Its been a shocking couple of days in the Splinterverse as the team announced they were laying off 45% of their staff. I know....crazy right? Read it for yourself:
https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@splinterlands/to-the-splinterlands-community
I was listening to the end of the town hall yesterday and @aggroed was taking a lot of questions on the chin, braving the fud and the repetitive questions and the downright ridiculous suggestions and just generally taking arrows like a good tank
Ive said it before and I'll say it again. I have a lot of love and respect for splinterlands as a project and Ive been massively impressed with aggy and @yabapmatt in general throughout these few years..... but there's no doubting it.... a 45% staff layoff is a BAD LOOK
an extended bear market means drastic decisions have to be made and we are looking to settle in to a nice deep crypto winter (along with the possible winter of all global civilisation) so its probable that the team have made the right decision. HOWEVER. The community have a right to feel aggrieved.
We have thrown a lot of money at splinterlands just recently. We have been asked to believe and invest in a lot of different strands of development; Riftwatchers, Runi, Tower Defense, Splinterfest, The Lux Vega Promo Card, Node Licences.....with Chaos Legion Packs still a long way off sold out and the Land expansion still crawling towards its initial release stage after 2 years of waiting. The vision is huge and ambitious (which is kind of how we like it) and the community has been backing it with enthusiasm with presales disappearing in minutes and even seconds.... hundreds of thousands of dollars each time, cast in to the splinterverse to satiate our unquenchable thirst for this awesome game and its heady aspirations.
So..... you can understand how it might come as a bit of a shock, that the grand sum of our monumental financial backing over the last couple of months, has brought us to this disastrous announcement: 45% of the team is being laid off. 45%? They had a team of about 150 didnt they? Thats like 60+ people being sacked!? But.....but..... didnt we do well enough? How much more cash would we have needed to hurl at you for that number to have sounded a bit less excruciating? Like 30% layoffs maybe..... that sounds a whole lot less brutal...... you know, we all get that some cuts might need to be made to keep the old 'runway' healthy for the forseeable apocolypse.... but do we really have to sink half the fleet to stay afloat?
Wait a second..... arent we a DAO?
It suddenly struck me this morning while commenting on the reaction from @jongolson ... (please read for yourself):
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@jongolson/so-now-what-do-we-do
...That we could maybe have been given a say in this.
now I can imagine theres a lot of reasons why we didnt get a say in this decision.
Its a huge decision.
Its the kind of decision that leaders have to make.
It directly effects peoples lives...immediately....and negatively.... losing your job is no joke, especially during a recession.
It directly effects the future survival of the project, possibly in the fairly near-term...I dont know what the financial expenses are and what the balance books would be looking like in a years time at the current rate but Im assuming it starts getting hairy at some point down the line...
This is the sort of decision that you DONT throw to the baying crowd and hope they make the right decision. That would be like giving the population of a major economic power the decision whether or not to stay unified with its supranational political and economic alliance despite the people having no collective grasp of the implications or the many nuances of the decision.......oh wait..... what did I miss....?
But you see....the funny thing is.....no-one can really see the future. no one REALLY knows whether Brexit is a good thing or a bad thing. Good for who? Bad for who?... Bad now? Good wen?.... Good Now? Bad Wen?... Captain hindsight is the only superhero we can really trust when it comes to the facts, but he's never around until just slightly too late.
In an unpredictable, chaotic universe that laughs at our plans, sometimes sensible should be thrown to the wind, and a little mischief should be had...
now I know I already mentioned the team having to put up with ridiculous suggestions....but its time for me to put my one forward.
Im a Splinterlander GET ME OUT OF HERE!
I genuinely feel that this whole sacking of team members thing is a missed opportunity.... The DAO should be given a say.
Think about it....
We are here at the cutting edge of Web3 development, investing in the pack leader for a complex incentivised crypto gaming economy, built on a blockchain that has made history with its breakaway decentralised community and we have a governance token and voting system that allows us to weigh in on decisions about the future of our ecosystem. We've even got a bunch of our own money in an account waiting for us to vote on what to do with it. Why are we not capitalising on this?
Imagine the headlines: Splinterlands Community votes to lay off 30% of paid staff
Gamers sack devs in Big Brother style eviction
Splinterlands leads the way in Web3 as playerbase vote on cutbacks
The parameters could still be set by the team itself. They've already ascertained that a certain amount of cutbacks have to be made in order for the project to survive. But maybe there's a gray area.... like between 30-45%. At 30% we're risking staff wages dragging us under if the bear market continues for X amount of time. however at 45% staff cuts we will see development slow and marketing dwindle etc. Certain projects go on the backburner but we lie a bit dormant and stay safe as we wait for the market to recover. Naturally the team would put forward their own opinions. There would be votes to cut back certain areas.... maybe even with reverse kickstarter goals; the more cutbacks we vote for in marketing, the more staff get ousted..... cut development this far, and you'll push land back to 2035! Cut Yaba from the team and well.....you might as well just cut your own eyes out and go for a jog on the motorway at rush hour. (obviously its unlikely cutting yaba would ever be an option....but id be impressed if it was!)
