Paying for the Gold Seats

So close.

This Splinterlands season has been incredibly difficult, which I think is down to a number of reasons, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to squeeze into C1 in the Modern format, which means I freaken' have to start from Gold 1. It has been a while since the last time and I am not looking forward to it.

I did better in the Wild format though, but only just. I was sweating a bit last night, as I had an ECR in the low-50s and about 100 points left to get, but luckily I got a mini-streak to get me just over the line. I had already been within 2 points of getting there much earlier, but I got pushed back almost 300 points and had to claw back. And I do mean claw. For me at least, getting win streaks has been very difficult.

So, while in the Modern format I only played a total of 116 rounds (and still short), in Wild I churned through 344 all up - about 150 more than I would have liked to play, since I have so much work ongoing at home.

But it really felt like a difficult season and I have my suspicions as to why, since there seems to be renewed vigor being put into building playing bots. Sure, time is an issue, but I also don't see the point of "playing" when it is a bot making the decisions - even if the bot is better than me. As I said to someone today,

I am not that good in bed, but it doesn't mean I hire someone to satisfy my wife.

Much to her dismay, no doubt.

But because there is money on the table and in most circumstances, us humans are inherently lazy, people don't mind pimping out their property to walk the streets of Splinterlands, turning tricks.

My problem with the bots is that at some point, the code is going to be that good using the playing conditions, plus cross-referencing millions of rounds and probabilities, that they will be near unbeatable, making playing the game redundant. That would also reduce the value of the game too in my opinion. It is just that the bots so far haven't been "good enough" to beat the better players consistently. And, they don't actually have to be unbeatable, they just have to play better than the better players on average.

This opens up for new opportunities for the game though, where it moves more into the realm of the live gaming eSports arena. Wouldn't it be embarrassing to have a bot do all the work to get into a tournament, only to get slaughtered in reality? It is kind of like going into a war, after using an aimbot to "win" in an FPS.

But, this is a big opportunity and as eSports combined with Web3 P2E, starts to take more of the gaming world market share, the "live performance" is going to be increasingly important and, those who are really able to perform under pressure consistently, are going to be the ones who earn large consistently. Sure, they might even be able to be beaten by a bot, but that is beside the point when people want to see people like them perform at the height of human ability.

So, while I really am not a fan of the bots in every day gameplay, ultimately, they are not going to take the majority of the attention and very likely at some point, there will probably be some kind of "proof of human" component added that doesn't interrupt the gameplay and can be trusted. What that looks like though, is anyone's guess at this point, but I think that in time, it will be necessary in many of the business sectors that have earning potential.

Who you are matters?

Due to the anonymity, "who you are" might not seem like it matters in the world of online gaming. Yet, if you look at the majority of those who have been able to monetize their gameplay, they are nearly always known, and generally their streams include them talking to a camera. And, even if they were to be anonymous to their audience, they can't be to the platform they are monetized on, or demonetized on as the case may be.

And, I think that the "consumer" monetization models of web3 are going to be similar, where the lion's share will be taken by the personalities and those who are able to exhibit in demand skills for their audience. And, because of the potential to get rewarded by the audience directly, it isn't going to necessarily all need to be for mass consumption in order to get monetized, it will have a lot more "bespoke" to it - attracting and engaging those who are willing to pay, and some are willing to pay a lot for the things they like. It is like the people willing to sponsor the ballet, compared to the people who buy tickets to see Ed Sheeran - There is a lot of money moving on both sides.

I remember as a student someone said the easiest way to make a million dollars is to sell something for a dollar, that a million people want. Making a million dollars selling one thing is far harder, because the parting with a million for the individual, is a much larger investment than any of the million individuals spending the dollar. However, the people who can attract the masses in sports or build a company people are willing to invest highly into, are rare.

And, it is the same for the bots. The people who can code them are far rarer than the people who can use them and if it is on sale and available to anyone with a dollar, like any ubiquitous skill, it loses value. An in demand scarce skill will always attract more value than a common skill a lot of people have, because if you can have it easily, why pay another to do it for you.

There are only a few people in the world that can perform on the court like Le Bron, kick like Messi or float and Sting like Ali. And, very few people want to pay to consume mediocrity.

When you are paying for a show, you want to see a good performance.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]