How to monetize a healthy lifestyle: understanding the new concept of move-to-earn games by the example of STEPN
One of the top lines of talks and presentations at the Blockchain Life conference (Moscow, April 20–23, 2022) was GameFi. This is not surprising. Play-to-earn games are breaking records in terms of investment. Some cryptocurrency exchanges are even opening GameFi units. Move-to-earn, an offshoot of P2E games, has become incredibly popular this spring. Players can earn tokens by playing sports or running in real life. So what does this mean? Let’s find out!
The concept of games that encourage players to get away from the computer and go outside is not new. Remember the sensational 2016 AR game Pokémon Go. Players searched for cartoon characters on the streets of real cities, teamed up, and battled. The new move-to-earn projects operate on similar mechanics, with the difference that movement and activity bring them real income.
The most notable projects can be divided into two categories. The first is projects with characters and a game scenario defined by the developers. The second is fitness apps that monetize healthy lifestyles.
The loudest launch among fitness apps has StepN, a game from Find Satoshi Labs. The player can earn tokens simply by going for a walk. It sounds interesting, but it’s not that simple.
What is StepN? It is a Solana blockchain-based game that tracks the user’s running activity via GPS. Each time the player runs at a certain speed, he earns the game’s in-game currency, the Green Satoshi Token (GST). To join the game, you must purchase NFT sneakers. The coins earned can be sold on the exchange or exchanged in-app for Sol, a native token of the Solana network.
How to join StepN and start monetizing your steps?
To start, you need to download the app from the Apple or Google Store, register, and enter the activation code. The last condition might be a problem because the creators control the growth of their audience and give out about 2,000 codes a day. But you can catch it in StepN communities on Telegram or Discord. Registered users get a code after a few runs and share it on social networks.
Be careful. The popularity of the project attracted fraudsters — under the mask of a bot, they ask users to follow a link and connect a wallet. Some of them send StepN followers an offer to help them buy pumped-up sneakers and then disappear with the money. There are also several phishing sites found online that steal users’ wallet codes. Check the name of the site and do not respond to dubious offers in messengers.
After registering, you need to choose sneakers on the marketplace
The StepN app has a marketplace with different sneakers in the form of NFTs. All sneakers differ in type, efficiency, and rarity.
There are four types of NFT sneakers. They differ in the speed at which you have to run:
- Walker is a sneaker for walking. The maximum speed for this type is 6 km/hr. This is a walk at a regular pace.
- Jogger is the type for easy joggers. These sneakers will require you to keep your speed between 4–10 km/hr.
- Runner, these are sneakers for advanced athletes who can run at a speed of 8–20 km/hr.
- Trainer is the most democratic type of sneaker. The user chooses his running speed but earns a different number of tokens each time.
Each pair of sneakers has a set of 4 traits that are Efficiency, Luck, Comfort, and Durability. These values are randomly assigned to each token. For example, some sneakers have a base efficiency value of 1 and some have a base value of 5.
- Efficiency affects the earning of a GST token. This indicator is probably the most important.
- Luck affects the ability to find something worthwhile in mystery box draws. In the current version of the game, the mechanics of contests are poorly worked out, so it is not necessary to pump this option.
- Comfort increases the earnings of the second token of the game. However, for now, this indicator is important only for users who have level 30. Level-up of sneakers is paid, so it is difficult to talk about the economic feasibility of this option, but this may change in future updates of the app.
- Durability affects how long NFT sneakers won’t require repair. After each run, the durability reserve is taken away from the pair. The higher this index, the longer the sneakers will last and the cheaper the cost of repair.
And the last thing that distinguishes sneakers is their Rarity. There are five types: common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. The rarer the sneakers, the higher the base score and the more points that can be spent on upgrades the user gets.
How to choose and buy a sneaker?
Sneakers are sold by users, not by the creators of the game. Therefore, NFTs can already be pumped up to a certain level and have a set of characteristics that the previous owner has improved.
Before choosing sneakers in a marketplace, you need to think about your strength. For example, it can be hard to start with Runner without training, and Walker won’t bring enough athletic benefit. The second thing to pay attention to is the sneaker’s traits. In the current version of the game, it is better to choose those in which the basic efficiency and durability in total are more than 12. It doesn’t matter how much their previous owner pumped them up. Basic characteristics do matter. And at last, you can ignore the rarity index because the cheapest sneakers of uncommon level start from $5,000.
