Hello Splinterlands players!
For someone who grew up playing video games, the realm of web3 games is nothing less of a blessing. Earning money for playing games? Well, everyone would have laughed listening to this statement even some years ago or would have thought of you as a streamer or YouTuber who is actually earning money by showcasing their gaming skills to thousands, if not millions of viewers. However, earning money directly from playing the game itself would be considered too good to be true or a straightaway scam. However, the rise of web3 gaming created a silent revolution that changed the entire blueprint of the gaming realm. Earning from gaming is now indeed a reality, especially for splinterlands players.
Since the launch of the splinterlands game back in 2018, the world of web3 received a new definition of gaming, where players actually OWN in-game assets and not the company behind the game. For gamers who have been playing a game for years and growing and upgrading their in-game assets like playable cards or other in-game stuff, imagine if they could legally trade their hard-earned or long-holding in-game cards in exchange for money! For example - We already saw what happened with original Pokemon physical game cards, some of them are now selling for thousands of dollars. For splinterlands as well, it has become a reality since the start. Those who joined the game early and invested even a decent amount to buy alpha packs or cards witnessed multifold returns on their investments. The first Alpha edition packs used to cost only 2$ per pack and contain 5 cards but later when the game became a hit, those same packs started selling for 70-80$ at a time, not to mention some of the max level Alpha cards even traded for more than a thousand dollars.
Anyway, in splinterlands, playable cards were tradable since the beginning and later with an update, they became rentable as well! This opened a new world for players and investors as those who wanted to connect with the game and invest in it but didn't want to play every day, got an option to list their cards for rent and earn money without actually doing anything. On the other hand, active players who could not afford to buy all the necessary cards could easily rent these cards from the rental market for a daily fee and use them to play. This really created a win-win situation benefitting both players and investors and the update literally blew the ecosystem, because many people started buying cards from the market to rent and earn passive income for their owned cards.
But as they say … good times don't last forever and the splinterlands community realized this during the last bear season, as the splinterlands rental market did not meet expectations, especially with the latest Chaos Legion card set. Not only did the cards lose value, but the renting value of these cards also started going down significantly. I was one of those holding a full Chaos Legion collection and back then, the valuation for the whole Chaos collection was around $7k-8k USD and even now they are valued at less than $2k.
Now, one of the major causes behind this value depreciation is that soon the Chaos Legion will be out of the modern format when a new edition of card-set will get launched, but another major reason was the immense number of overprinted core and reward cards that destroyed the whole demand and supply balance back then. But as a splinterlands lover, I chose to hold on to my assets thinking something would be done to get things back to normal. But in spite of several attempts, they are still selling and renting for dirt cheap.
Another reason was the introduction of bots in the game. Splinterlands became one of the web3 games globally with a huge economy where good players were earning hundreds or even thousands of dollars by competitively playing the Tournaments and Ranked section of the game. But when there is money, there will be looters and as expected, some people started to exploit the system using battle helper bots. With low BCX chaos legion cards being rented for only 0.1 DEC, bots used to load up their accounts with these low-level or 1 BCX cards and play lots of matches and through this practice, they used to take out money from the ecosystem while only investing fraction amount of money after renting cards.
Now, with one of the previous updates, splinterlands increased the fee to list a card for rent to 1 DEC, which indeed helped the company generate more revenue from the rental business but still, the minimum price for which one can list a card for rent was still 0.1 DEC. So, bots used to pay the 1 DEC fee but kept the cheaply rented card for a long time, still exploiting the game economy. On the other hand, people who were renting cards were only getting 0.1 DEC per day and hist to cover the 1 DEC fee, they would have to rent a card for a minimum of 10 days to meet the break even. This was further affecting the rental economy and that’s where the new proposal came in place as a band-aid to this existing problem.
Minimum Rental Floor Price increase from 0.1 DEC to 1 DEC
After the recent major update in Splinterlands, the minimum rental price for cards has officially increased from 0.1 DEC to 1 DEC. This groundbreaking change, which was proposed by @captaindingus back in June 2024 finally got implemented on February 4. This small but effective adjustment will immensely affect the game’s economy, especially for players who rent and lease cards to play the game.
How It Affects the Economy
This increment for renting cards from 0.1 DEC to 1 DEC will hopefully bring two major changes by taking 2 birds with 1 stone. How? Here’s what I think…
Increased Profitability for Card Owners
If we look into the old system, splinterlands card owners needed their cards (especially the low level 1 BCX cards) to be rented for at least 10 days to break even (0.1 DEC X 10 days of active renting = 1 DEC, which is the fee to list a card for rent). Now, a single two-day rental, which is the minimum period to rent a card will generate a profit. This simple change should encourage more players to list their cards for rent, which will hopefully lead us to a healthier in-game marketplace. In the screenshot above, you can see I am renting out a 1 BCX of Venari Wavesmith for 1 DEC per day and earning a whooping 1.2k % ROI on the card.
Higher Costs for Bots
This update will affect the existing bot ecosystem heavily, especially the ones playing at low league levels (Bronze to Gold) and using 1 BCX card to play non-stop and earn SPS. These bots were previously renting 1 BCX card for dirt cheap, as little as 0.1 DEC per day and playing an excessive number of battles in Wild mode. Gladly, with the new update, rental cost increased from 0.1 DEC to 1 DEC (10x compared to its previous value), so bot accounts will now need to spend a significant amount of DEC to rent the same 1 BCXs of cards, making it less profitable for them to operate at scale.
Concerns
However, a concern raised before this change was that lower-level cards, especially 1 BCX cards might not get rented as often as they used to before the update. However, I think this update will encourage players to level up their cards to make them more valuable and earn better ROI in the rental market. Just think, if the lowest 1 BCX card now costs 1 DEC to rent, then logically the higher-level cards should get listed for even higher prices, lifting up the whole rental economy and making it more rewarding ROI-wise to invest in stronger cards. Another thing is bots in wild format will now also try to rent higher level cards because competing in bronze or silver leagues with 1 BCX card won’t be profitable anymore. But this is my assumption only, so let’s see how it processes as time passes.
I hope you liked reading my post about the recent floor price increase for renting cards. What do think about this update? Let me know your thoughts about this update in the comment section below and I will be seeing you all in my next post.
Thanks for visiting my post, hope we meet again!
Stay well and keep playing Splinterlands!
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