It has been a little over a week since we published our DHF proposal to ask for help from the Hive community and we are extremely grateful that the proposal currently has over 26M Hive Power voting for it.
There has been a ton of comments, feedback, and discussions over the past week, which is to be expected for a proposal of this size, so we wanted to take this opportunity to make another post to help address some of the main questions and concerns that we have been hearing from the community.
Splinterlands Has No Plans to Leave Hive
First and foremost, we want to be completely clear that we have absolutely no plans to move off of the Hive blockchain either now or in the future, regardless of whether or not our proposal gets funded.
What was stated in the proposal is that it is possible that we could be forced to do so in the future, even if the team prefers not to. Our responsibility is to the company shareholders and to the players, so if we are unable to grow and be successful on the Hive blockchain, and a good opportunity presents itself on another platform, we may be obligated to take it.
If the Hive community chooses to support the project, however, then it gives us a much higher chance of being able to turn things around and once again be extremely successful here on Hive, which greatly lowers the chances that we will ever need to even entertain a discussion with other blockchain platforms in the future.
Use of Funds
A number of people have asked for a detailed breakdown of how the funds will be used. We cannot provide a detailed breakdown because we don't yet know exactly how they will be used. Generally, they are planned to be used for marketing and promotion of the Splinterlands game, and therefore indirectly the Hive blockchain.
Hiring a really effective marketing person or agency is expected to cost around $100k - $200k per year. We will then work with them to create a plan to bring the most people as possible to the game and convert them into long-term active players. The additional funds from this proposal are expected to be used to implement the marketing plan and to improve our onboarding experience (which includes creating a Hive account, setting up keychain, etc) so the new players that come in stick around as much as possible. This is an iterative process which requires making changes, running A/B tests, looking at the feedback and data, and seeing what worked and what didn't.
Promoting Hive
While we have been non-stop promoters of Hive since day one of Splinterlands (and even before that), we have heard feedback that the Hive community would like more mention and promotion of Hive to players within the game product itself.
To that end, the Splinterlands team plans to work a number of items, including:
- Adding "Powered by Hive" with the Hive logo to our branding, both internal and external (see the image at the top of this post for an example)
- Adding a module to the in-game "academy" system we are building as part of our improved onboarding experience about the basics of Hive and links to explore the other apps and opportunities in the Hive ecosystem beyond Splinterlands
- Adding some in-game promotions for Hive Power holders which will both reward existing HP holders for their support as well as encourage non-HP holders who play Splinterlands to acquire and power up some HIVE tokens
Open Source
Making Splinterlands open source has been a long-term goal of ours for quite a while now, but it is a massive project which will require significant resources and we have, unfortunately, not been in a position to focus on it much since the change in leadership. As a start, we have been working on building an open source "validator" project for the SPS token within the game, and are working with the SPS DAO to take over the funding for that project and get it over the finish line within the next year, if not much sooner.
Once the company returns to solid profitability and we have additional resources available, it is our plan to continue open sourcing more components of the game with the ultimate goal being that the entire project is open and available for others to fork and run and is no longer dependent upon the Splinterlands company in any way.
The Opportunity for Hive
We also wanted to take a little more time to highlight the opportunity that Splinterlands presents for the Hive ecosystem in general. We firmly believe that, going forward, the success of blockchain platforms will be primarily based on the applications that are built on top of them. We expect that the applications are what will bring in the users, the attention, and the capital.
Having a "breakout app" on Hive will do far more than any other type of marketing or promotion we can think of, and we're trying to make that happen. That breakout app may be Splinterlands, or it may be something else, but the more shots that are taken, the more chance there will be of success.
We believe that Splinterlands has a good chance of making this happen, and as Hive stakeholders ourselves we hope to see many other Hive-based applications trying to "break out" and take Hive "mainstream" along side of us.
No Guarantees
Finally, a number of comments have asked what "guarantees" there will be if the proposal is approved. Unfortunately, it's not possible to make any guarantees. This is an investment by the Hive community, and like all investment there is risk and success is never guaranteed.
The only things we can guarantee are that we will do whatever we can with the resources we have to make this product a success, that we are committed to keeping Splinterlands here on the Hive blockchain if at all possible, and that we will continue to promote and support Hive as we have for the past six years.
sorry, but this is not a real plan, these are just buzzwords that are supposed to sound good, as an investor i would find this damn unprofessional. and as a splinterlands player i would feel screwed that suddenly so much money is needed for the onboarding experience when the onboarding should be as good as done already. and additionally, how does the money help if you work on it all the time but nothing comes except the opposite, the npe keeps getting worse with new paywalls and co. do you work more motivated with the extra money or how? maybe it would have been more honest to just say we are a few millimeters away from bankruptcy and we urgently need money to be able to breathe a bit more.
the games that run well for a long time are the ones that have taken down paywalls, banned bots and improved the npe. as long as splinterlands thinks the opposite way is the right way, this is wasted money!
After watching the voting and the commentary, I conclude the following:
I'm happy Matt has tried to find out if the HIVE community is interested in supporting the game
I'm happy that Matt is doing all things possible to make this project succeed.
I definitely appreciate all those HIVE voters that did support the SPL community at this time, no matter the outcome.
I hope this proposal passes, but if it doesn't its not the end of the game.
There are good people and bad people in this world. So I'm very content to spend time with the good folks, and not waste my time with the bad ones.
Cheers!
I like the tone of this follow-up proposal much better. You can easily get five quotations in a week from reputed marketing agencies to justify the cost. Half a million USD is a lot. The general rule for B2C companies is spending 5% of their revenue on marketing. I doubt SPL is making 10 Million USD in revenue in this case.
