Play to earn games have been taking the gaming world by storm. The huge growth in the number of games available is testimony to their popularity but that really shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, who doesn’t want to earn some extra cash while gaming!
In this guide, we’ll provide you with all the information you need to start your play to earn journey.
What is a Play to Earn Game?
Play to earn games are those where you can receive rewards with real-world value.
Depending on the game, you can be awarded cryptocurrencies by winning battles and competing with other users, or by collecting rare NFTs for resale. You can even develop your own ‘cyber kitties’ to resell or breed from!
Elements of a Video Game Economy
1. Ownership of Assets, Pieces, or Characters Within a Game
Thanks to the addresses of the blockchain, in play-to-earn games it is possible to track the assets that a participant buys, sells, and protects. That can mean knowing that player X — for example — has 1,000 gold, 5,000 platform tokens, and 12 potions to strengthen his characters. Since all these assets are known to be the property of player X, he can freely trade them as his own or exchange them with other users.
Also, with the advent of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the possibility of determining the ownership of a digital object has been made easy. For example, with NFTs, it is possible to know if an object is one of a kind and who owns it. In this sense, it has been convenient for gaming platforms to convert the characters of their worlds into NFT tokens.
Depending on the degree of rapport that the game has with the blockchain network in which they process their transactions, all the information regarding the objects and characters that a participant has is registered in the network’s accounting book. Due to this, the entire community can verify the authenticity of the products and their history of commercial activities.
2. Creating a Self-sustaining Economy and Ways to Create Value
Because ownership of each game item can be determined and these pieces are interchangeable, play-to-earn games usher in a new era where virtual worlds can develop self-sustaining economies through community interaction. In this way, decentralized markets are formed and participants develop new ways of creating value with the objects that are under their power.
For example, you could have a fighting game where the characters have to undertake various tasks to level up. For each battle won, your characters manage to accumulate a certain number of swords, potions, and even points that help improve their skills. All these items belong to you because you are the owner of that address/account these items are affiliated with, so you can use them to earn money.
A player can use an open peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace to sell their swords for cryptocurrency. Also, as mentioned before, you may want to market one of your characters because they are unique or have reached a certain level. Given that the community is looking for the same goal —which is simply to win the game or be the best— then there will be many participants who want to acquire certain items that increase their skills on the platform.
3. Decentralized Governance
Last but not least, play-to-earn games incorporate a new element in the industry into their operation: decentralized governance. Unlike traditional platforms, where the fate of the game and all its advances are in the hands of the creators and developers, the play-to-earn has the possibility of being constituted based on the decisions of the community.
Since users now also earn, the value of this depends on their interactions, meaning that their opinions often carry more weight when developing or even updating the game. Applications such as CryptoKitties or Axie Infinity are based on the investment of time and money by their users, so these same participants are the ones who have a voice and vote on how the virtual world in which they interact should work.
How Can You Earn Cryptocurrencies with Play to Earn Games?
There is more than one way to make money with these new games. It is worth noting that in this article we will generalize, since, depending on the game, its creators, and characteristics, the opportunities to win cryptocurrencies vary.
What must always be kept in mind when we talk about this type of platform is that its business model adopts the concept of an open economy. In other words, players contribute their time and money to build the game world, an activity that provides economic benefits that they can use to continue growing on the platform or to use in their day-to-day activities.
Under this concept, it is important to mention that to start playing in most applications/platforms it is necessary to make an initial investment. For example, in games like Axie Infinity, you have to acquire three characters to be able to start facing each other in the tournaments and do the daily activities. These characters each cost according to their abilities, and can be obtained from P2P markets traded by other participants.
NFT Purchases Can Become an Income Source
Users can trade these tokens on open markets and, in some cases, they can even be paired to create new characters and sell them. The more you play a character and improve his abilities, the more valuable he becomes so his market price may increase. Similarly, the rarest and most exclusive characters are usually the most expensive.
In the case of the most interactive games, acquiring the characters or starting to do missions, each participant is awarded a fixed amount of tokens. This payment, which is generally made with a native currency of the platform, is distributed to users if they win battles, unlock new levels, or finish missions of the game.
Just like in an adventure game, the time and skill you have in the virtual world will allow you to earn tokens, which in this case are real money that can be traded on exchanges.
Our Final Thoughts on Play to Earn Games
This is an exciting time in the gaming world. The possibilities that play to earn games have opened up mean that becoming a professional gamer and earning a viable income is a real possibility for many people.
However, you need to do your homework, get involved in the gaming community and not expect instant riches. Time, dedication, and skill are all essential requirements to make it big.
