If you thought remote work was a game changer, wait until video game work picks up steam. Blockchain-based NFT games such as Axie Infinity and Splinterlands have demonstrated that a “play to win” business model has the potential to revolutionize the gaming industry.
Pandora's box has been opened, so to speak, and playing to win is here to stay. There are already people joining an online video game to spend the day making a living. In this article, we'll explore what a world where making money through video games will look like is the norm.
After Venezuela suffered cataclysmic hyperinflation, it left individuals working minimum wage jobs and earning an unsustainable $5 a month. However, in the wise words of Jeff Goldblum, “life finds a way”. Individuals created a way to make a living playing the RuneScape (OS) video game.
This was achieved in a form of in-game work – gold cultivation – in which users played games to extract various items to sell to users for US dollars. This happened despite the RuneScape Jagex developers banning any form of transaction of digital items for real world currency.
It was a controversial practice and some RuneScape players thought the farmers were simply exploring the game without contributing anything to the community. This led them to PK'ing (player killing) players they thought were farmers. Which, in turn, opened up a new earning opportunity to provide security for these players' agricultural accounts. This perfectly exemplifies how new job markets can snowball. Venezuelan players managed to support themselves and there was even some news in the media about players earning more than local
What kind of jobs?
Looking ahead, what would the jobs that provide real income look like in a blockchain-ruled game? Although it is difficult to speculate, I will try to provide some approximate ideas:
Tasks that require a lot of time
One thing that will always be linked to value is time. Video games have long included time-consuming tasks in their games, and as we saw in the Venezuelan RuneScape example, players traded to get gold. Game items that are cultivated have value due to the time it takes to obtain them. The Blockchain game can take this one step further, where players can volunteer their time to extract certain game items for real financial incentives. This is clearly seen in Axie Infinity, where players will go on quests to earn SLP, the native token of Axie Infinity. It is claimed that if Axie Infinity players invest the necessary time, they can earn up to 4,500 SLP per month, which is currently worth around $935.
