To clarify a few things, as myself and the project I'm building were somehow mentioned in this proposal:

The primary reason I chose EVM over Hive is fundamental. Hive does not support EVM smart contracts - yet. Smart contracts are the backbone of decentralized games, and EVM is the de facto standard VM. One could build their own L2s, but that's a lot of redundant work. Ethgard Legends is currently on the Base testnet, but it could technically be Arbitrum, Ronin, Oasis, or any other L2/L3 EVM-compatible chain. I've also not received any grants from Base. Their only incentives so far are gas-credits.

The secondary reason is that I believe EVM is the future, and becoming a proficient Solidity Smart Contract Developer has been a personal goal of mine for a few years.

Now, to also clear up any confusion about the rebranding to Ethgard Legends:

The primary reason the game rebranded from Splinter Royale to Ethgard Legends, besides the clear lack of funding and support, was for independence. As you can see from the new proposals, the future of Splinterlands is sadly uncertain. While I hope everything works out, building a game is difficult. Add in the technical challenges of Web3, and it's even more difficult. Making the game also dependent on another ecosystem, where the "mother-game" is struggling itself, is quite simply too much.

With this said, Hive is still like family to me. Being dragged into this as an argument, as the first official response and mention from Splinterlands to the project I've been working on for over a year, would be funny - if it weren't so sad.

PS: I know that VSC is being built on top of Hive which has planned EVM support. I appreciate their work - I really do. But for Ethgard Legends, I need a production ready EVM-compatible L2/L3 now, not in a few months or a year.