Will GameFi do better without Play-to-earn?
What’s your biggest attraction towards GameFi projects? if we are being honest, play-to-earn will form majority of the answers…probably 100% of the answers. Axie infinity’s success quickly influenced an outpour of decentralized gaming projects with earning opportunity for gamers and investors alike. Binance smart chain’s ‘Cryptoblades’ posted astonishing price gains as users flocked the platform to play the game which rewards them with tradable tokens and Non-Fungible Tokens. Success stories from players littered the crypto space as more people flocked the platform. A ton of other similar platforms would quickly emerge, a new trend was birthed! Lot of users testified to earning more than their annual salary from simply playing ‘games’ on the blockchain.
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Hypes, disappointments and inefficiencies; many of the new and existing blockchain-based games failed to meet up with users’ expectations; financial and technological expectations. Technically, most of these games were far from properly developed. Users would describe them as ‘3D casinos’. You’d expect these shortcomings for projects built on an impatient community of users with high hopes of turning their financial conditions around by simply playing games on blockchain platforms.
“It’s a scam!” says users whose expectations weren’t met by the new game released by developers after just three weeks of development. But technical issues are hardly the main disappointment. Lamentations steam mainly from users’ inability to earn as much as expected from the games. In some cases, users run into losses leading to more intense ‘scam’ allegations. GameFi projects easily suffer huge price loss and endless backlash. Investors, disappointed with the low earning potentials continue to air their views in the sternest way, further confirming the fact that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are in fact more concerned about the earnings, and not the gameplay itself. Well, it’s reasonable.
The direct juxtaposition of gaming and earning in GameFi projects haven’t really worked best as the normal human greed gets the better of these projects. little shortcomings results in heavy price drops and loss of interest. In a space where investors are quick to suspect ‘scams’ (and rightly so); emerging technologies like GameFi faces a huge war between good and Bad…and the ugly.
But, how far has GameFi gone exactly? I’ll say, ‘very far’. Unfortunately, this is hard to realize when players are more focused on earning and will gladly shove aside a good game if it doesn’t offer a good earning opportunity. Passion aside, GameFi platforms has attracted more users in a very short period time than most popular games. EA Sports’ FIFA21 recorded an astonishing 31 million players on both PC and consoles, an additional 6 million players from its previous record. Taking into consideration, the global and resource availability, GameFi platform has outperformed even the most popular football game. Axie infinity has reportedly recorded an excess of a million daily players!
This impressive growth is however, influenced by earning opportunities as human greed comes into play once again. Despite the enormous number of daily users, players on GameFi platform hardly complain about technological shortcomings if the earning is good. To be fair, most people would do the same, why complain when the money is good? A rhetoric with a simple answer.
While most mainstream games don’t have direct earning opportunities, players develop a way to make external earnings by contributing to the games’ growth. Popular ‘Call of duty’ players make tangible income streaming their gameplay of streaming platforms. Game critics and analysts make good incomes as well. In plain words, players flock to these games for the real fun they drive from just playing the game. In contrast, GameFi’s Play-to-earn gets rid of the fun and users care least about the game play and how fun they are…the money will bring the fun, lol.
Will GameFi do better without play-to-earn? Well, YES and NO. Withdrawing earning opportunities from decentralized gaming platforms will allow faster technological growth, however, an opposite effect is expected on adoption as fewer people will play without earning; very few. NO, for short term and Yes, for long term. Taking off earning opportunities will inevitably reduce participation, but on the brighter side, the pressure to deliver in short period will be taken off the shoulders of game developers. Project development will as well move more smoothly as price talks won’t impede development. On the long run, the release of well developed games with really fun and interesting gameplay will drive even more users.
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Hi @joelabgo
Interesting post. Particularly I'm just getting into, since few months ago in the blockchain gaming area, I even invested in my Axie Infinity account, the same in Plants versus Undead, and honestly I see that it's not a big deal at entertainment level, but there are gains.
And if there were no profits I simply wouldn't waste my time playing it, that's why it's attractive not only for players but for investors. That's the reality.
It's all for the gain, calling it a game is a joke. A casino will be a better term.
While it is true that there is currently a boom with these games and that there are more and more projects with NFT, it is clear that not everyone can have access to these games, and it is all due to the entry investment, not everyone has the money to invest and there is still a long way to go before everyone globally can play.
Thanks for taking time to read and rightly said!
Hello @joelagbo
My answer to whether GameFi will work better without playing to win, is a resounding NO, and I say that more because of the current context of games running on the blockchain, where users choose to participate as investors and not precisely as players, or well that's my point of vitas, I may be wrong.
Best regards, be well.
On a short term, you're right, but on a long term; i'm not sure. Millions of people play video games without getting paid
Hello friend, interesting article, no doubt the new way to generate income are the games that integrate the methodology play to win, I think that if the intention is to rescue the recreation and fun of the games the most advisable is to eliminate the methodology play to win, but I think that will significantly decrease the number of users interested is blockchain games, because this modality has attracted several users who are interested in generating income.
From my point of view, if you eliminate play to win the NFT games market, it will have a big drop, see you later friend, have a great week.
Exactly, eliminating earning opportunities will crash the participation.
Game development takes an enormous amount of time and is impossible to bring something of value in less than 3 weeks.
These GameFi games are developed in even shorter time. but yeah, it's just a casino with 2D simulations, pathetic.