Tag Archives: earn

Can Play-to-Earn gaming replace traditional jobs?

Can Play-to-Earn gaming replace traditional jobs?

Web3, the latest iteration of the Internet, has radically changed the gaming business by integrating unique features involving blockchain, cryptos and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The question that arises now is whether Play-to-Earn, or P2E, games can offer an alternative to traditional wage employment for people looking to move out of their jobs, whatever be the reason.

Gaming in the Web2 era was controlled by tech enterprises and involved players shelling out money to the developers. The advent of P2E gaming, completely decentralized, has put power in the hands of the players, who can tokenize in-game assets in the form of unique NFTs, a form of digital assets, for ownership rights.
According to a study by market researcher Absolute Reports, the global P2E NFT gaming market size was estimated to be worth $776.9 million in 2021, having received a fillip from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The market is forecast to reach a readjusted size of $2.8 billion by 2028, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 20.4 percent during 2022-2028.

Moneycontrol spoke to experts to ascertain if people can indeed earn a stable income from P2E games so that they can leave traditional jobs.

P2E cannot replace regular jobs

Ishank Gupta, advisor to IndiGG, the largest gaming DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) in India, says P2E games can be a potential second source of income, but cannot replace earnings through traditional jobs.

Gupta believes that emerging markets like India will drive the Web3 gaming adoption.

When asked to elucidate, he said mobile data was most affordable in India with the average cost of 1GB of 4G data at Rs 20. The country is also a “mobile first” nation with over 700 million smartphones.

India is expected to be home to 500 million players by 2024, creating a sizable (mobile-first) market for game creators, he said, adding that app install statistics show 17% of all game downloads come from India.

“In the world of Web3, where everyone is still at the starting line, we may acquire a head start and become first movers in the business by taking steps to establish an indisputable community that interacts with Web3 games and goods. When it comes to gaming, India is regarded as an important market,” Gupta says.

Experts point out that the future of work is being redefined by new technologies, with blockchain —  a database that stores information in a digital format — being the most important development that happened in the past 10 years.

Back in 2021 in emerging economies, the first generation of games like Axie Infinity was able to replace ordinary jobs.

Driving a taxi or being a delivery driver made less money than a middle-level P2E Axie player.

However, the first generation of P2E has a lot of holes in terms of game depth, tokenomics, overall dynamics and aesthetics.

Corruption, inflation driving users toward Web3

Asked about the fascination with P2E games in emerging economies, Martin Repetto, CEO and co-founder of Mokens League, says rampant corruption, high inflation and depreciation of local currencies have created the perfect ecosystem for crypto to be the king.

“The combination of trying to escape high taxes with badly rendered services, inflation, and economic freedom, makes it perfect for Blockchain games and DApps (decentralised applications) to triumph. There is no coincidence that the most successful Play-To-Earn games came from emerging markets/economies/countries,” Repetto says.

P2E growth depends on per capita GDP

P2E is one of the ways to earn an additional income, but it may not work for all countries.

In Singapore, for example, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita reached a record high of US $66,176.39 in 2021. Even so, the cost of living is high and the P2E concept is harder to attract the 9-5 working class because it may not be able to pay even for their monthly groceries.

In Kenya, where GDP per capita is expected to reach US $1,550.00 by the end of 2022, P2E is viable.

In fact, in Kenya play-to-earn, when positioned well, can reduce the unemployment rate and increase overall GDP.

India will be the outsourcing factory for Web3

Anndy Lian, Chief Digital Advisor to the Mongolian Productivity Organization, says the revenue from Web2 gaming goes to the gaming companies, but Web3 gaming is better distributed.

“Users get rewarded for their efforts and their assets can be further monetized. NFTs are in-game assets, not in-game expenses, anymore because you can resell your NFTs in the secondary market; if you promote harder, you can command a higher price. The value of your assets is in your own hands,” he says.

He adds that India is very developed in Web2 and many users are transiting to Web3 and a big pool of developers will make India the biggest outsourcing factory for Web3.

Future of Web3 gaming

The platform’s development and level of user interaction will determine how well it does.

