As I think back about four years to the August of 2021 I recall how alien the Splinterlands seemed at first. I played some games as a kind in my teens things like Tetris, SimCity, Super Mario games, Mortal Combat and Street Fighter, then I took a very long break until almost my forties where my son got me into a mobile phone game that was from Activision and was called Call of Duty Heroes. I really got into that game before it was shut down around 2018 or 19. Then two or three years later came Splinterlands.
Splinterlands was a completely different game in terms of ability to buy assets related to the game and keep them on blockchain. I was still fresh from investing some money into Call of Duty Heroes just to see all of that go away with one sudden announcement from the company.
The hardest thing was not even the blockchain part, it was simply understanding how the battling with the cards worked. I remember reading all of this melee, ranged and magic stuff in addition to speed and rulesets and it was quite difficult to understand for me initially and be able to apply in a timely fashion during the battle.
Splinterlands YouTubers
That was so long ago... Once I learned the game a little bit I started looking for more information on the game. I remember some of @infidel1258 's (Dwayne Cunningham) first Splinterlands videos on YouTube. And the biggest streamer for Splinterlands was @bulldog1205 at the time. It was even before his stint at the company as the community manager.
Those were the days when SPS first came out and the OGs in the game were making insane money during the first days of SPS airdrop, I believe Bulldog even quit his job to focus on being a full time content creator. SPS was around $1 dollar and what could go wrong? We were all thinking that we will get rich or at least have a solid fun side gig.
Cards were also very expensive and scarce at that time before Chaos Legion, I believe one of my favorite streamers @stever82 had over a million dollars in cards at that time.
Then around September 2021 came the current "Mr. Splinterlands" on YouTube: @aftersound
While other streamers that I mentioned above are still streaming and are fun and informative to watch Aftersound is my choice for one stop shopping for information on Splinterlands. He creates shorter videos which is nice and posts them almost daily or sometimes multiple times a day. His channel is a great source of information and news on Splinterlands.
Another honorable mention is @thepeoplesguild , they specialize in longer videos with in-depth conversations with some of the biggest figures in the Splinterlands universe: whales, CEO of Splinterlands, other Splinterlands team members, other YouTubers, etc. If you are doing some yard work or have a couple hour drive they are the perfect choice for a non-interrupted several hours long podcast.
Advice to Myself in 2021
If I were to give one advice for myself in 2021 it would be: "Treat Splinterlands like a game and not an investment"
While Splinterlands can be an investment, it is a fun game first. If you approach it with that mind set you will enjoy it more and it will build itself into an investment on it's own over time.
The game does become more fun when you play at the highest levels in Diamond and Champion because there are more rulesets and things to consider strategy wise. So if you do decide to invest into Splinterlands to have more fun I would say:
Approach it like you would approach any investment. Assess your risk tolerance, your investment time horizon and invest using Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) concepts into your card deck, SPS and other assets.
It may make sense to make a bigger investment into SPS and cards upfront so you get to a certain level: say Silver League level and then SLOWLY DCA into the cards and SPS to gradually build up to the Gold League.
Do not ignore Hive and start blogging on Hive to earn Hive currency that you can take up to 50% of and convert into cards and SPS. It is fairly easy to earn about $20-$40 blogging on Hive every week just participating in two weekly challenges from Splinterlands.
Final Thoughts
While Splinterlands is a fun game first and an investment second, I would say that right now it is more like 2020 where the player base was small and Splinterlands was on the cusp of making people into card asset millionaires. We have around 300 to 700 players in Modern League and the asset prices are very low when it comes to cards, SPS, validator nodes and anything in Splinterlands universe. This is a great time to join the game and start accumulating in-game assets. If Splinterlands survives another five years I would bet that the prices for everything will be significantly higher.
None of this is financial advise, but I am accumulating as much Hive and Splinterlands assets as I can at these really low levels, making SPS token my priority.
If you have some staked SPS please vote for my SPS Validator Node HERE
I am also a Hive Witness and would really appreciate your vote for me as a witness: https://vote.hive.uno/@seattlea
If you wonder what is the best way to get involved you can use my link to begin your Splinterlands and HIVE journey.