If you’re new to web3, you might not be familiar with the concept of “Play to Earn” - a new era of gaming where players truly own their digital assets.
The easiest way to explain Play to Earn to a newcomer is to imagine Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic the Gathering (MTG) back in the day. These cards were sold on eBay for thousands of dollars - old players tired of playing were auctioning out their sets to allow new generations to play with the cards they owned.
They were called trading card games for a reason: the core component was trading. Each fan was ecstatic at the idea of spending the day trading one card for another or selling their newly built decks to friends or opponents. They were proud of what they owned, and they wanted to grow their collection to build their dream deck.
Then, digital gaming came into play. Players started losing ownership of their cards. For example, Hearthstone cards don’t have the ability to be traded because they are not the players’ owned assets. Magic the Gathering Arena, the digitized version of MTG, is the same because players don’t legally own the cards. You purchase a token inside the game that represents a card. The card is not yours; hence you can’t trade it nor sell it on an open marketplace.
Play to Earn games try to switch the paradigm and offer you truly, trustless ownership of all game assets. Gods Unchained is doing this in the trading card game niche, and other game development studios are bringing the concept to MMORPGs, Virtual Metaverses, and so much more. However, there’s a tiny problem.
Play to Earn Games Are Expensive
In its golden age, Axie Infinity, the most populated Play to Earn game to date, required almost $1500 to start playing the game. That’s a month’s wage in most wealthy countries and up to three months’ wage in developing countries.
It’s ludicrous to think this new concept can expand if we ask players to invest a month’s wage into the game. Marketplaces like Steam, Epic Games Store, and initiatives like Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, etc., proved that players want to spend less, not more, for games.
Yes, it’s easy to say they can “get their money back,” but that assumes they want to see the game as an investment rather than an experience. And that’s simply false.
Most people in the world have no clue what an open market is or what ROI means. Their core goal is to play a game and have fun - that’s it.
If you add the earning component to a game, that can be a blessing in disguise. If it doesn’t take anything away from the gaming experience, the mass market will adopt P2E.
However, if you take away fun just to incorporate an open market and Play to Earn mechanics, you’ll never achieve mass adoption.
That’s why to be successful, a Play to Earn game has to be:
- Profitable
- Fun and engaging
- Easy to understand, challenging to master
What are Play to Earn Mechanics
I’m a writer for the most popular Play to Earn magazine, a core contributor for a GameFi platform and gaming guild that has raised tens of millions of dollars in funding, and an investor in Italy’s largest blockchain social network. Still, it would be nearly impossible for me to answer this question.
Play to Earn mechanics are such a new paradigm for gaming that it’s hard to describe exactly what the future holds.
Let’s start with what all Play to Earn titles have in common, shall we? After all, there must be a winning point somewhere, or the Head of Gaming wouldn’t have left YouTube to join Polygon Studios, a blockchain gaming company.
They all feature an open marketplace that hosts in-game items - such as characters, weapons, spells, cards, abilities, genes - that can be traded online, kind of like trading cards on eBay back in the day.
Also, they all have an internal coin or, most often than not, a duo-token economy. The in-game token usually serves as a reward system, and that’s how players can earn money by playing the game. In-game assets are also usually exchanged or sold using the in-game token.
In addition to the in-game token, all games feature a “Governance” cryptocurrency, for example, AXS for Axie Infinity. Governance tokens determine who can vote on proposals and, overall, allow the community to manage how the game evolves.
Governance power is measured by how many “stacked” coins of the token the holder has. Staking a token means that it is locked and can’t be sold for a specified time period, commonly for 6 or 12 months.
To be honest, that’s where the similarities end. All games serve a different audience, have a different internal economy, and follow a unique storyline.
If you want to understand the movement better, let’s look at what the studios are working on as we speak.
