It is no secret that, the concepts of playing and earning are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. In another time and place, it would have been absolutely incomprehensible to combine the two together, and explaining the idea to a grandparent of yours could conjure up some real questions about your sanity. Along with the merging of these juxtaposing concepts, play-to-earn also combines the two somewhat dissimilar industries of blockchain technology and gaming together.
To those uneducated or inexperienced in the movement, it may seem like a fad at best, or even a scam at worst. For these skeptical people, a few figures like the $152 million Series B round raised from notable institutional investors by the Axie Infinity studio, Sky Mavis, should be adequate in subsiding any fears. To others meanwhile, play-to-earn may seem like an endeavor dedicated solely towards time-wasting teenagers or broke college kids trying to earn an extra buck. Yet upon further inspection, there is actually enough money to be made, to the point where players in some developing countries are generating a decent income on which they can live.
There is also the serious element of cryptocurrency revenue, which in the case of play-to-earn poster child Axie Infinity, has already proven to dwarf those of other popular platforms in the space. Part of this, can be attributed to the tokenomics design, which includes in-game assets in the form of NFTs, and utility tokens. These aspects not only serve to complement each other and build out the game’s ecosystem, but they also enhance secondary markets as native assets can be further converted into other liquid cryptos. Thus far, data and observations have shown that the success of a play-to-earn game, will be determined by the effectiveness of this reciprocal process.
Meanwhile these revenue models, have presented a unique economy surrounding play-to-earn games that cater to a range of users that include gamers, investors, NFT collectors, and more. Deemed player-to-player or open economies, they nonetheless display the traits of vibrant centers of commerce, that boast a variety of different actors each contributing their own unique skill-sets and resources. Some people have even gone as far as relating certain play-to-earn games to sovereign nation states, with the rationale being that they create their own economies, have their own currencies, and their own land in the form of metaverses.
Speaking of the latter, an encouraging trend for the continual emergence of play-to-earn games, is the development of the metaverse. There are several examples that support this claim, including Facebook’s re-branding to Meta, along with virtual land pieces in metaverses like the Sandbox averaging sales around the $10k range. Ideally these should be viewed through a real estate lens, where investors could potentially earn income in several ways like renting the land, hosting events, developments, and appreciation as time goes on and the ecosystem evolves.
Of late however, this capital intensive nature of some play-to-earn models has brought up some criticism, with some users even dubbing them as ‘pay-to-win.’ There is also the issue of incorporating non-native crypto users into the various play-to-earn games. With gamers estimated at over a billion people worldwide, it will be critical for the advancement of play-to-earn games to simplify their onboarding of new users especially when it comes to topics relating to crypto and Web 3.0.
At Hellsing Inu, we find ourselves situated in a favorable position, towards contributing to the development of the next stages of the play-to-earn movement. To begin with, our goal of building a completely gasless metaverse experience, will let users fully realize the benefits of the play-to-earn model without having to worry about paying on every little micro-transaction. In order to support this, we are in the process of creating several decentralized protocols around our game, which will help our users dodge the high gas fees of Ethereum. Additionally we are entirely dedicated to facilitating complete ownership of all in-game digital assets, that will enable people to be fully incentivized for their contribution towards a play-to-earn ecosystem.