Play-To-Earn Games: Can You Become Rich?

The worldwide popularity of video games is unbelievable! Console games alone in 2022 have already made more than $50 billion. Smartphone games are also in high demand — according to the Statista report mobile games got $91 billion in 2021. Of course, the blockchain industry couldn’t stay away from this sector.

Due to the popularity of gaming, such a format as P2E is in great demand now, since it is not only an opportunity to have a good time, but also a source of income. That’s why play-to-earn games are trending.

What is a play-to-earn (P2E) game?

In P2E games players are getting rewards for their victories — it can be unique in-game items or the value of items in their inventory could be increased. Each of these items is an NFT, which can be sold or bought for cryptocurrency.

In order to fully participate in the P2E games, you are supposed to buy NFT first. However, we’re used to spending money on video games, aren’t we? We have to buy games to play them. For example, God of War Ragnarok for PlayStation, which will be released at the end of 2022, is now available for pre-order for $69.99. And, by the way, after you spend your money to buy it (hypothetically speaking), you won’t be able to earn crypto in it afterwards, which you can do in P2E games.

However, with P2E it’s also possible to get free access to play it. But if you would like to develop your character or to earn crypto in the process, you might need to pay some amount of money in order to do that. Of course, not everyone sees P2E games as a way of earning money. Some of us just like the game itself, so paying a small amount for an unusual gaming experience is also okay. However, if you’re planning on investing and earning with P2E, you might want to consider a few risks it could bring.

Is it really possible to earn money by playing?

On one hand, it all sounds a little weird — how could you earn enough money for the living while playing some computer game? On the other hand, for residents of a number of countries, such as the Philippines, P2E gaming became an alternative to traditional work because they’ve got low wages and high unemployment in their region. Gamers even manage to support their families by playing P2E games.

So the answer is ‘yes, you can make money by playing P2E games’. But how? Let’s use an example for clarity.

Alien Worlds, for instance, is a P2E game with 177.000 daily users. Its essence is simple — players explore planets, build economies, form governments and alliances. In the future, developers are planning to add the option for battles with other researchers for territory and resources.

There are several types of NFT items in the game: lands, weapons, tools, characters (minions). All of them can be bought and sold. Players need them for the main activity — the extraction of the TLM resource, which is the Trillium cryptocurrency.

During registration in Alien Worlds, the player chooses one of six planets, each of which is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) — something like a collective country. This means that each TLM holder can take part in the management of the planet by voting. Players decide together what reward to set for completing quests on their planet, under what conditions to extract resources, and so on.

How much can you earn in this game? In 2021, a user wrote on Reddit that he earned $160 in 2 weeks.

That proves you can earn crypto by playing games. And for sure, there are many different P2E games out there not only about aliens — anyone can find something interesting to their taste.

What about risks?

If you plan to invest your money in P2E and earn some in return, it is important to understand that there are some pitfalls. There’s always a chance you might lose the invested amount, so be prepared for that and don’t forget to do your own research before making an investment.

Be aware that developers have total control over the economy of P2E games and they might make changes to it in the process. Over time, the project may close, and the fate of your NFTs will remain in question. That has happened with players of Battle Racers and F1 Delta Time (both games were racing simulators).

Another risk may be associated with the volatility of cryptocurrency rates, as well as the threat of hacking. For example, the Wormhole cross-chain bridge was attacked in 2022 — the hackers withdrew the wETH token in the amount of $319 million, and the DeFi project Beanstalk lost $181 million in April.

Also, P2E games might have some characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. Business Insider once assumed that if all Axie Infinity players (or most of them) exchange game tokens for other currencies on the same day, their value will collapse. But if interest is maintained and strengthened, the value will continue to rise (which is more likely).

So just be careful and before making a decision to invest in P2E (or literally in any other project), first analyze everything and only afterwards make your move — just to be safe.

Summary

According to the opinion of Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of the Reddit social network), in a few years the NFT mechanic will get into 90% of games. So soon the P2E model won’t be a surprise for us and earning crypto while playing would be business as usual.

Not everyone agrees with that — some players don’t see value in P2E games. For example, Ubisoft, the creator of the Far Cry and Tom Clancy’s franchises, recently faced criticism after launching its Quartz NFT platform. This for sure won’t stop them from new experiments in this field, but maybe now they’ll approach with more caution.

Anyway, the experience of playing P2E games is definitely worth a try. You can start with small investments just to fully understand the dynamics of P2E — it would be an interesting crypto experiment for you and maybe later it can become a source of income.

SimpleSwap reminds you that this article is provided for informational purposes only and does not provide investment advice. All purchases and cryptocurrency investments are your own responsibility.

Originally published on Publish0x blog.

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