The community may choose to use its power to cut staff from marketing but not from development, or the other way round, or maybe they would've saved certain individuals and voted heavily to have others laid off. Its not nice. Hell no. In fact, it could even turn quite sour. But thats what community governance comes loaded with. Its dramatic. Its divisive. We've seen that already. But its also part of what we're aiming for and man....it could make for some great publicity as well! When investment and gaming combine with reality TV surely you are on to one of the ugliest win tickets imagineable!? Who wouldnt want to be a part of such a grotesque social experiment?
Nobody wants to see good, hard working people get made redundant, and we have some awesome people in splinterlands who are having to take some seriously hard news right now..... but all sensitivity aside....lets throw them to the lions and turn the cameras on and see where actual decentralised governance can take us. Hell... I reckon we probably would've saved a few of their jobs this way.
Just my 2 pennies worth. We're part of an experiment that may need to flex its unique qualities in order to truly make a mark on history. If we are overly cautious or sentimental, we might just fade in to obscurity along with the whole of the legacy system while truly revolutionary ideas burn hot and carve the way for the future.
peace out folks
Basil
The Splinterlands team are the ones that hold the most SPS thus have the most governance control. Asking them to vote on losing their jobs is likely to have the outcome one would expect. Them voting No to the proposal. From my understanding there is still 80+ employees plus potentially some independent contractors. That is still a big number, I wouldn't be surprised to see some more cuts. I'm also surprised at some of the comments I been hearing that came out of the town-hall in regards to how much money is needed to run or keep running for XX months. I haven't watched the town-hall yet so I could be getting wrong info. Millions have been invested by players. I don't see why there isn't a very large reserve in Fiat from previous invested funds. But that is easy for me or anyone else to say from the outside looking in. Splinterlands is very generous with the rewards it hands out and I bet they are a little too generous in the pay department for their employees as well. I feel bad for those who lost their jobs and wish them the best with finding another but 150 plus employees had me asking myself Why so many. I believe cuts were coming and likely needed regardless of this down turn market.
well I think it would have to be slightly adjusted from the current proposal system anyway.... more of a race to the top to keep your job! hehe. Its a pretty horrendous thought....but then so much about society and human nature is horrendous anyway.... I mean imagine getting sacked in secret when you're supposedly working for a DAO?
The question of whether the company have screwed up their investments or taken on too many staff or positioned themselves poorly for the bear market is a head scratcher for sure.... but in my mind, its all just more reason to open up a portion of serious decision making to the DAO. The core team would still get to put the parameters on, like how much of the companys investment can be voted on by the DAO, what the rough wage budget should be after layoffs etc. Then the community gets to weigh in and feel some responsibility for the survival and direction of the company. Obviously long term, you'd want those core team members to be voted in or out as well so that you've always got a senate who are (partially) elected by the people. I don't know.... I guess Im impatient for revolutionary digital governance and maybe its just not quite ready yet....but I see these major turning points as big opportunities to bring the community further onboard and so far this one is being missed
well I think it would have to be slightly adjusted from the current proposal system anyway.... more of a race to the top to keep your job! hehe. Its a pretty horrendous thought....but then so much about society and human nature is horrendous anyway.... I mean imagine getting sacked behind closed doors when you're supposedly working for a DAO?
The question of whether the company have screwed up their investments or taken on too many staff or positioned themselves poorly for the bear market is a head scratcher for sure.... but in my mind, its all just more reason to open up a portion of serious decision making to the DAO. The core team would still get to put the parameters on, like how much of the companys investment can be voted on by the DAO, what the rough wage budget should be after layoffs etc. Then the community gets to weigh in and feel some responsibility for the survival and direction of the company. Obviously long term, you'd want those core team members to be voted in or out as well so that you've always got a senate who are (partially) elected by the people. I don't know.... I guess Im impatient for revolutionary digital governance and maybe its just not quite ready yet....but I see these major turning points as big opportunities to bring the community further onboard and so far this one is being missed
i think that was best said twice dont you? hehe
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
These are tough times in crypto. It's not even about how good Hive or Splinterlands are as speculators panic over any little incident. I have been resisting investing more money in the game as it seems to be more about investment than gameplay these days and you need to spend big to do well. I am just renting out my cards and taking a bit from SPS and some pools. I got back some time by not playing. I do wonder if they grew the staff too soon. Okay, so they have many thousands of players, but other games on mobile have many millions. They just had their big Splinterfest and I bet that cost a bit. I just wish more players would get into other aspects of Hive, including other games.