The platform will gradually attract additional developers, users, and practical outcomes as it goes through its motions.

Over time, the platform’s market valuation will increase as more users and developers join it.

P2E is an idea that is gradually gaining hold among gamers. However, it still has a long way to go before it can take the place of traditional jobs.

The platform doesn’t currently have the gamers and developers it needs to grow and succeed and will become more reliable and popular as it evolves further.

This will encourage other developers to produce their own games for the system, accelerating the growth of the metaverse crypto.

Saurabh Tiwari, a Pune-based Web3 enthusiast, and an avid gamer, told Moneycontrol that NFT-based games were previously a grey area, just like TikTok was initially.

“Playing games definitely can be a long-term career option if planned properly because the loyalty amounts, once a gamer creates his own community and followers, are huge.

Multinational companies are investing big in the space which only goes on to show they see huge potential here in the long run,” Tiwari said.

 

 

Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/can-play-to-earn-gaming-replace-traditional-jobs-9271761.html

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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The X-to-Earn model: Eat, sleep, do almost anything and get paid in crypto

The X-to-Earn model: Eat, sleep, do almost anything and get paid in crypto

Are you a good runner? Or eater? Or sleeper? Chances are whatever you’re good at, there’s a Web3 project out there to reward you in crypto. But do the tokenomics stack up?

Axie Infinity — a non-fungible token-based online video game that’s generated over US$4 billion in secondary NFT sales — is credited with kicking off the so-called “play-to-earn” (P2E) craze, allowing gamers to earn money while playing. While the Axie hype has somewhat died down, it also spawned a series of copycat projects that pay users to perform everyday activities.

These projects have developed into an industry of their own; a sort of “X-activity-to-earn” (X2E) model, now including tie-ins with brands from Asics to European soccer clubs, paying users in cryptocurrency for running, eating or even sleeping.

Perhaps not surprisingly, questions are being raised about the economic principles many of these projects are founded on.

“The problem with some of these X2E models is that it seems like a really good innovation, but then it is just purely a Ponzi [scheme],” said Anndy Lian, author of the new book “NFT: From Zero to Hero,” in an interview with Forkast, though he did not mention any by name. “And it’s actually very disturbing, to be really honest.”

Without ongoing revenue to support what is being paid out, Lian said, the X2E model risks becoming an unsustainable compensation structure, relying on the hope that more people will come in to “pay” for the tokens that were previously dropped.

There were similar accusations leveled at Axie Infinity after a period of explosive growth failed to generate earlier returns for its users, as its native token SLP is now trading at US$0.004 at press time after reaching as high as US$0.41 in May 2021.

Running tokenomics

One of the more popular variations of this new industry model is the “Move-to-Earn” (M2E) project StepN, which pays users in cryptocurrency for walking, jogging or cycling by tracking their movements via GPS on their phone.

To participate in the project, users buy NFT sneakers and hold them in their wallets on their phones when they go for a walk and are then compensated for the exercise in the project’s native currency, Green Satoshi Tokens (GST).

Users then cash out GST for profit or invest it back into the project to mint additional NFTs for other users to buy.

Brian Lu, founding partner of investment fund Infinity Ventures Crypto, is more optimistic about the outlook for these projects than Lian, however, telling Forkast in an interview there are ways such projects can be successful.

“There’s always going to [need to] be people to support the token or the token has to have some type of utility [for the project to work],” he said.

StepN does this by allowing users to cash out their GST for profit or by investing it back into the ecosystem to mint more sneaker NFTs. This was the tokenomics model initially adopted by Axie Infinity, which allowed users to cash out their SLP or to re-invest it back to create more “Axies” — Pokémon-like creatures that players bred and battled to earn more SLP.

After launching in December, GST reached a high of US$9.03 in late April before the crash along with the rest of the crypto market in May. Despite tie-ins with sports-brand Asics and Spanish soccer club Atlético de Madrid, GST had fallen to under US$1 by early June, and has been trading under US$0.10 since early July.

Sleeping on the job

Positioning itself in direct response to the Move-to-Earn projects, Gang Azit Social Club (GASC) has taken a different approach, and wants to remind users that it’s important for one’s mental health to take a break and relax from time to time, and incentivizes this practice by paying them to do just that.

