The end of the Pay to Play blockchain games hype?

[Fortify]

Two small things first before I start making my arguments about this:
- I put the title "pay to play" instead of the "pay to work" I will refer further down not to make it confusing for readers
- I'm a bitcoin maximalist so I'm obviously biased against tokens and altcoins, deal with it! 


The model:
First I must point out that games that have described themselves as "play to earn" have existed long before the blockchain, it was either by viewing ads through the game or selling resources in-game or on an afar larger scale and for deals outside the game simply farming the shit out of gold or items and selling those to other players. So the idea is not new at all, the only thing special about it is some buzzwords like NFT and Blockchain, as for the games, are still some lame ass copies of more famous games with no actual revolutioanry technology behind them.

The free to pay entry
This is the main problem with all these games since they have to attract users by rewarding them and then need also an entry point, it's all you can eat but with an entry fee so that not only some might lose money on it but you also keep some desperate people motivated to click endlessly each day to recover the loses. So, at this point, it's not as much play to earn but work your ass to not be in red.

The work part
The game I will mention a few times axie infinity considers itself some pokemon clone, of course with nothing other than having some characters fight. Actually quite funny, pokemon go creatures don't breed in the game at all. So while comparing itself to famous games it lacks one thing, innovation, and it has tons of another, called repetition. And this is where the two models completely cut ties, while gamers on the pokemon side play when they want how much they want, walking eggs to hatch for miles if they have the lungs and legs for it,  in play to work models you're restricted, because, well, it would mean too much money printed. And this is where you completely cut the link between a fun game that has millions of users coming out of their houses in the rain to fight gyms or 5-star raids with millions desperate to sell their tokens as high as possible.

The failing revenue model
And this is the part that is most interesting.
Somehow users new to the cryptocurrency scene think that everything that has currency and decentralization and other bling words will gain value out of thin air and stay like that forever. Probably the 100 to 0 Luna fail might have taught some a lesson but I doubt the majority will indeed understand.

Not exactly sure how this abstract topic ended up in the economics section, but I guess it's somewhat relevant. You are right that free to play games are likely the future just because of the sheer amount of competition out there between  game developers. However it would certainly make it more difficult for new game developers to enter the scene as this model was what launched most big game developers in the past. With the advent of loot boxes and paid skins it is possible to fund a game now without requiring upfront payment from the players, there are completely free to play games like World Of Tanks which are raking in many millions per year and are a prime example of a successful operating model.

[laredo7mm]

99% of the P2E project was some classic model game that can be played by anyone. The actual game is very easy to play which makes those attractive for that player who will only play for money but at the same time team made them hard for free players by giving extra power to the paid player by adding the so-called NFT or items to the game. It's for sure those developers just want to make more money like a ponzi scam where only a few people win.

The initial Axie Infinity game model was dumb as hell and could literally be played by our grandparents and they would still earn tokens. After a while, they did update the game whereas only players with a minimum MMR ranking could earn tokens (which can actually be pretty tough to play, as I've played it myself). It was a needed update, but it was too late — the death spiral was already ongoing as there was too much heavy over-supply of the earned tokens.

A gaming ecosystem that can only increase supply in the circulation and has no system in place to burn them has no future financially. It's up to those whales for how long they are going to hold it. I did not play Axie Infinity but I do play some other games similar to this. In those games, i saw how my skill was totally useless against some players who have paid character with them.

[so98nn]

These models are like filling the pockets of game owners only. I think they are making entire tokenomics for their brand just because initially they will get investment through ICO's, pre-sales etc. Using that money they develop the games (??) and definitely there is so much money is raised they do not even consume that much.
They are already in profits and just keep running the games for some extra bucks or regular pay-check.

If they started using bitcoin right form the beginning then they don't have anything to offer except traditional way of getting users on board to invest in their venture and gain little capital.

However, these days peeps are keen on investing into tokens because they think it could be next bitcoin and they could have loads of profits in the future. Unfortunately it's the want and greed of money and nothing else that pulls the crowd these days.

[stompix]

2. Trends - People get bored quickly with games, because they are bombarded with "clone" copies of old concepts.

It depends on the game, till 2009 a lot of my college friends were still playing Diablo 2 on an unofficial server, full 9 years after the release, and let's not even go to the details like the 640 resolution of the game. Good games will never die, people still play age of empires.