!PIZZA
Ive always admired their ambition and for me its still the most attractive game out there in terms of gameplay and visual appeal and collectors appeal.... id like to see more fun projects evolve on hive. I was kind of hoping to have some more gamification of things like hivepunks or the various nft collections on dlux but I guess development is tough to come by and takes a looooot of work. Im looking forward to seeing what psyberx come up with although im not really much in to shooting games...but still.... the ambition of it catches my eye, and if things like that get any success then other projects may be attracted to come and build here. fingers crossed for some positive launches during this bear market!
I would hope we can have games to suit all tastes. I do struggle to see the point of some NFTs that have no real use. I will buy some to reward the artists behind them, but some are just automatically generated.
I just can't spend too much time playing games when I have other things I want to do. Mind you, I used to be quite into games, but that was before things moved online.
!hivebits
what was your favourite classic game?
I played a lot on my BBC Micro. Elite was a big one, but I enjoyed Chuckie Egg too. Things were simpler back then.
Later I had an Amiga. I really liked the pinball game on there, but Lemmings was fun too. Last game I was really into was Half Life, but that is going back a few years.
Interesting, this is the first I'd heard about this.
I don't play but I have some staked SPS. I'll be hodling for a bit longer then 😁.
In some ways, it sounds par for the course, a fairly common cycle. It seems regardless of experience (like bear market experience) we get over-confident. Hard decisions, but better than soldiering on, leaking assets and eventually unable to continue.
Speaking from an outsider business perspective, the things that give rise to concerns for me is that the game doesn't appear to be much fun for newcomers/small accounts and games need a constant influx of new players. And then the multiple launches combined with high prices and large issues. These would all be red flags for me and my starting place for looking at the business model.
Again, without having done a deep dive, I feel more reassured that some decisive action is taking place.
It's not a good look at all, but I would prefer to see a business sort itself out and grow at a more steady rate with the potential long-term for more, sustainable, jobs.
Edit: Just read about Twitter fun thanks to a link in another post: I guess the other thing I would be thinking about is whether there are enough staff left to form the critical mass needed for Splinterlands to function. I'm guessing it's a fine line.
the newcomers experience is a really serious issue for sure.... i heard somewhere that this has been noted and is part of the plans, but the reality is its been like that for a long time now. Seems like a difficult thing to get right, but one cant help feeling that if they hadnt had double the number of staff they needed, and instead had focussed that money on rewarding smaller players, then maybe we'd have a much more thriving economy right now!.... what do i know? Its a complex issue....
I gifted $PIZZA slices here:
@steevc(1/5) tipped @basilmarples (x1)
Join us in Discord!
Interesting take, this part though "hundreds of thousands of dollars each time" ... Chaols legion has provided over 40 million USD this year then add in all the other things that have launched and sold since... seems there might be some at the top collecting too big of salaries or pushing rewards to the top pushing the growth way down that could be addressed before firing those who helped build such an empire? I got threatened with bans a few times in AMAs asking this several months ago as I questioned so sold my assets and so glad I did while my land fetched $400... wonder where it is now a days...
people been buying plots at less than $150 i think
and yeh, youre right...i should probably have said MILLIONS but I didnt feel like researching all the different products and their sales numbers so i just stayed on the safe side...
Interesting take, this part though "hundreds of thousands of dollars each time" ... Chaols legion has provided over 40 million USD this year then add in all the other things that have launched and sold since... seems there might be some at the top collecting too big of salaries or pushing rewards to the top pushing the growth way down that could be addressed before firing those who helped build such an empire? I got threatened with bans a few times in AMAs asking this several months ago as I questioned so sold my assets and so glad I did while my land fetched $400... wonder where it is now a days...
Interesting take, this part though "hundreds of thousands of dollars each time" ... Chaols legion has provided over 40 million USD this year then add in all the other things that have launched and sold since... seems there might be some at the top collecting too big of salaries or pushing rewards to the top pushing the growth way down that could be addressed before firing those who helped build such an empire? I got threatened with bans a few times in AMAs asking this several months ago as I questioned so sold my assets and so glad I did while my land fetched $400... wonder where it is now a days...
Congratulations @basilmarples! You received a personal badge!
Many thanks for attending the last Hive Meetup in United Kingdom.
Check the #HiveUK, #TeamUK or #HeamUKMeetup tags for related posts.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
Check out our last posts:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!