In this article I will try to explain my point of view on why private sale is perhaps the worst decision by the Splinterlands team possible. It will lead to massive disappointment, the loss of trust and players, probaly to insane price hike of the new cards and Chaos packs and most probably to draining the reward pools and can even start the downward spyrale of the game (though I doubt the latter).
I have already stated that in my opinion Splinterlands is the best P2E game right now - but that does not mean much - new players drive the economy of every game and SL team seems to do everything in their power to drive us away. Ever since I starded playing a few months ago i think every decision by the team was against me (and other new players) and in favor of the whales. And private sale is the crown of this - new players, you can go and beep yoursleves - attitude. I am asking myself why should I play a CCG if I can't even get the cards or card packs?
I have watched a few videos (Bulldog, Dwayne, Luke), stating that there will probably be no public sale because the SL team decided to make a private sale for the whales, buying for 100k USD or more. Whales will feast and get more fat. Maybe some major guilds like YGG will buy a ton of packs and bring over their players.
This is bad in so many ways I can't even count them all - and not even all for the small players, but even for the game itslef. (For disclosure - I have 10k+ of ingame value and this turn of the events - a broken promise - makes me angry and I think smaller players will be pissed even harder than me.)
Disappointment
I understand that Splinterlands team is running a company and they care more for the bottom line than us - their customers (at least the small ones, they do care about the whales - because if they start selling the whole economy goes down the drain) - but in the end customers make companies, not owners. And the great majority of the players of every game are small ones.
I don't think the team is aware what massive hit to the trust in them - or the game - this will cause. First we were told - promissed - there will be 15 million packs to buy. Great! As many new players I could hardly wait. Then we got hit by the vouchers that again reward the whales and remove us further down the line to the public sale. Then we were told that at least a half of the packs will be available for the pubic sale. Afther that - halleluyah - we learned 12 million will be in the public sale. Then in a note of a canceled AMA we are told we can go and beep ourselves, because most probably there will be no public sale and wait for the insanely overpriced packs on the open markets. Does this count as a scam?
But wait, there is more! I think most tubers were telling us small players to sell our vouchers and use the money to buy more packs in the general sale! Great advice guys! (Yes, I know they gave us sound advice and didn't know about the team taking back their promise - but still it sucks for all of us who sold the vouchers to buy more packs.)
I got my 50 packs - I think I paid about what I got for the sold vouchers, but I was saving 4k USD to get me 1k packs in public sale. Not that I care so much about the packs (I would probably open a half and save the other for the market), I really wanted the bonus cards. They are way too OP - and therefore to expensive - and again all of us small players can go and beep ourselves, because the team is giving them all to whales. And instead of getting my maxed whatever the new Kitty and other drop cards will be for a reasonable price, we will have to buy them for 500 or more USD per card - if we could afford them at all. Or if we want them at all - for 500 bucks we can get a hell of a lot of game somewhere else. And I think many small players will think the same.
Loss of trust and players
The funny thing about the trust is that it is hard to build and easy to destroy. And Chaos packs were the driver of the game growth, anticipation of the players and main theme of the videos of the tubers for this few months I am playing the game. But now the team goes: "Nah, you can go and beep yourselves." That is gona win a lot of confidence in anything the team will say in the future ... not! I fear that many small players will give up and move on. Despites Agro's confidence in last AMA, Splinterlands is not the only crypto game (and a zillion will come out in 22) and Splinterlands is not much more fun with only a starter pack than Axie is with 3 axies.
YGG is a curse, not a blessing
SL team maybe thinks that an influx of new players will lift the game to the new high, but I doubt it. If YGG or other guilds come on board, their players will not add value - they are not players that will care about the game or spend money. They are workers who will drain the reward pools for their masters with the discounted cards, the cards that us - the real players - wont even be able to get.
Price hike
What happens if only a few parties (whales) will be able to buy most of the packs? Unles they are stupid they will hodl them and slowly drip them on the market for the insane price driven by the much higher demand. This means there will be no cards for the players and the card price will be insanely high - and again a portion of the true players will decide this is not a game for them and move on.
If the guilds open their packs they will not go on the market, but to their players. And high price of the cards is way more of a problem for the players than low price is for the game.
So we end up with pack flippers and guilds who will most likely not sell their cards. And what can we - the real players - do? If you didn't catch the tune yet - we can go and beep ourselves.
Will private sale crush Splinterlands?
Most probably not - old players, now whales - will probably stay and with the rise of P2E gaming in the next years there will always be new players that will be willing to risk 10 usd for a spellbook.
But the real question is - will private sale do more damage than good to the game, to the players and - in the bottom line - to the bottom line of the company that it would without it? I think it will. Great majority of the players will be disappointed, whales will get an extra discount (another hit to the bottom line and reward pool), new players from the guilds will not add to the economy but only drain it and new players will hardly be able to get out of Bronze league for any normal cost a new player is willing to pay to try out a new game - and with Bronze giving 1 credit rewards and potions (why do we need those if we can't buy buy packs?) I dont think many new players will have much incentive to stay.
One of the tubers I was watching mentioned that Agro said that private sale of SPS was his greatest regret. I fear if private sale of Chaos packs goes live, the private sale of SPS will be a happy memory compared to this.
How to fix this?
If the team does not understand that packs - opening them - has an emotional value, a gambling element and a dopamine kicker for the CCG players they should maybe start looking for another career. In my MTG days buying and opening the packs was a highlight of my day, heck probably a whole week. Getting a good card felt better than winning a match. If the SL team does not understand that packs can be more important to players than game or even P2E aspect they are in a serious pickle. (I think they do - that is why we have victory rewards.)
Since we already know we can't trust the SL team, why not break another promise and issue 25 million Chaos packs. Or 50? Or 100? Why not give every player a chance to buy their packs? This a sure way of filling the reward pool - cards are overpriced already. Limiting the number of cards without knowing the number of players using them is a serious mistake that will in the end limit the number of players.
Or at least give every player (yes every, not just the whales), registered before the presale 50 soulbound vouchers they can use to buy packs in entire time of the presale. And give every player that uses them all each bonus card. (Yes, I know about the bots - but they can be detected by the capctha-esque app.) And what is left can go to the private sale.
Or have a public sale for a week before the private sale starts. Or have packs rewarded to players in season chests.
Do anything, but allow every player to buy at least some packs. Or Agro will get a new greatest regret - congrats!
Conclusion
I must agree with the tubers - the greatest mistake in this entire debuckle is chaotic communication (but at least they got the theme). This sale of the packs was horribly planned (if at all!), the terms were never laid plain and open and we couldn't make informed decisions about it. It just seems that the whole pack sale - the most important event of the year in the game - is being improvized on the fly by the daily whims of the SL team and everything is subject to change.
Why don't we have a governance system? (Yes, this is a whole new can of worms, but shouldn't the team at least ask us what we think about it?) Maybe because then the team couldnt change their mind on every whim.
This does not boost the confidence in a team or the project. And I doubt the team will change their mind just because pretty much every player that doesn't want to dump 100k in the game run by team that can not be trusted is pissed at them. So - we can go and beep ourselves.