How do these two play to earn blockchain games compare?

The recent news of Axie Infinity leaders actions to ban over 20,000 players from their game, permanently has caused renewed interest in Splinterlands. This naturally creates an interest in comparing the two games. So I though a quick comparison was in order. And using Startpage, the search engine which uses Google, but hides your IP address and other identifiers, so it gives you the benefits of Google, but prevents Google from tracking your activities and selling your data. I found this information. startpage

I looked at

number of users,
daily transactions,
start-up costs,
costs to play,
cost of friends joining you in the game,
compared Blockchains speed and scaleability
and my thoughts on their ability to grow the games membership.
Then I summarized these areas.

Number of Users and how much do they play?

-For this I used DAPP Radar, a third party site which monitors an assortment of blockchain projects, including games.

Axie Infinity

117,000 users and 433,000 transactions in the last 24 hours

Splinterlands

305,000 users and 2,670,000 transactions

So the advantage goes to Splinterlands.

Blockchain

Axie Infinity- Ethereum

Splinterlands- Hive The Hive blockchain has fast free transactions.
Ethereum transactions are $20 to $100, each. This means the cost of buying, selling, loaning your cards and playing the game is much more expensive on Axie Infinity. So the advantage goes to Splinterlands.

Example:

Buying or Selling a $10 dollar card on Splinterlands costs $10.00. But buying a similarly priced card on Ethereum is $10 plus $20-$100 dollars so minimum three times as expensive to ten times as expensive.

Cost to Start Playing

Splinterlands has a free playable deck of hundreds of cards. So your startup cost is $4.00 and the cost of a Spellbook, another $4.00. The cost of starting up Axie Infinity is usually $100.00 to $1000.00 in the videos I saw on YouTube, and the price comparison articles I read. source 1 source 2 source 3

Examples from an article by @stealthtrader

Axie Infinity
Splinterlands

So the advantage goes to Splinterlands.

Fun to play

This is very subjective, as the game mechanics are different, characters and objectives are different. So I call it a draw.

How easy is it to play with your friends?

I know people say it’s all about the money. It’s Play to Earn, but it is also a game. Video games are about gaming, but also social interaction. If you want your friends to try a new game they have to buy it first. I started Splinterlands with two of my friends, and it was cheap to start, less then $20 to sign up, and we all got to use the Starter deck of hundreds of cards for free. If we wanted a deck of hundreds of cards on Axie Infinity, each of my friends would have to pay $100 to $1000 dollars to get started. That’s 10 to 100 times more expensive. So the advantage goes to Splinterlands.

How long before the game becomes unplayable?

Axie Infinity is on the Ethereum blockchain. The cost of transactions increases every year. The ability of projects to grow their customer base on Ethereum is severely hampered by the cost of transactions and the popularity of the blockchain for decentralized finance. Hive by comparison is a newer blockchain with a different scaling mechanism, which allows unlimited scaleability for the foreseeable future. Ethereum reached its limits one year ago. It’s efforts to transition to Proof of Stake will potentially increase its capacity by 64, while its growth in volume from DeFi alone increases by the thousands. So the advantage goes to Splinterlands.

Multiple Blockchain Existence

The short term and long term issues with traffic on Ethereum suggest Axie Infinity may eventually have to move to another blockchain. This move means more costs to the players, and a potential loss of player items stuck on Ethereum due to the cost of moving them being greater then their worth. Your average player has 50-100 cards. The cost of moving 100cards at a worst case scenario of $100 a piece is $10,000 dollars. How many people can afford that?

Splinterlands already exists on three different Blockchains, and in each case they are blockchains characterized by fast, free or very cheap transactions. So Advantage Splinterlands.

Summary

Just looking at start-up costs, daily costs to play, plus the ease and cost of getting your friends to join you, the advantage goes to Splinterlands. Further more the short term and long term issues with traffic on Ethereum suggest Axie Infinity may eventually have to move to another blockchain, meaning more costs to the players, and a potential loss of player items stuck on Ethereum or considerable costs moving them to another blockchain. Although Splinterlands exists on three different Blockchains, in each case they are blockchains characterized by fast, free or very cheap transactions. So overall I think the Advantage goes to Splinterlands.

The End … for now. @shortsegments

References

Additional

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A comparison of Splinterlands and Axie Infinity with references.