According to record, Mobile Legends In-app purchase revenue within the game peaked at a cumulative 236.1 million U.S. dollars in 2021[1].

The devil is in the details, ML achieved 70 million monthly players, which makes it 3$ per year per player. How are you going to attract people to get paid from that, ignoring the cost for the one thousand strong team developing an actual game, not some jpg animations and server costs?

Not exactly sure how this abstract topic ended up in the economics section, but I guess it's somewhat relevant.

I was aiming for it to be more like a topic about a socio-economic movement, as this is the new trend where people think they should get paid for everything, for walking, for playing, for watching tv and of course, nobody cares who is going to pay them for that and why?
I did have some heated discussions with a few of my friends or others on more private forums and I'm always telling some of them, sometimes in a nice way, sometimes in a more abrupt one, who the hell do you think you are and why the hell should somebody pay a dime for your data when you're an unemployed &^% that barely makes it month to month by doing black market seasonal jobs?

We're entering an era of the "Give me money for everything cause I'm entitled to!".

[dezoel]

^ I would guess that the smaller version makes things a lot easier? I mean you are not supposed to get 3 dollars per year from per player, you could get 1 cent and you could have just 10 million users and you could still make good enough money to keep it going.

I get that there is a good chance that you could have a lot less people who are spending more, so like 1 million people but pay 10 cents, which works as well. As you can see all of that includes you to be smaller and being fine with much less income. This allows you to be worse and you could have worse income with a terrible game and you should be making a ton of money in the long run.

[stompix]

Small update from an article I read last night (the article was written before the big crash)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/axie-infinity-axs-price-risks-deeper-losses-despite-90-drawdown-already

At the same time, the project’s top executives have quietly changed their “play-to-earn” mission statement to “play-and-earn.” Its new head of product, Philip La, admitted in his August 2021 post that “Axie Infinity first needs to be a game.”

So in reality just as I said, from playing to making money it turned to working for pennies and they're just one step from admitting it.
The numbers are disastrous

Simultaneously, Axie Infinity’s in-platform volume, measured after assessing its Ronin chain data, has dropped from $300 million in September 2021 to a mere $2.12 million in June 2022.

https://dappradar.com/multichain/games/axie-infinity
Over 30 days, a drop of -59.63% in market volume, -46.75% in average transaction price, -36,75% drop in players, and this is not from the peak, if from rolling down the mountain.

Probably finally we're going to have more people understand that there is no finite amount of money that can be generated by tapping on a phone. You first need somebody to PAY money to have the privilege to tap on the phone.

^ I would guess that the smaller version makes things a lot easier? I mean you are not supposed to get 3 dollars per year from per player, you could get 1 cent and you could have just 10 million users and you could still make good enough money to keep it going.

Sorry for the late reply, but 10 million users paying a cent makes it $100k, assuming that's per month how many active developers and servers and other costs can you cover from that?

[dunfida]

The main problem I do see for Axie infinity which is;

1. Burning mechanism

They do mint out Slp token on endless manner which this had been generated   by millions of players day by day on which it did result into huge supply and not surprising that it do tagged up its own main coin which is AXS. and due for that reason then it did really ends up on losing trust and interest of the community.Lots of promises made telling about new burning mechanism plus having this bear market then no surprise that
Overall price or value would really be on the floor.

[mdgabrielzim]

Also, the game itself is boring. Overall, all these pay-to-play games are tedious and poorly made, I honestly don't waste my time on this cra*.

[Hydrogen]

Early P2E (play to earn) games like axie infinity were browser based and built on HTML5 (I would guess).

If the P2E movement is dead. I would guess developers have not received the memo considering new P2E games like psyber X and metarun are currently being built on unreal engine 5.

Micro transactions in gaming were the largest and most sought after form of revenue prior to the introduction and banning of loot boxes. P2E may simply be a natural progression of the micro transaction in game asset movement.

The problem with most game based tokens and NFTs not offering long term incentives to HODL. Their price charts closely resemble the BAT token of brave browser of a long downtrending line. Users dump tokens ASAP in the short term, due to there being no reason to expect anything aside from a price decline.