Most Popular Play to Earn Games You Can Play Right Now
2022 will be the year that most Play to Earn games will be released. However, 2021 also offered some great golden nuggets. Let’s review how they work to better grasp how this ecosystem works.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity was the first immensely popular Play to Earn name of 2021. Ubisoft and huge companies partnered with the devs, Sky Mavis, and the game was such a success that growth of 20% daily for their token was “common”.
Axie players in the Philippines and Indonesia often made more money playing the game than working at their full-time jobs. Some players even left the companies that hired them to battle with their Axies.
Axie Infinity used to reward players by playing in Adventure and Arena mode with $SLP, the in-game token. Adventure mode is PvE, against monsters, and Arena is PvP, against other players.
$SLP in 2021 was worth around $0.20, and one battle in PvE could give you upwards of 10SLPs, which means you could earn $2 per battle. Overall, players easily earned $30-40 per day, making the initial investment of $500-1000 look sensible.
However, Axie Infinity failed to provide utility for the $SLP token. Even though Axies could “breed” using a combination of $SLP and $AXS - the governance token bought on other markets led to the system collapse, and SLP is now worth close to nothing.
The team aims to rebuild the reputation of the game with a new release, Axie Infinity Origin, but it’s yet to prove scalability.
You see, the idea of earning $2 per battle is great, but don’t forget we’re still talking about a fully-fledged economy. How can you reward someone for doing something if the only use for those earnings is to take them out of the game?
It’s like saying your country gives you healthcare, and then you pay taxes to another one. It’s the same concept as earning $SLPs just for the sake of redeeming them into €, $ or £. It’s great until it’s not - and the system can’t keep rewarding players with tokens if they’re not running inside of it anymore.
Splinterlands
Originally named “Steemmonsters” and hosted on the Steemit Blockchain, Splinterlands is now a Trading Card Game (TCG) running on the Hive Blockchain, typically used for social media applications and frontends such as Peakd.
Splinterlands is free to play, and you only need to pay a $10 Summoner’s Pack fee to join in on the Play to Earn mechanisms.
In this game, each play will reward you with dark energy crystals ($DEC), the in-game currency, which you can then use to open packs of cards and build a more robust deck. By building a stronger deck, you can win more games, increase your daily $DEC earnings, and scale the leaderboard.
Splinterlands is one of the long-lasting behemoths of Play to Earn, and it’s still very active. The reason is that the in-game currency doesn’t heavily fluctuate and has actual utility.
$DEC can be used to enter tournaments (with prices in $), buy cards, open packs, sell cards, purchase accessories, and so much more. Also, they can be purchased with fiat currency via PayPal or traded for the most popular cryptocurrencies.
This makes the game incredibly easy to pick up for a new player, and it’s also fun to master. Once mastered, the game can provide a stable, reliable income to the best players, kind of like Magic the Gathering Tournaments providing a safe income for champions.
Splinterlands will not make you anywhere near $30-40 per day, but that’s the whole reason why it’s still going. Rewards are reasonable, consistent, and smartly distributed. You earn by being good, not simply by playing. And that’s what a real game looks like.
As of 2022, the game also has a Governance token ($SPS) and land play available, an advanced concept we will explore in future articles if you’re interested.
NFT Worlds
NFT Worlds are a fascinating concept that grabbed my attention one month ago. So when I saw their switch to Polygon, I immediately texted all my friends to tell them to buy $WRLD - the in-game currency.
The same day I mentioned it, $WRLD went up 50%, and it’s not by chance.
NFT Worlds are fully functioning Minecraft PvP worlds that players, companies and guilds can purchase to construct within. Worlds can reward users with $WRLD and commit to transactions in the blockchain, giving in-game ownership of properties and assets.
The developers did something genius: they used an existing game that amasses millions of players and gave it further utility with NFTs. As a result, the bet proved successful, and players can now join the first Play to Earn Minecraft servers.
Claims by users seem to confirm the average earning is around $2 per hour, which might seem low, but keep in mind they are simply playing Minecraft.
You can see a complete list of active and in-development games here.
Is Play to Earn a Scam?
