First Splinterlands Governance Vote – Play to Earn

Splinterlands wasted no time putting their new governance system into action. After a test vote to make sure the system worked and to see the amount of participation, the Splinterlands team is ready to move forward with the first vote that will affect Splinterlands gameplay. This particular vote involves a revamp of how SPS rewards are distributed, and it has already created some controversy!

DAOs and governance systems have a been a hot topic item in blockchain gaming for some time. But, aside from a few exceptions, such as Gray Boys and Uplift World, we haven’t seen a whole lot of actual governance taking place. Splinterlands looks to buck that trend, putting forth their first game proposal since launching the initial system last week.

This particular proposal deals with the distribution of SPS rewards in ranked battles. In short, the proposal suggests shifting the bulk of the rewards to the higher ranks. Instead of one large pool of SPS tokens that everybody shares from

Governance Proposal – Split Reward Pools by League

And while the proposal is currently passing with 85% of the vote in support, there have been some concerns raised that this change will just make the rich get richer. Reaching Diamond and Champion ranks is already a pay to play experience. You aren’t even allowed to play in Diamond League unless you collection power is more than 250,00, which equates to about $6400 worth or cards!

Now they propose to give 30% of the total SPS rewards to the very top ranks. A group that only includes a couple of hundred players! Higher ranks already have bigger reward shares, and better bonuses for those rewards as well. But giving 1/3 of the total supply to a small group of players feels like a step too far.

The Splinterlands team has said that they are willing to adjust the numbers in the future, but will it require another proposal and vote to make that change?

The reason for this proposal is bots on the lower levels. Apparently, it is still viable to create bot farms with a minimal selection of cards, who play in Bronze level and earn SPS rewards. Now I can certainly understand the desire to curb that activity. But, as some folks have pointed out, you’re also creating a crappy situation for new players. New players aren’t going to have collections that let them rank up to Gold and higher. Instead, they will be playing at Bronze rank, with a simplified, diluted game (due to level restrictions and the lack of special battle rules),

And sure, you want those players to level up and start playing in higher leagues, but if their initial experience is bad, they won’t stay around that long. Splinterlands has already seen a significant drop in active players and number of battles fought over the last six months. Can it handle losing more players? You can read the full proposal on the official blog post. Voting is done in-game on the SPS…