Calling itself a “Relax-to-Earn” project, GASC detects when users are within a predetermined zone using GPS and pays them in the project’s HIPS token if they press a “relax” button on their phone while in the space.

If anyone needs an incentive to eat, Esca — an online marketplace for food consumers and vendors — promises to pay customers, restaurants and at-home chefs in both Bitcoin and USDC. According to its website, Esca thinks the commissions charged by most food delivery platforms are too high and is using cryptocurrency to balance the equation.

So many projects have popped up promising to pay users to sleep that there is even its own category of finance for the industry — SleepFi.

The Sleepee app pays users based on their sleep quality score in its native currency, which can be converted to buy products or services in their store. Even the Move-to-Earn app MetaGym offers a SleepFi feature that pays users in its native token that can be spent in-app or cashed out for USDC.

The future of Web3 and gaming

Measuring the success of these projects over the past few months has been difficult amid the broader crypto downturn, which has seen even well-established crypto funds and businesses file for bankruptcy or needing a bailout.

If the situation doesn’t improve soon, Lu says there are other options available to such projects.

“These X2E projects that are coming up [are] going to start learning to advertise their users and their user’s behavior [and] user data to marketing companies that are willing to pay for it,” said Lu, explaining this process will become more commonplace as brand tie-in continues to gain traction.

Selling user data may seem against the ethos of Web3, which is often touted to offer a new incentive model to break away from the data mining method of business which has led to massive wealth concentration from a few giant tech companies.

Back to the genre that started it all, Lu says the industry has learned its lesson from the short-lived success of Axie Infinity and is shifting from Play-to-Earn to Play-and-Earn, or Web 2.5.

These projects are putting gameplay back at the center of the game, with the option to earn money — sometimes even in fiat — a bonus element rather than making a game whose main draw card is earning.

Lian is hopeful these types of games can still survive in the meantime, but says it will be a long time before the mainstream gaming industry adopts Web3 in any meaningful way.

“I don’t think the super app is coming anytime soon,” said Lian, who explained the technology is there but the US$300 billion a year gaming industry has little incentive to change. “[Game studios] might not be agreeable to how it is actually going to help them since they are really making millions of dollars in revenue every year.”

 

Source: https://forkast.news/x-to-earn-model-eat-sleep-anything-paid-crypto/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

The Road Ahead for Play-To-Earn Games – Thought Leaders

The Road Ahead for Play-To-Earn Games – Thought Leaders

The success of the pay-to-earn gaming sector, led by Axie Infinity, has taken a bit of a knock recently with the recent $600 million hack of their Ronin bridge. Up until this news play-to-earn games threatened to take a slice out of the multi-billion dollar video gaming market by allowing users to earn money for completing game objectives. Investments in such projects have surged drastically this year. Earlier this year we reported that Solana Ventures, FTX, and Lightspeed recently announced the formation of a $100 million joint GameFi fund, which FTX followed up with a $2bn fund of its own. Web3 venture capitalists BITKRAFT and Galaxy Interactive each announced over $400 million in investment funds aimed at the space. While tech giant Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard, the publisher of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, was the largest acquisition in gaming history. And according to one expert, over six out of every ten gamers want the chance to exchange their virtual assets for a currency that could be used across various platforms.

Source: ‘7 business models for web3 games,’ Sophia Weng, Medium

Does Axie Infinity’s market leading success (gross income of $781.6 million for the third quarter of 2021, and its token price all-time high of $155 by the end of 2021), now look under threat following the hack? In fact, its user engagement (measured as daily active users: DAUs) was already in decline 40% from its peak last November.  Taken together, does this mean the hype around this emerging sector is overblown? Consider some of the key adoption barriers acknowledged by BITKRAFT. These include the slow speed afforded by Ethereum, used by most crypto gaming platforms, the associated high costs of buying NFTs thanks to high gas costs on Ethereum, not to mention its environmental impact. But perhaps more tellingly from a growth perspective is the fact that few large game developers have ventured in the space. A key obstacle is the key play-to-earn nature of the innovative gaming model itself: “It is a difficult sell to switch from a model where 100% of in-game economy sales go to developers to one where a much larger percentage of transaction volume is earned by the player community.” In other words, this means developers have less control of in-game economies in a decentralized ecosystem, where community ownership is baked in.

