In this article, I’d like to continue the review of the new Play2Earn market growing in the crypto environment. I would even name it the Play2Earn industry since the phenomenon is becoming truly diverse and complex. But as this industry is still in its very early stage of development, a lot of people struggle to get into it. As many of you may know, I work with crypto projects and their communities. And while there are more and more GameFi and Play2Earn projects among my clients, I noticed that a lot of people in the crypto community can’t fully understand how to get in. Also, I get a lot of such questions on Twitter.
So it’s quite hazy how to start taking part and getting some profits out of Play2Earn games. Especially when starting from scratch. So, I’d like to review a few such possibilities, let’s name it Play2Earn for the beginners’ guide. Here you can find a series of short reviews of the different platforms, websites, and exact games where it’s possible to start taking part in Play2Earn with minimal friction and at least some efficiency.
Basically, the algorithm of getting into Play2Earn is:
- Do research, both qualitative and quantitative. Find all accessible information through aggregators and other information sources.
- Find the game. From the pool of games you think might be attractive for investment. Then you need to count how much of your time and money each game might demand and what would be the possible profit. Choose the ones with the highest possible ROI.
- Figure out what exactly you should do in the game to get the profit. Do you need farming on a daily basis? Or maybe it’s better to speculate on the game’s tokens by buying them on the market? Or even maybe it might be wise to buy NFTs for some objects in this game, like weapons, land, or arts? Every game has its own specifics and you need to have a clear understanding of it before you get in.
- Join communities. This might be extremely beneficial. Through the communities you can get early access to sales and investment rounds, gain enormous purchasing power, join powerful farming armies, get some inside information etc. Being in the community is important at least to secure your investments in Play2Earn projects.
Further, I’d like to go through all of these steps more precisely.
Aggregators and information sources
In crypto, any action and decision requires research.
DappRadar website is probably the most important platform where you can start searching for the new Play2Earn project. It’s similar to the famous Coinmarketcap which aggregates the majority of existing tokens and coins and sorts it by different parameters.
DappRadar is doing nearly the same thing for games, aggregating them and sorting by the number of users, activity rate, volume, etc. It’s not that complex and is quite easy to start using. I’d definitely recommend using this service for quantitative research. You also can find several alternative platforms which do the same thing.
Nevertheless, it’s also quite important to get fresh qualitative information about new events and opportunities in the Play2Earn industry. For this, I’d recommend using another type of information platforms, for instance, Blockchain Gaming Alliance. It’s a great service that regularly informs subscribers on the most important news about Play2Earn. Also here you can get information about the reputation of different projects, launchpads, and communities.
And as far as I know, there’s one more project like BGA is coming and will be released soon - Play2Earn Club.
Also, there are such services like GameFi Hunters, where you subscribe to a newsletter in which you can find new researches, projects, etc .
What to check
I decided to form a short checklist for you so you can better filter the projects while researching new projects on DappRadar or via other sources of information.
- Is there something behind the website or Twitter account? Are there arts, animations of the game?
- How many people are playing this game already? Do they express their feelings about it on social media?
- What is game core mechanics? Is it scalable? Can you imagine thousands of players playing it? What about millions?
- Is the mechanics of the game fair for average players or is it bot-oriented? If the latter one, the game will not get popular and you will more likely lose money.
- What are game competitors and what is the killing feature of this particular game?
- How do they do marketing and what is the project team? What is the background of the team?
- How early is the stage of development of the particular game? If the stage is too late, it might be very hard to gain some high profits.
These are just a few important features to check. I'll probably write a more sophisticated and broad checklist in the future with some examples and explanations.
Games
Previously I overviewed some of the brightest examples of Play2Earn games like Axie Infinity, Sandbox, Decentraland, etc. Here I’d like to add a few other examples just to broaden the focus for your possible research. Please, notice that this is not investment advice. Do your own research before you take any actions and risks.
Ember Sword - a fresh and promising MMO RPG game which got a lot of attention recently. Unfortunately, the land sale reservations are closed, but this project is a great illustration of what you need to hint for. Great team, clear core mechanics, a lot of work done. Ember Sword might be the new big thing.
Another upcoming project is Big Time. It’s also an RPG that is still in the stage of development and you can join the waitlist for the future early sale. This is a good example of a project that you really need to keep an eye on as early as possible so you don’t lose the opportunity when it appears. Big Time is, by all means, promising, so make sure you’ll be there to assess an opportunity and act if it is worth it.
One more example is Pet Games. The mechanics of Pet Games is very easy: you need to acquire an egg, or multiple eggs, from the marketplace to start participating in the game's ecosystem. Acquiring the eggs requires PETG tokens. Players can fight monsters every day. Fighting weaker opponents is easier but offers lower rewards. Additionally, players can grow plants on their land and harvest fruit. All pets can be sold on the marketplace. Nowadays this game is already mature and it’s one of those which requires minimum investment to start earning while playing. I definitely recommend it to those who want to try their first Play2Earn game and understand the basic mechanics.
Play2Earn Communities
One of the best ways to start earning money in Play2Earn is by joining one of the communities. Co-operation is extremely important in Play2Earn, but the communities are different. Some of them are like armies - numerous people unite to farm valuable objects or in-game currency being ranked through a hierarchy.
Another type of community in Play2Earn is when people unite to form buying power. It’s like pools. For instance, when there’s particularly valuable virtual land that not every individual can afford, united purchasing power can easily help get ownership on this strategically important object.
Another case might be some valuable and powerful account that can be rented. Players unite to rent it and farm some profits for the whole community. Sometimes communities also do some kind of venture expansion by investing in numerous new games or starting farming here and there to always have the opportunity to get into the new trend.
To find the right community which will suit you well, it’s better to search for such groups in Twitter, Telegram, or Discord. If you’re new to Play2Earn I’d recommend joining a few communities so you can compare them and choose the right one. Some of the most famous communities are YGG and play2earn.finance.
Conclusion
Play2Earn games are gaining popularity not only due to the possibility of income, but also due to the hype around DeFi and NFT.
It is worth remembering that in order to receive tangible income from games, you need to invest your own funds, time and effort, as well as have some luck to get rare items that can be sold for another cryptocurrency or fiat.
As I mentioned before, the industry of blockchain and NFT games is just developing, but we can already see how the market is filled with games of various genres with their own characteristics and capabilities. In the near future, the growth of this segment of the crypto market will grow, and the number of users making money while playing will definitely increase.
If you want the latest updates and research about crypto, Play2Earn, and the NFT industry and to participate in different crypto contests and activities - Follow me on Twitter.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about crypto or you are a Crypto / GameFi / NFT project and want to know more about how to promote your project, you can always contact me via Telegram (@baloyan)
P.S. Check out my previous articles at HackerNoon: