Op-Ed: Bringing interest and longevity to play-to-earn gaming

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The last cou­ple of years has seen the rise of a new game style based on decen­tral­ized tech­nol­o­gy and offer­ing dig­i­tal rewards with real-world val­ue. Blockchain-pow­ered “Play-to-Earn” (P2E) gam­ing has begun to draw some atten­tion, but there is a catch. 

Too many of the cur­rent offer­ings have unsus­tain­able economies and unin­spired game­play expe­ri­ences. This has put up a wall that excludes many tra­di­tion­al gamers who aren’t inter­est­ed in earn­ing more than gameplay. 

It doesn’t have to stay this way, though. New gam­ing plat­forms emerge that take nec­es­sary new steps to bal­ance their economies while also deliv­er­ing com­plex and excit­ing entertainment. 

The Divide

The rise of P2E gam­ing has split the gam­ing com­mu­ni­ty into two camps. On the one hand, you have more tra­di­tion­al gamers who want rich, immer­sive, and inno­v­a­tive experiences. 

On the oth­er, you have those moti­vat­ed to play by the chance to earn actu­al income. Usu­al­ly, the for­mer comes from more afflu­ent parts of the world, where the aver­age gamer sees the endeav­or as pure entertainment. 

The lat­ter tends to come from more impov­er­ished areas and see an oppor­tu­ni­ty and a chance to earn an income that often tran­scends the local aver­age for jobs and is cer­tain­ly easier. 

While those inter­est­ed in earn­ings don’t seem to mind if a game­play expe­ri­ence isn’t enjoy­able, those who play for enter­tain­ment often see the inte­gra­tion of mon­e­tary ele­ments into their games as intru­sive and abrasive. 

Just look at the intense push­back that has occurred around things like micro­trans­ac­tions and loot box­es. Not to men­tion that, on aver­age, gamers seem to be entire­ly opposed to NFTs as well.

This has cre­at­ed a divide that has held vir­tu­al­ly all P2E and blockchain games from breach­ing main­stream audi­ences. By lim­it­ing appeal, these plat­forms restrict them­selves to only finan­cial­ly moti­vat­ed users. 

This then cre­ates anoth­er prob­lem. These users, by def­i­n­i­tion, act as val­ue extrac­tors of the over­all ecosys­tem. They con­sis­tent­ly move their earn­ings off-plat­form instead of rein­vest­ing them. 

While it is their right to do so, and an open ecosys­tem should allow for this, it still means that the over­all sys­tem is unsus­tain­able long term. A thriv­ing econ­o­my can’t con­sist sole­ly of those who seek to move val­ue out of it. 

How To Build a Bridge

To bridge these sep­a­rate game worlds and bring new users and liq­uid­i­ty to these games, devel­op­ers need to reimag­ine both their eco­nom­ics and their gameplay. 

For one, there need to be some types of incen­tives with­in the expe­ri­ence for users to recir­cu­late at least some of their earn­ings back into the game. What this looks like could vary, but a sys­tem that offers com­pound­ed rewards for long-term engage­ment needs to be imple­ment­ed to encour­age a thriv­ing economy.

Then there’s the actu­al end-user expe­ri­ence. Pre­sum­ably, finan­cial­ly moti­vat­ed play­ers wouldn’t mind games that are tru­ly fun to play, and it may even encour­age more of that mind­set to get involved. 

How­ev­er, more impor­tant­ly, if devel­op­ers cre­ate titles that com­pete with their non-blockchain pre­de­ces­sors, then both casu­al and hard­core gamers will begin to come into the P2E space. This will bring in sup­port that won’t sim­ply jump ship if the in-game earn­ings become less prof­itable and hence should act as a sta­bi­liza­tion ele­ment on the in-game market.

The point is, gamers demand thought­ful prod­ucts that enter­tain and chal­lenge. For most of them, being able to earn a bit of mon­ey isn’t a moti­va­tion to pick up a title. 

If they do show up for the game­play, they may be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to find they can earn a bit of mon­ey along the way. In this way, almost all types of users can find val­ue in a title that blends smart eco­nom­ics with a gen­uine­ly engag­ing experience.

Guest post by Michael Rubinelli from WAX Studios

Michael Rubinel­li, Chief Gam­ing Offi­cer at WAX Stu­dios, is a tech­nol­o­gy & gam­ing leader with 15+ years’ pro­gres­sive expe­ri­ence in exec­u­tive lead­er­ship, prod­uct devel­op­ment, and con­tin­u­al rev­enue growth and is renowned for his suc­cess at top cor­po­ra­tions (includ­ing Dis­ney, THQ, Elec­tron­ic Arts). Michael has now turned his atten­tion to Play-to-Earn games and spends most of his time expand­ing the Gam­ing Divi­sion of WAX Blockchain.

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