An Honest Review on Play-to-Earn Crypto-Games. All The Goods and Bads
How much you can realistically earn playing games and how much upfront capital you would need to start out.
Crypto play-to-earn games sound like every gamer’s dream. If playing games could really earn me money, why bother working my 9 to 5? To find out if I could make a living off crypto games, I decided to do a deep dive into the realm of Crypto games.
Games available
The first thing that struck me as I ventured into this genre was that there aren’t many good play-to-earn games — if any at all. Many are adaptations of popular childhood games such as Sims and Pokemon. The graphics are also generally bad; reminiscent of 480p resolution games I played in elementary school. Many also seemed to be using designs that can be easily purchased off the Unity asset store (the stock image equivalent for game developers).
However, I did find Axie Infinity and Plants vs Undead to have the best graphics and user interface. The design was clean and the server was well hosted with low ping (lesser lag time during gameplay).
My favourite game was Axie Infinity. It’s a game where you use your “Axies” to battle against other people or complete quests; just like you would in Pokemon.
Image credits: IGN Asia
Your Axies have various special skills and can be carefully bred to achieve the best possible result. Axies that you breed can be sold to make money. Alternatively, completing quests can provide you income as well.
The other play-to-earn game I was quite fond of was Plants vs Undead. It’s a spin-off from the classic Plant vs Zombie mobile game. The game allows you to plant trees, plants, and sunflowers that can be sold or passively generate income.
Sunflowers can be planted in order to generate income, which oddly reminded me of the Facebook game Farmville. There is also going to be a multiplayer mode and survival mode launching soon which will be just like its namesake, plants vs zombie.
Players will have to grow special plants in order to fight the undead who are bent on destroying your mother tree.
As you can see, most of these games aren’t particularly innovative nor exciting. Most games merely transplant boring ideas from dead games and revive them into the crypto sphere.
Cost of playing the games
Crypto games are exorbitant to play. The starting cost of Axie Infinity would incur you north of $600 to play. And as you progress, you’d probably have to buy better Axies to get better at the game.
Moreover, the price of Axie Infinity’s token, AXS, fluctuates wildly according to various factors such as the number of players, investments, and new releases. The cost of AXS could increase in the next few months.
In Plants vs Undead, start-up costs would run you roughly $40. However, you would need to invest more as you’re required to purchase the NFT plants which cost ~$100 in order to convert the in-game token, LE, back into PVU (the plants vs undead token) to sell on PancakeSwap. Each PVU costs $1 as of writing the article.
How much can you earn?
On average players from Axie infinity earn the most. A typical player can earn $1,200 a month from playing Axie 40 hours every week.
That means that you will be able to recoup your investment in just half a month provided you dedicate 40 hours a week to gaming.
Plants vs Undead currently allows you to earn much less. The in-game token, LE, converts at a 5x worse rate to PVU, than if you convert PVU back to LE. The return on investment is extremely low.
Are play-to-earn games worth it?
I can see play-to-earn games being an extremely viable option for people who are searching for passive income sources. You will also have full control over how much you make. In fact, many gamers in the Philippines have quit their full-time jobs to dedicate their lives to Axie Infinity.
However, the downside is that upfront costs are extremely high and the potential runway for these projects are extremely short. Early gamers who have made money from Axie may soon transfer their funds into another newer, cooler game. This may cause the late joiners to make a loss.
If you are still interested though, there are “scholarships” available. You will be able to loan Axies from people on the internet for free. All you have to do in return is to give back part of your profits.
While I have pointed out certain deficiencies in the current play-to-earn games, we do have to give some credit to these game developers. The crypto play-to-earn industry is still rather nascent and has lots of room to go. Gamers should look out for new exciting games such as Lightnite, Illuvium, and the much anticipated Star Atlas which are about to be released in late 2021.
Personally, I would wait for a better game to be released before investing or playing. And for the amount of investment returns I can receive per hour, I would be better off making minimum wage in the nearby McDonalds. But still, that doesn't stop me from having some fun and making bank along the way.
This article is meant as an opinion piece and is strictly not financial advice. Please perform your own research before making any financial decisions.
