I'm a fan of this and not a fan of this at the same time.
Overall my vote will come to a YES for this proposal, but . . .
✅
- No multi accounting
- Riskier to bot
- Riskier to use battle helpers
- Tournaments move back towards more skill based gameplay
❎
- KYC is not a good look for a Crypto Project
- There will be players that either can't or don't want to provide KYC, who will have a wayy smaller pool of tournaments to choose from
- Competition overall lessens in tournaments (Less players, gives top players an easier time to farm top rewards)
- Outside media could interpret Splinterlands use of KYC and give us a bad name (Might not happen, but could, it's just my thoughts)
as a maybe-crypto-veteran with more than 10 years wobbling around in crypto-space, kyc has always been a red flag for me and will be a turn-off imho, although i disagree on the multiaccounting / bot - issue:
if the bots pay the entry fee, i am fine with that ;P
100% GTFO for me here...
There's no entry fee... hence this problem.
bots would still be present if they only implement the KYC upon tournament registration. since they could just manually do KYC while using other people's credentials (Ex: Family members, friends, black market data sellers) and run the bot after the KYC. if their target is to remove the bots in such tournaments, they should go for a third party software detector that follows a set of algorithm in every games in the tournament and block it.
Though i don't think it will give top players an easier time to farm, since they would still need to battle it out from other players. but as you've mention, it will lessen the overall competition since less players could actually join.
I also agree that it would push other players/users not to be competitive or totally avoid it all in this tournament especially for countries which has strict issue about data privacy.