Proposal: Allow the Splinterlands team to whitelist specific users to the Gold Tier in the Ambassador Program, greatly incentivizing those users to refer new players into the game. The process used to determined who & how to whitelist will be up to the team.
Note - this is not yet in the proposal phase, though it will be as soon as I receive some feedback from the community
Details: The Splinterlands team previously redesigned the Ambassador program to encourage more referrals while reducing the possibility for abuse. The current system is good at the latter (reducing abuse) but introduced significant barriers to reaching the the Gold tier which is where referrers are able to earn a percentage on a user's future transactions.
Reaching 10 referrals with >$100 in market activity is difficult. As a result, influencers & content creators (particularly those outside of the Splinterlands ecosystem) have very little incentive to get involved. It's simply too much effort to get to the point where you can see a return.
When looking at the referral leaderboard, you can see quite a few users have a referrer:
However, the number is much lower when looking at Spellbooks.
And finally, you'll see that only TWO users have reached the Gold Tier where they are earning DEC from referrals.
To reach the Gold Tier, I had to provide very compelling offers to new referrals, which included set delegations, SPS delegations, pack & DEC airdrops, and more. I have spent >$1000 on new player incentives.
Clearly, the system isn't working as intended. It should be a strong enough incentive to get people to refer their friends, use their networks, etc. to reach new players. It should be a strong enough incentive for people to put their own incentive programs in place to encourage people to sign up under them. I've done this with some success, and it's come at my own expense.
While we should keep barriers in place to generally prevent abuse, we need a way to reduce those barriers as needed.
The team will need to put in place a simple process for whitelisting. For example, this might be an application form with details on how the ambassador plans to market the product, and guidelines laid out by the team on what is expected (as well as reinforcing the T&Cs). The team would then review applications to decide who to whitelist. Influencers both outside as well as within the current Splinterlands ecosystem would be able to apply (for example I think people like bronzedragon and bulldog1205 should be immediately whitelisted). The team would also proactively reach out to certain influencers offering to whitelist them for the program, in an effort to amplify referrals.
"Is it fair / "What about me?": Some people might read this proposal and think "wait, if influencers get to be in the Gold Tier for free, why can't I get it for free?". My answer would be twofold:
(1) Think of the big picture. If you're a part of this ecosystem, you want player growth. You have a LOT more to gain if we have a referral system that works and is used by people with large networks to onboard new players, than by getting a small percentage of DEC from a handful of referrals.
(2) If you legitimately believe you could be raking in referrals, then you can apply to get whitelisted. And then live up to it - i.e. refer players into the game.
I plan to speak with Clay and the SPS DAO to formalize this proposal. Before doing so, I would like to hear any feedback or concerns.