Over the past few days, I’ve read many articles on Medium and blog networks warning everyone of the “lies” web3 believers were propagandizing around.
Their main argument is that neither the blockchain nor the NFT “scam” (their words) was needed. Traditional gaming companies could achieve this by redistributing parts of their earnings to players without any Governance token - thus giving them true ownership of their assets.
And, you know what? That’s 100% true.
There’s only one fallacy in that argument: they’re not going to do that. They haven’t done it in the past, they’re not doing it now, and they won’t do it in the future.
Innovation is not determined by if something is impossible with current technology. It’s deemed as innovative if it brings something new to the market, regardless of how that new “thing” was built.
I would call a traditional game “innovative” if it allowed players to exchange assets, sell them on an open marketplace, and earn money by profiting from all in-game purchases. However, that will never happen because that’s not how the gaming industry works as of now.
That’s why the need for an “alternative” to traditional game assets came to be and why Play to Earn games are bringing in funding up to $200m per round, such as the last one from Polygon Studios.
Our world is built on fictional stories. Money, power, Countries, Governments, Companies - what truly are these things?
They hold no intrinsic value. Therefore, they can’t be used or traded unless the other party deems them valuable.
$1 is worth just that only because we all agree the story was invented by the US Central Bank, and 1€ is worth 1€ because the same is true for the European Central Bank.
Yes, “Play to Earn” is based on a fantasy - just like all the other mechanisms that rule the modern world.
We would all die if the Amazon Rainforest were to be burned down. However, the world couldn’t care less about checking it all day long. Society cares about checking our bank accounts, though, where a string of code decides how much “money” we have.
You get the point. Just because something is fictional - or “not real” -doesn’t mean it doesn’t constitute real economic value.
The opportunity to build new economies inside of games IS innovative, and Play to Earn games take full advantage of by building an ecosystem inclusive of players and rewarding players for trusting and investing in the project.
What are Gaming Guilds?
As mentioned above, starting out in a new Play to Earn game can be quite challenging, both in terms of knowledge and economic barriers.
Gaming Guilds in the Metaverse aim to address this concern by providing users a way to start playing without the upfront investment.
For example, Yield Gaming Guild offered scholarships for Axie Infinity to players in the Philippines. In return, they provide 70% of the income generated by the guild-owned assets back to them.
The guild I contribute to, Polemos, is focused on providing scholarships for Illuvium, the upcoming AAA game aiming for release in 2022.
Polemos also offers scholarships to players interested in partnered games that are currently playable. Additionally, they are building out an educational hub to provide top-tier training, which will allow players to increase their game skills. This uniquely built system increases revenue distribution for players, guilds, and P2E games alike.
Gaming guilds are also essential as consultants for game developers and overall community engagement to boost morale and traffic to promising, new Play to Earn projects.
For example, Polemos currently has active involvements in Fancy Birds, MonkeyLeague, Galaxy Fight Club, and Legends of Venari, with a portfolio of investments topping $100k for these games alone.
All Gaming Guilds are hiring like crazy, and Venture Capital firms are eager to join in!
Conclusions
Play to Earn is a fascinating new reality for gaming. Although it has a long way to go, I’m positive 2022 will be the year the first AAA title, Illuvium, will come out and provide first-class utility to its token.
The road ahead is long but promising, and the more people that join in now, the shorter it will be. If you have any questions, feel free to comment, I’ll reply to every single comment!
In case you’re curious about learning more about the environment, here are some interesting articles on Hackernoon!
NFTs in Gaming: Actual Problems and How to Solve Them from @maria-lobanova
Is Blockchain Technology The Answer To Future Online Gaming? from @yasmita-kumar
Solving the Problems With Play-to-earn Gaming from @metapunk
Final note: I’m affiliated with the GameFi platform “Polemos” and the Play to Earn magazine “playtoearn.online” mentioned in the article. Alternatives have been offered and mentioned, and I guarantee impartial responses in the comments.