The Web3 space has seen its fair share of value propositions come and go throughout the years, with some living up to expectations and others not so much.
A natural occurrence to be expected in any nascent industry.
What has been hard to swallow, however, has been the underwhelming lack of sustainability behind some promising innovations, and none have been more disappointing than the rise and fall of play-to-earn (P2E) gaming - the current backbone of the GameFi industry.
Once widely upheld as one of the most successful Web3 case studies, GameFi has since experienced a significant downturn, with the rate of new monthly users having dropped by 57% since May 2021, and leading P2E games such as Axie Infinity having lost over 90% of their market capitalization in 2022 alone. As a result, the play-to-earn model has since come under scrutiny, and it is rapidly becoming apparent that rather than market conditions being to blame, it is the P2E model itself that is at fault, as it is simply not conducive to long-term engagement.
This has led to the emergence of an array of conceptual alternatives, and none have been more compelling than the play-and-earn (P&E) model, which--rather than focusing on value extraction--is built around rewarding gamers for playing games that they would otherwise be playing for fun.
Play-to-Earn: Only as Good as the Returns
Put simply, the play-to-earn model involves merging tokenized incentives with gaming in order to provide tangible financial rewards for users in return for their interaction and performance.
The motivation behind this merging is debatable. Yet owing to engagement arguably being the main element within gaming in general, it appears that blockchain game developers have been trying to surpass (or match) the impressive engagement levels that are consistently seen in the traditional video game industry, and believe this can be done by providing attractive yield opportunities for users.
To date, the most successful play-to-earn game has undoubtedly been Axie Infinity, which involves users collecting NFT creatures that can battle, build, and collect treasure and which is accompanied by a corresponding in-game currency, marketplace, and token economy.
At its height, the game had around 2.7 million users, and the value of its in-game token, AXS, was worth $165.
The token value naturally meant that it became profitable for players to interact with the game as much as possible, and due to the low barriers to entry (at the time), the game not only became incredibly popular but became a full-time job for many users in developing countries.
And here lies the problem. Rather than interacting with play-to-earn games for the gameplay, first and foremost, users were primarily playing for the economic returns, and this means that the success of P2E games like Axie Infinity is completely reliant upon these returns being maintained consistently.
This has led to the industry becoming entirely dependent on solid token mechanics and favorable crypto market conditions, and given the strong correlation between the fall in market capitalization and a dramatic decrease in new users, it is evident that play-to-earn games are simply not a winning formula for long-term engagement.
Therefore, blockchain game developers would do better to focus on the very formula that has worked for the traditional video game industry, and that is by creating (or supporting) high-quality games which users would play for fun and for free. This way, not only would this make blockchain games immune to market volatility, but the benefits of blockchain technology can further strengthen engagement.
Play-and-earn facilitates this.
Play-And-Earn: Putting Gaming First
As mentioned previously, rather than focusing the economic returns as the primary value-proposition, the play-and-earn gaming model seeks to put game quality and engagement at the center of its value-offering for users, which not only makes sense from a logical perspective but also appears to be in line with current preferences amongst gamers.
According to a Globant/YouGov gamer survey, around 49% of the respondents said they were more interested in playing than earning when gaming, with only 11% being more interested in earning. However, nearly 40% said they would be interested in a mix of playing and earning, and therefore, P&E is an ideal model for fulfilling both. Why Play-And-Earn?
The P&E model ties in perfectly with the reward mechanisms that are already seen in traditional video games and provides an additional form of utility that can ‘further’ enhance one’s gaming experience.
For example, in many traditional video games, the most common utility that is often seen is the ability to unlock rewards (e.g., in-game skins and items) that can enrich a player’s gaming experience, and this, in turn, encourages players to spend more time in games in order to get them. With P&E embedded, tokenized incentives not only can be used to purchase these but allows for interoperable utilities such as cash conversion, lending, and borrowing.
In other words, P&E can act as a complimentary economic/digital layer on top of games that have already proven to be engaging, and thus, gamers can feel a sense of reward that is not only more amplified than what traditional gaming rewards can offer, but in a way which doesn’t take the fun out of gaming - something that the P2E model has failed to avoid.
The P&E model also has benefits for video game companies and blockchain gaming startups.
The major advantage of building around a play-and-earn model is that instead of having to undergo the very time-consuming and experimental process of developing engaging video games, blockchain gaming projects can simply latch onto the already burgeoning video game industry by providing the infrastructure to facilitate tokenized rewards.
The major advantage of building around a play-and-earn model is that instead of having to undergo the very time-consuming and experimental process of developing engaging video games, blockchain gaming projects can simply latch onto the already burgeoning video game industry by providing the infrastructure to facilitate tokenized rewards.
Take the wildly popular game Call of Duty, for example.
Boasting around 8 million monthly players, it provides a huge user base which was only possible through many years of high-quality game development, and required a great deal of trial and error. So by integrating P&E utilities, not only can the likes of Activision further separate themselves from competitors, but blockchain gaming startups can also reduce the risk of failure by not having to allocate significant resources into building engaging games from scratch. What the Future Holds
Although P2E paved the way for the blockchain gaming ecosystem by showing what is possible when integrating tokenized rewards into gaming, the model’s core economic focus is simply not compatible with the dominant mindset amongst gamers, which is playing games out of enjoyment first and foremost.
This naturally means that in order to succeed, P2E projects would have to build highly engaging games that gamers would play for free, regardless of the economic rewards. So not only will this incur a significant amount of time and resources, but it would also require a great deal of traditional gaming expertise as well.
For this reason, P&E arguably has a brighter future, as rather than being a core value-proposition in and of itself, its value is in the fact that it can add to the already successful video game industry, which consists of leading gaming publishers which already have a firm hold over the market.
It is why it is in the best interest of blockchain gaming startups to not only build the infrastructure to facilitate P&E utilities but to educate potential partners as to how P&E mechanics can allow for a greater attachment to be formed between players and the games that they play.
In doing so, it will bring the best out of blockchain gaming, which in turn will allow for more persistent engagement and long-term loyalty within traditional video games.