I think micro transactions and P2E are here to stay long term. A niche market that doesn't involve multi million dollars of investment to produce triple A titles solves too many problems for developers to be ignored.

[stompix]

If the P2E movement is dead. I would guess developers have not received the memo considering new P2E games like psyber X and metarun are currently being built on unreal engine 5.

And? Just because they develop some games does it mean it will be a success?
Metarun, let's see...
0 Info about the game, 10 tons of staking, buy $MRUN, buy NFT, and the game itself, a run for coins game that looks like a hundred thousand others on google play?
Seriously, that's your example of a good game?

A niche market that doesn't involve multi million dollars of investment to produce triple A titles solves too many problems for developers to be ignored.

Of course, it solves the problem, it solves the problem of making millions while selling a cheap crap game that you could have played for free on Steam.
It also solves another problem for gamers, fewer numbers in your bank account to even care to check it anymore.

[Pomogator]

These models are like filling the pockets of game owners only. I think they are making entire tokenomics for their brand just because initially they will get investment through ICO's, pre-sales etc. Using that money they develop the games (??) and definitely there is so much money is raised they do not even consume that much.
They are already in profits and just keep running the games for some extra bucks or regular pay-check.

If they started using bitcoin right form the beginning then they don't have anything to offer except traditional way of getting users on board to invest in their venture and gain little capital.

However, these days peeps are keen on investing into tokens because they think it could be next bitcoin and they could have loads of profits in the future. Unfortunately it's the want and greed of money and nothing else that pulls the crowd these days.

Indeed, it turns out to be a vicious circle. People want easy money and invest in such projects to give them life. CEO see the ease of creating and raising money and start churning out these projects. This circle will be until people understand that this is another financial scheme for making easy money from investors.

[Vlt9]

The main problem I do see for Axie infinity which is;

1. Burning mechanism

They do mint out Slp token on endless manner which this had been generated   by millions of players day by day on which it did result into huge supply and not surprising that it do tagged up its own main coin which is AXS. and due for that reason then it did really ends up on losing trust and interest of the community.Lots of promises made telling about new burning mechanism plus having this bear market then no surprise that
Overall price or value would really be on the floor.

I think that the main problem is different. New money in the project appears only by attracting new players. Then each user tries to maximize their profits. The value that would be needed by someone outside of the game system is not created. In a classic commodity relationship, there are two interested parties. One offers a good or service, the other is willing to pay for it. The important point is that the good or service has an unambiguous value that can be sold to a third party in the outside market.
Axie Infinity or STEPN does not have that. There is only one stakeholder in the project, the players. Then there is the project administrator, who gets his commission for any transaction. There is no participant outside the game, who needs the result of the game (sneakers or Axie). There is a redistribution of funds within the system itself.

[Fortify]

Two small things first before I start making my arguments about this:
- I put the title "pay to play" instead of the "pay to work" I will refer further down not to make it confusing for readers
- I'm a bitcoin maximalist so I'm obviously biased against tokens and altcoins, deal with it!  
LE: Title update to make sure we're talking about blockchain model games

I'm not sure why the price of Bitcoin dropping would have the slightest effect on this sort of scheme, in fact surely it would make it more popular as prices would simply be adjusted to the new US versus Bitcoin ratio. Anyone who participates in these schemes is stretching the bounds anyway and effectively throwing their money away. Similar to the NFT model that has so disastrously collapsed in recent months, almost nothing of real value is being purchased and it all revolves a new untested game. For every grand idea like Bitcoin, there are probably a billion others that fail. Not enough people have simply transitioned to the crypto world to make this sustainable and it's arguable if they ever will.

[dansus021]

play to earn really hype after axie infinity hit the market and then now we see walk to earn also.

play to earn just like you said that we need money to play the game and then we can earn at the hype we can see nft highly price for weapon or character and then metaverse showed up make nft price go crazy and we can see dozen of shitcoin that try build play to earn but I watch it by myself one few, that stand with the development and active community and the other start to die

play to earn itself still at very very early stage only one or two that succeed but if we took axie itself that we need not a little money to buy or breed their character I think we need big game studio start with in game currency that using crypto currency to buy item