Play to Earn and the Multiverse of Fun

Gaming has always been a popular fun activity for people; hence it has continued to evolve with the advancement of technology. From ancient board games like Chess and Go to sophisticated electronic games like Pro Evolution Soccer, humans continue to advance games to have more fun.

This evolution of games has produced a sprawling electronic gaming
industry and has created lucrative jobs for numerous engineers, programmers, designers etc.

However, while the gaming industry has proven very lucrative, the gamers themselves who spend a good amount of time and effort playing the games have not really gotten much economic reward. This trend is beginning to change in recent times with the introduction of blockchain gaming and decentralized technology.

Decentralized technology actually grew out of the need to create an inclusive financial market where financial institutions will not exclusively
profit at the expense of the customers. This inclusive economy was
successfully launched through the introduction of cryptocurrency and
decentralized finance applications (dApps), but these technologies
require some level of digital literacy to exploit. Hence, a good
proportion of the target population remained isolated.

Gamefi was introduced as a remedy to this predicament as it leverages on the widely enjoyed activity of gaming to introduce lay people to the
inclusive crypto economy. Fortunately, it also solves the problem of
gamers who often put in the most time and effort on games not getting
a share in the huge economic returns the industry generates.

This idea of Gamefi resulted in what is know today as Play to Earn gaming (P2E) in contrast to the Play to Win (P2W) ideology that previously dominated the gaming industry.

Another recent technology that is advancing P2E ideology is the concept of digital property and the metaverse. The metaverse is a complex digital
cyberspace with advanced graphics where people can create, play, work
and own digital property. Blockchain technology with its sophisticated record-keeping abilities, facilitates complicated transactions with such digital properties known as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

The integration of gaming and the blockchain has resulted in the creation of several metaverse games like Axie infinity, Gods Unchained and Pegaxy where players can earn in cryptocurrency. Metaverse games have continued to expand in complexity however and other platforms like The
Sandbox, Decentraland and M3 games have progressed to the concept of a multiverse.

A metaverse can be defined as a sophisticated cyberspace with advanced graphics where people interact using avatars. It is projected to create the next level of the internet, leveraging next-level graphics technology
like Virtual Reality (VR) and advanced network connectivity (e.g.,
5G) to make people feel more connected.

A multiverse on the other hand is a scientific term which refers to a collection of interconnected physical universes which can interact considerably with each other.

In game development, however, metaverse technology has facilitated a digital application of the multiverse concept. Hence, a number of blockchain gaming platforms like The Sandbox and M3 Games developed a network of metaverse games which allow game assets (characters, tokens, etc.) to function as NFTs which can be moved from one game to the other and be used there for gameplay. Such platform is also called a
multiverse (i.e., digital multiverse).

Play to Win or P2W is the previously dominant gaming paradigm where games are developed for players to compete against the computer or human opponents just to win and progress in-game level and/or skill, with
no financial benefit expected. It’s basically gaming for fun and
popular games like Fifa, Pes, Candy Crush etc. were all developed as
P2W games.

Play to Earn P2E is a more recent gaming paradigm facilitated by blockchain games, which are developed for players to compete against computer or human opponents and gain financial benefits like crypto assets. Many metaverse games like Axie Infinity, Spliterlands, Illuvium etc. are play-to-earn games.

E-Sports is an emerging new field in sports which exploits the advanced connectivity of modern games to facilitate gaming as a sporting event. Originally, E-sports was limited to a few friends gathering in one location to compete in games like Pro Evolution Soccer (Pes), Mortal combat etc., on PC or gaming consoles (e.g., Atari, SEGA, Play Station, Xbox etc.). Onsite tournaments were also organized for such players to congregate and compete for prizes.

As network technology advanced however, several games were released with wireless multiplayer capability which enabled players not exactly in the same location to compete. Initially this was limited to just low range connections like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi which still placed considerable distance constraints on players. But over the internet connection was eventually enabled, allowing players to play with other players anywhere in the world.

This advanced connectivity in gaming triggered the rise of modern E-Sports platforms like Toornament, Gamebattles, UMGgaming etc., who host online gaming tournaments where players around the world can compete to win money. Twitch is a popular E-sports streaming company.

E-Sports created another opportunity for Play to Earn gaming and metaverse games have begun to exploit this opportunity by integrating tournaments as part of their gameplay to further promote their general Play to Earn philosophy. Platforms like The Sandbox and M3 which have advanced to a multiverse level, now have a sophisticated web of games for different E-Sport events which further promotes Play to Earn Gaming.

Several digital Multiverses have been developed with Metaverse technology which focus on different things like work, gaming, VR experience, socializing, networking, etc., or any combination of these aspects. Here, we will highlight three which highly facilitate Play to Earn gaming.

This has been described as “the best metaverse game with huge
potential”. This is an apt description because though the platform
has well-developed gaming apparatus, it was not developed just as
gaming platform but as a virtual world where people can interact with
virtual real estate.

People can buy “land” on the platform and create fun gaming and
socializing experiences to earn income from other people who
participate events. People can also create and trade NFTs which
can be used on different lands, for different experiences. However,
the best way to earn money on Decentraland is to buy and sell land.
The token used for transactions on the platform is called MANA. These transactions facilitate Play to Earn gaming.

People or organizations who own land on Decentraland can also organize
E-Sport tournaments.

The Sandbox is another popular land based virtual world that greatly
promotes Play to Earn gaming but it is more focused on gaming than
decentraland. Created as a fun, easy to learn way to introduce people
to blockchain technology, The Sandbox has become widely adopted and
now contains many games created by users of the platform for other
users to enjoy.

The Sandbox has three major components. The first is Voxel Editor
which is used in creating NFts for gaming. The second is Marketplace
which is used in for trading NFts and the last is Game Maker used to
create games which will run on the platform. The native token used
here is called Sand.

The Sandbox facilitates play to Earn gaming through sales of
assets (e.g., NFTs) and tournaments which can be organized by game
creators.

M3 Games is a recently released network of blockchain games which
allows players to accumulate tokens and NFTs by completing tasks in the freemium version of games on the network, then they can use the NFTs to play any of the network games or sell them for money. With enough NFTs and tokens, players can progress to the NFT version of the games and
participate in built in tournaments in the game to make more money.

M3 is the most focused multiverse on this list and narrows down on
Play to Earn gaming without players really having to bother about game
creation or NFT minting before they can begin making money. One game
called sweetclash is already released on the network while God of Gods will soon be released. The games use MGR and M3 tokens for transactions.

With the extensive P2E apparatus of M3, Players can just join the
network and begin gaming right away to accumulate tokens and game
cards with economic value. The notable P2E apparatus of M3 is
further detailed to highlight its simplicity and straightforwardness
which sets it apart from other game multiverses.

Play to Earn ideology could evolve blockchain games into one giant multiverse of metaverses.