So, those quotations should make more sense. They just show how much agencies charge, and you can then justify your half-million USD estimation based on that. In my honest opinion, the ask is too much. Even running 100k USD of ads on youtube, tiktok and other places will get you a lot of users.
This is really a case of "give you the money then we will find out". Show us some proof of how you have handled marketing budget before, and how you are going to use it now.
16k assigned to twitch streamer budget, 40k for ads. Something, anything will do.
Just no info for a company is just strange. Btw I am not trying to be create trouble, but if you incorporate these comments you will get very far with people, especially those who work in corporate or are business owners which make much of your whale base.
I would like to see a Transparency Report on the last 4 years to see what exactly happened and why they want to acquire 500k dollars from the DHF.
Splinterlands has grown a lot, has a lot of income and expenses, over the years a report should at least be fair to give a judgment for a vote or not.
The same was mentioned in the Splinterlands server. I agree with you. It is a large amount of funding and as stake holders we should have assurances that the funds with not be mismanaged.
I would also like to know if Steemmonsters Corp has any outstanding debt. At the minimum the entire HIVE blockchain should be provided with balance sheets & profit loss statements for the past 5 years. In other words it is time to open up the books. This should be true of ANY COMPANY asking for funding from the DHF.
I think the biggest issue is the unknown factor of just hiring a marketing team. To me there are two proposals here. The adding the hive mention and further supporting of integrating hive awareness more into the game and then later once things are figured out and the onboarding is fixed to then ask for a marketing budget. That's just my opinion on how I see it from what others are saying.
I'd rather see a DHF proposal for this section "Promoting Hive" and help build some funding to help cover costs. Would have been more more well received to pass. However being a Splinterlands player, investor (outside of the board) and knowing what's going on I feel like I see more then what none Hive players would see so I can understand the confusion and the doubt with the current proposal. That being said I support the current proposal because I believe in the company and that they will bring more value then what is being asked and IMO that's worth my vote.
yeah rando marketing team.
hahahaha!
The Promoting Hive section of this proposal should have been a part of the game years ago.
you mean you support it because you're afraid of losing all your spl assets. 😌
Nope, but good try 👍
This is what I want to see. Not sidelining Hive during the promotion of Splinterlands. Now, it would not be so hard to include #Hive when posting in web2 socials as well as a requirement for the 3 Splinterlands Hive contest to increase the visibility of Hive in web2 algorithm.
How about doing some research and figure out some numbers? :)
If you need someone to be transparent for you and help you with numbers. I am more than willing to do so
It's weird if it's said that way because it sounds like asking for money you don't know what to use it for. This money is for investing into the project and people as investors are told the one asking for it can't provide a breakdown or specific plans.
Ye. It is weird!
Research would solve alot, but apperantly they don't want to do any research x)
It just feels like a misuse of funds they got, so I don't have any trust in them that the money from DHF is going to be enough long term x)
I think Splinterlands has proven and is ready to prove a lot more to the Hive community that it's worth all of our time!
Stay the course 👍
Glad your not planning to go anywhere @splinterlands, I'll be joining up soon.
Sounds more like you didn't learn to adapt to an evolving ecosystem.
Absolutely LOVE the idea of Hive Power holding being rewarded in-game in some way
You are not in a situation now where you need new long-term players.
And not even in a situation where you need to retain old players.
You have brought the situation to the point where you need to make every effort to bring back those who have been with you for six long years.
Я даже не буду спрашивать, с какого перепугу @spaminator который якобы следит за копипастой и другим неподтребством влепил мне даунворт улей сгнил
Little of. @spaminator has decided to downvote my posts, so I'm leaving the hive completely and stopping the nonsense about it being free speech.
I think its great to see this proposal being supported by the hive community, despite the fact that the presentation of it left a lot to be desired (in my opinion).
This is a pretty cool moment for Web3 gaming to see a projects own player base be able to raise funds for it through the decentralised blockchain community its built on. Im glad to be a part of it.
On the concerning side, the marketing ploy sounds like a real hit and hope. Oh well, ride or die! If I didnt love a gamble I probably wouldnt be here...
May the splinters unite. Vonak!
Please take that money and hire more people for your projects. No more splitting up the team.
can regular hivians vote on this proposal. Where is a link to it???
You can find it in the list of proposals on peakd, not sure about other interfaces.
You have to scroll down a bit to find it
https://peakd.com/me/proposals
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STOPmove chain ,hive is dead and this decentralization bulshhit is just sick.
hive and splintersland are not decentralize just bullshit
I respect other views and my take is - "if we are asking questions for ex, related to marketing then it clearly shows the intent of Hive people to take this game to the next level, all the cross-commenting that is happening at the moment is all related to the health of both this game and this blockchain. Stopping the proposal isn't a goal but addressing the concern is. Even if anything wrong happens and you plan to move out, all these will also come up again on the next platform. The only thing that irritates readers of the proposal is the poor formatting of the proposal along with some missing facts and data. Except for this point, no one has any problem and is happily ready to give whatever splinter land requires to foster."
Also, I request mega-users to refrain from making it a personal interest. Anyday hive and its dapps are bigger than any personal goals.
Great ideas, guys (Hive academy, Powered by Hive)! Hope they proposal goes through and you manage the turnaround! 💪🏻
I certainly would like to see this proposal funded as, then we at least have some marketing going on with a reasonably decent budget as well. Especially if Splinterlands goes ahead and promote both the game and the base layer blockchain hand in hand.
I'm a hive witness supporting the blockchain.
In Yabap We Trust!
I hope the DHF proposal passes, but attracting new players with the current game mechanics is simply ripping off those players. Fix the game mechanics and that will solve your money problems.
Would the funding of this proposal make the DHF a shareholder in the company?
Hello everyone hopefully you all are fine here is my entery
https://ecency.com/hive-158694/@pari.warsh/zinhpbuuga