To buy the sneakers, you need to connect a Phantom crypto wallet or create a new one within the app. At the end of April 2022, the minimum price was about 12 Sol, which is about $1,100.
Game mechanics
After you buy sneakers, you don’t have to go for a run right away. First, you need to accumulate energy. For each NFT sneaker, the user is given two units of energy, which equals 10 minutes of running. The energy scale is replenished by 0.5 units always at the same time: at 10 a.m., 4 p.m., 10 p.m., and 4 a.m. To avoid wasting energy, it is best to choose the same time interval for the workout. For example, the full energy scale is replenished at 10 a.m. You should go out for a run before 4 p.m. because exactly at that time the next replenishment occurs. And if the scale is full, no energy is credited.
When the scale is full, you can start training. The app registers the user’s position via GPS. Signal reception is worse near high-rise buildings, so it’s better to choose an open area, such as a park, to get a good reading of your speed. When the user presses “start”, the app will count down. The run has begun. It is necessary to keep the set pace for the whole time, otherwise, you can lose up to 90% of the earnings.
When the energy runs out, the earning stops. In the current version of the game, you should immediately end the workout in the app, because if you continue to run it will reduce the strength of the sneakers. This is a bug that the creators of the app promise to fix. Apparently, in future versions, there will be some additional benefits for long-distance lovers.
After training, you can immediately withdraw the earned GST to your wallet, or you can pump the level of sneakers, which in the long run will help increase earnings. There are different strategies for playing, but most advanced StepN users believe that the lowest level to which you should pump your sneakers is 9.
Prospects for StepN: a pyramid scheme, or a popular SocialFi app
In short, the future will tell. The mechanics of the game raises concerns among many experts. When a project has a lot of players earning, but only newcomers bring money, it resembles a pyramid scheme. Yes, users spend money on sneakers, upgrades, and repairs. But is this enough to sustain the game’s economy?
Another problem with the game is the high cost of entry. By comparison, in the popular play-to-earn project Axie Infinity, you only need to buy three characters for a total cost of about $600 to get started. Here, the minimum entry is at least twice as expensive, which puts it in a rank “not for the mass user”. However, the creators of the app promise to roll out an update in September 2022. As they promise, users will be able to rent out their sneakers. This could open up StepN to a wider audience.
But it’s too early to conclude. The game has not demonstrated all its features. Perhaps the innovations will surprise users and motivate them enough to continue training and investing in the development of their accounts. The reaction of investors and the community looks positive. Among those who invested in the tokens of StepN, you can see the well-known venture capital fund Sequoia Capital, and the listing of the project on Binance was agreed for a record 1.5 months. StepN has all the chances to become a successful sports SocialFi startup, but we advise against investing money if you would hate to lose it.
StepN is still the most successful, but not the only move-to-earn project on the market
The second most capitalized project with a similar concept is Genopets. The most important difference from the competitor is that users can start playing on a free-to-play model, that is, without spending a cent. In Genopets you can create your character, spirit animal, and pump it up by completing tasks in the real world. Created spirit animals are NFT, which you can improve, customize, pump, and then sell on the internal marketplace of the game.
The Dustland is a blockchain-based health and fitness game that motivates players to earn rewards while running. Real runs and sprints propel players forward through the game’s storyline. Players’ physical performance is rewarded in the virtual world with digital items in the form of DOSE, an ERC20-based token. This can be used to improve characters and access additional features.
The dotmoovse project is a meta-universe for fans of freestyle soccer. Players can record their videos in the app, and a special algorithm will evaluate their skills. In the game, you can challenge freestylers from around the world and earn Moov tokens in competitions. Soccer freestyle is not the only sport available in the game. In the second quarter of 2022, dancing should be added to the app.
According to CoinGecko, the total market capitalization of the move-to-earn concept market was $2.1 billion in April 2022. Looking at the success of StepN, we can assume that we’ll see many new applications in 2022. This confirms the mood of investors. According to Bill Qian, head of Binance Labs, projects, like StepN, are aimed at gamification of physical activity will attract more and more investments and users.
