Play to Earn website launched!
Play to Earn is proud to announce that our website is now live. This first version is just a glimpse of what it needs to become. The website is meant as way to highlight some of the most interesting projects in blockchain gaming. Not solely based on statistics acquired from APIs and blockchain explorers, but especially about something subjective: fun & quality.
Play to Earn is active on four different platforms, and each of these platforms has a different functionality. Currently I am using the following to spread the word:
- Twitter — short messages, quick notifications, reminders and retweets.
- Substack — our weekly newsletter
- and this Medium publication for editorials and news.
The website is the latest and final addition. On the website a new Top 10 is published every week. We start with the…
For now I weekly updates to the website, and this can increase in the future. You can find Play to Earn at two locations:
- playtoearn.online
- playtoearn.crypto (only in Web3 browsers)
But why!?
With projects like Dapp.com, Opensea.io, and Nonfungible.com the blockchain gaming market already has a variety of tools available to read and learn about what’s hot and booming. The number of transactions, trading volume, minted NFTs, and much more data is available for inspection. I use and admire these data platforms. However, we also need to talk about games as products for our entertainment. Play to Earn needs to bridge this gap between blockchain insiders and mainstream audiences.
In addition, from a creative point of view I want to embrace the decentralized concept of blockchain games. That’s why the website is hosted on IPFS.
What the freck is IPFS?
Normal websites are hosted on servers. These servers are located in the United States, Russia, China or any other country. Content on these servers needs to follow the local jurisdiction. As a result a government can order a hosting provider to take content down.
On IPFS content can technically always exist. Content hosted on IPFS is stored across the network. Even when a part goes down due to a technical failure or government intervention, the IPFS network won’t suffer a total blackout. That makes it censorship resistant.
Play to Earn isn’t illegal right?
No, it’s not. But that’s not the point. On the internet there are parties with too much control. Facebook and Google follow every search you do. They know your agenda, social life and base personalized advertisements on that knowledge. Hosting on IPFS frees content and users from the almost totalitarian control of governments and commerce.
Sounds good, what are the downsides?
The result of this digital freedom is that websites can’t be super dynamic, can’t be made with Wordpress and simply require good ol’ fashioned HTML and CSS knowledge. Google Analytics doesn’t work, leaving comments is for now also not an option. On top of that content on IPFS isn’t easy to find through search engines. Even talking about these IPFS website is awful, because the URLs are horrible! Just look at it:
https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/QmXaCvSzneB9itheDLUJjSE5RDi3gXpcLfsWiLFJ5MbxHc/
.crypto and .online
The URL above is not easy to understand. It’s a hash referring to one specific piece of content that was published at a certain time. Post an update, and you get a new hash. Thankfully there are domain service providers like Unstoppable Domains and Ethereum Name Service. These companies offer Web 3.0 domain names that can connect with both these ugly URLs and cryptocurrency wallets.
Playtoearn.crypto is much easier to read than the earlier mentioned URL. However, your standard browser won’t recognize this domain name extension. It’s important to use browsers that are compatible with Web 3.0. You see, it’s not easy (yet!) to host a decentralized website. That’s why I also acquired Playtoearn.online. This domain forwards you through an embedded iframe to the content on IPFS.
Future development
I’m not a programmer. Everything I want to do, I first need to learn. For the coming weeks I will focus on content development. I want to make Play to Earn a great resource for those who are interested in trying out blockchain games.
Please note: If you bookmark the Play to Earn website, use Playtoearn.crypto or Playtoearn.online. Do not bookmark the IPFS hash!
