point during the peak of the hype with way fewer cards in it was easily worth 50k+, I never really took enough profit now leaving the value at close to 6000$ which still is nice given that it's a game that I've enjoyed playing. It's also just a part of my assets as I hold quite some SPS, 3 plots of Land, SPT tokens, Totems, and I also have and alt account with gold cards, and a 3rd account for rentals.

The way I managed to do it all Free2Play is through consistency, playing each day collecting rewards that used to be worth a lot more. I also managed to bring in a lot of new players back in 2020 before the game and prices exploded. I made a detailed post each month breaking down all my earnings from the game while offering a great sing-up bonus that included free rentals to help players get started.

January 2020 | +136.44$
February 2020 | +105.25$
March 2020 | +76.153$
April 2020 | +133.927$
May 2020 | +180.384$
June 2020 | +105.774$
July 2020 | +112.810$
August 2020 | +138.59$
September 2020 | +92.13$
October 2020 | +98.60$
November 2020 | +115.32$
December 2020 | +112.60$

With the affiliate money, I bought more cards that were very cheap at that time the improve the offer that I was able to make getting in even more players. This alog with many guides got me to onboard ~800 people to the game most of them well before the game peaked.

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Plans Going Forward

While I really like the game along with its community, I equally put importance on the actual earnings it potentially brings. This unfortunately has gone down systematically as in the end, more new players always need to join indirectly as exit liquidity for older players. This hasn't really been the case even though I do at some point see another adoption wave. Rewards have been nerfed rightfully so many time to the point where I no longer see Splinterlands as a game with much earning potential for newer players. Basically the way things go now is that you spent a bunch of money on packs or cards that allow you to play the game (in most cases not optimally since the pay2win is too strong making it expensive) to earn some rewards which end up as lowe compared to the drop in asset values.

At least that is how it has been for some time and the only thing that can change that is some new hype around the game causing demand to be higher than the supply. The best play right now financially I believe is to just hold SPS and have it staked as everything is designed so value flows into that over time.

I do plan to continue playing during in the coming years but I won't be buying a ton of rebellion packs and I will stick to just 3 plots of land. I might get some cards to have fun with or to make my collection more powerful along the way. If there is another adoption wave, I do plan to start taking some profit reducing my exposure. All this while holding onto the SPS that I have unless that also goes totally irrational. I'm quite sure that I'm going to want to stay in the game and that it will be extremely hard to say goodbye to it. The time commitment however has been quite large and I simply don't want to land up again in a similar downward spiral once the next bear market starts.

Advice for Beginners

As for advice for beginners that I would give as an experienced player I would say only play the game if you really enjoy it like me as you will never be able to keep up the consistency that is needed to get anywhere otherwise. Also blogging and content creation about the game is key and by far the biggest earning potential you will have without the need to make a crazy investment aside from your time. This is also the way to grow organically. lastly, see Splinterlands as a game and less as an investment, the inflation of new cards is always going to be there putting pressure on the prices.

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Conclusion

Splinerlands so far has been a long and very enjoyable Journey that also has been profitable since I managed to get in quite early with a high amount of discipline. I would do it all over again if I could but would have taken a lot more profit when things went crazy which is what I aim to do the next tim this happens.

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Play2Earn Games I'm Playing...

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