Play to earn is dead! This is what I’ve been hearing over and over again these last few weeks, from some game developers and so-called “Crypto experts”. I’ve also heard a bunch of other statements like: “Crypto is dead / bitcoin is dead / NFTs are dead”. I don’t know why people intend to label these as dead just because they are facing a crisis. I believe that some projects fail, but others go through fundamental changes and continue their way. This is what is happening to PLAY TO EARN games. Some of them actually failed, like PEGAXY, a horse racing game that once was one of the best blockchain games. The value of its token VIS dropped from 0.25 USD to a fraction above zero! And all the NFTs floor prices dropped 99.9%! Because it literally had no gameplay. You just click the start button and one of the horses wins the game completely randomly. This is the reason that every NFT horse in the game became worthless since there is no difference between their functionality. Pegaxy is a good example of a dead PLAY-TO-EARN game.
The other blockchain games quickly realized that players should earn only when they win based on their skill. So they changed their ecosystem to skill-based gameplay. This is where the WIN & EARN model emerged. Another major update is that games started rewarding players with NFTs rather than tokens, because the more tokens distributed, the more the value of that token decreases. But by rewarding the winners with NFTs, a strong ecosystem takes place among three groups: NFT winners, NFT buyers, and game developers. Winners are the players who use their time and effort skillfully in order to win an NFT and list it for sale in the marketplace. NFT buyers are the ones who do not have enough time and skill to win the NFT item, like weekly workers who only have time to play for fun on the weekends, so they are willing to spend money in order to acquire the NFT items from the marketplace, so they insert the value into the ecosystem, and because they can sell their item again, even with a higher price, they are more willing to spend money on NFTs. And finally, there are game developers who make a profit by creating and maintaining the entire ecosystem. This is the proper ecosystem that constantly continues to grow. The best examples are splinterlands and gods unchained. Gods Unchained is a completely free-to-play game that rewards the winners with non-NFT cards, by completing levels and participating in rank. Every two cards are then fused together which costs a fraction of the GODS token to turn into an NFT that is restored on the blockchain and is ready to be sold on the marketplace. This is an example of a true WIN TO EARN game with a strong ecosystem that has come to last.