Rasa Petuch, Head of Growth at Block Games, which is based at West Palm beach in Florida, in an interview with BigONE said she believed the basic obstacle right now in play-to-earn gaming, was remembering it was first and foremost about gaming. And that in order for the play-to-earn games industry to grow, there needed to be an influx of regular gamers, whereas at the moment users were engaging primarily to earn rather than to play, and with developers concentrating on small games focusing on the tokenomics rather than the game itself. “Traditional gamers are not here yet”, because for one thing, the games are not here “and many traditional gamers are skeptical and not really crypto native”, Petuch said.

She added that she thought that play-to-earn gaming would really change when there were really quality games in the sector that are fun to play with. “That was one point I was thinking about, the other is about console games. They are not ready for blockchain yet and they are a big part of the gaming industry overall. So that kind of limits that you know, potential audience as well as many players you know, love playing console games, too. And these, like big console companies, they seem pretty skeptical,” Petsch pointed out. Indeed, during an Electronic Arts’ recent earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson suggested that while the market for NFTs and play-to-earn was still early, it did point to the future development of gaming. “The play-to-earn or the NFT conversation is still really, early..there’s at some level, a lot of hype about it. I do think it will be an important part of the future of our industry on a go-forward basis,” Wilson added.

Talking about Shatterpoint, Petuch said their new play-to-earn game, she said the issue wasn’t so much about getting the word out, but that the general level of trust and skepticism was proving difficult to overcome: “I think people are excited and they want to see new products coming out. What’s difficult, in my opinion, is if you’re trying to build a big quality game, it takes time, right? So, then the challenge is to keep people engaged for a long time, while you still have no game to show them. But I think it’s all doable.

“It’s all about community anyway. And yeah, allowing, you know, people who decide to be a part of your community to like really to be that part. And like, you know, share like in-game art and share decisions and like, talk to them and have some of the NFT sales in between and kind of keep it moving. I think you have to be open and honest with where things are. Because, yeah, there’s like a lot of scams out there,” Petuch added.

In an interview with BigONE Federico Gallucci, CEO & Founder at gaming studio Deep Monolith based in Turin, which specializes in play to earn games said gamers are still reluctant to understand the value of NFTs, as in game assets, because they see them as game producers trying monetize even more. As a gaming developer himself Gallucci said part of the problem was that blockchain gaming is “not sophisticated enough” for an experienced gamer who is used to high quality games. “But I think that it’s only a matter of time before gamers start to realize that it’s good for gaming and that this technology can bring awesome improvements,” he added.

A key area for growth in play to earn is around esports, suggested Gallucci: “This is a huge opportunity because you know, there are thousands of people who are gamers and fans that follow esports, but currently this is only restricted to the biggest development studios where they have a ton of cash and can afford to spend a bigger reward.” But the adoption of crypto technology could be a “disrupting point” allowing multiple developers to offer big prizes. “I think that’s the way it’s gonna break through, It’s through esports,” he concluded.

Chairman of BigONE Exchange, Anndy Lian, said despite the problems for users caused by the Axie Infinity hack the level of demand showed the play to earn sector was still growing, even as the general market for NFTs was slowing down compared to 2021, with Axie topping $4 billion in all-time NFT sales in February. “I believe that there is plenty of potential for the growth of play-to-earn games that has yet to be tapped into. For example, the election of a new President in South Korea may pave the way for legislation allowing in-game tokens to be converted into cash.” Lian said he agreed with the assessment of esports as a new avenue which would allow smaller studios to win a slice of the action. “It’s time the dominance of the large gaming studios and console makers had a shake-up. Play-to-earn isn’t just good for gamers but also for up-and-coming developers who want a new way to compete on a more level playing field.”

 

Original Source: https://www.securities.io/the-road-ahead-for-play-to-earn-games-thought-leaders/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j