Blockchain gaming & the Play To Earn movement
By Jerry Soer & Rizki Rimadina
The fastest growing segment of the gaming industry in 2021 has been the blockchain gaming space and the play-to-earn gaming mechanism. Clear breakouts like SkyMavis’ Axie Infinity has captured the imagination of blockchain enthusiasts and casual gamers alike. As a long time gamer I find it hard to just keep up on all the developments, but I’ll attempt to share my learnings here.?
Blockchain Games definition: games that utilise blockchain technology features of peer-to-peer distributed ledgers that are cryptographically secure, immutable and updated by consensus.
Typically these games feature their own tradable crypto token as their in-game currency and/or non-fungible tokens (check out Timo Gehrke's explainer on NFTs). Play To Earn magazine categorises these games according to their dependence on blockchain technology:
We are still early in the development of blockchain games and the play-to-earn concept is yet to be proven to be sustainable. The next stage of blockchain gaming will be focusing more on gameplay and game graphics. Illuvium is an example of a blockchain game that inspires to be a AAA game.
Regardless of how good they look, the test for these games will always be: If this game wasn’t a play-to-earn game, would it still be fun to play?
The fact that play-to-earn games are interlinked with NFTs, cryptocurrencies and asset speculation places the whole category in a grey area and stirs open a lot of debate.?
Games like Axie Infinity have become so expensive to start that as of today, a new player would need to invest US$2000 to get started just to play. As this would be out of the range of most people, companies like Yield Guild Games (YGG) have stepped in to provide a service of scholarships to new players wanting to enter the game. These scholarships have immediate pros and cons. On one hand, it provides an affordable entry point for new gamers to get involved by not having to amass starting capital to buy Axies, while retaining a majority of the in-game revenue earned, paying a commission to managers like YGG.? On the other hand, the question of creating an underclass of gamers comes up. Is this scholarship structure similar to how ridesharing companies like Uber and Grab arrange new car leases with third parties for their drivers who don’t own cars? Or is it more like a community bank that invests in the local economy? No one has done an economic study because this space is so new. For now, everyone seems to be excited about it.?
Most blockchain game developers start by doing presales in the form of token sales for? yet to be released games to attract people to invest early in the game, with the hope that token prices will rise up. This is attractive for those who want to have a stake in the game currency prelaunch. There are many examples on YouTube on how to find an NFT project early. Of course these investments are very speculative and carry a high amount of risk. There are already government discussions on possible regulation, and some of the tech platforms are already restricting advertising on crypto related products such as TikTok and YouTube, following the pump-and-dump debacle of ICOs a few years ago. It is not unthinkable that these restrictions could be extended beyond the token sales and to include some of the play-to-earn games as well.?
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Some development studios are already thinking ahead and ensuring that their blockchain games are accessible to all gamers to play with no upfront costs. Dapper labs of Cryptokitties & NBA Topshot fame are working with B-side Games to launch a new game Chainmonsters, a MMORPG cross playable on PC, iOS and Android.?
Many longtime blockchain enthusiasts claim that it is unavoidable that the gaming industry will eventually move to blockchain technology, just like how it moved to cloud computing technology to create multiplayer worlds and metaverses years ago. Blockchain solutions like Solana are helping solve the scalability problem of earlier blockchains like Bitcoin and Etherum.?
I’m very keen to learn and meet new minds from this world. If you are in this space and interested in sharing please get in touch with me via LinkedIn.?
Want to explore the blockchain gaming world more? Here are some starting points
There many discord servers discussing play to earn games (https://discord.com/invite/RYvHDXR)
Blockchain games highlights, as of September 2021.?
CEO at Sonzai Labs
3 年Hi, would like to share Metaversus. Here’s the latest level. https://metaversus.substack.com/p/social-contract
Music For Whatever The Hell You Want, Assistant Professor @ Berklee College of Music Unwilling Servant Of Capitalism, Hollow Shell Of A Person.
3 年Not sure if they have anything on blockchain specifically but Deconstructor of Fun is a pretty good source of info on games in general
Building our vision of the Open Metaverse at Avium. Ex CEO and Founder of EVOS, ATTN
3 年Bankless on substack/youtube, one of the better newsletters for crypto space
Marketing & Operations Executive | Digital Media, Advertising, Influencer Marketing, Blockchain, Mobile Apps
3 年Very informative...with endless opportunities with blockchain games, this has given me some great insight on trends and new business opportunities.