Filipinos Playing crypto games for a living - Developer even says it is gambling

[rdbase]

The games industry considera this as a marketing campaign, spend money on players sometimes has a better impact than spend that same money on adds, and I see this as a good practice.

And that doesn't happen only in the philipines, that's something that we see all around the wold nowadays. In latam we have some influencers like Fernando Flow who uses his network to promote New games.

This is so very true. They are wanting to have a different approach now. Maybe the rise and fall of Axie Infinity showed future developers of these P2E games the error of their ways.
I remember when the coin was valued very high but when the collapse of FTX happened it suffered until it wasn't worth nearly anything to anyone.

Whenever these developers wanted to make a Play-2-Earn game, their target is always our country - the Philippines. I mean why not? Axie Infinity, Pegaxy, Plants Vs. Undead are the ones that became popular P2E games when it was on hype, and for sure, many people made huge money playing on it.

Playing while earning. This what makes it attractive and for a developing country like the Philippines, it's really attractive especially if you realize that you can earn way more than working 8 hours earning only minimum wage and the best part is, you are only spending at least half of the usual 8 hours working time to earn twice as much. These developers are using our country to attract more investors. As for these crypto games that can be considered as gambling, I don't see any gambling feature from them aside from the fact that you might lose your money if the developers decided to rug pull from their investors.

~
I also remember Wax blockchain as one of the popular options for these gamers.

This Wax blockchain reminded me of the game "Alien Worlds" where you are just clicking and clicking that makes me bored from the first hour of doing it. Same with Cryptoblades.

Funny that you mentioned Undead because for the very first time I seen and actually noticed it while visiting a Coin Price Market website as an advertisement and clicked on it. All because I had  posted about this earlier today and wanted to see if it was one of these Pay to Earn games. And was in the least surprised when I did, that it was.

Now there was this thread I had noticed with the same concept over at the altcoin topic that might be the same:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5499333.0

Noticed today on a crypto-influencer channel I was watching they mentioned about new Play To Earn games and they mentioned about this thread I highlighted above and it is infact the very same concept:

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/07/08/what-hamster-kombat-did-how-telegram-built-a-web3-gaming-juggernaut

They have millions of new players in the last couple of weeks from when they first launched which is really something to keep on your radar when it comes to these things.

The other ones they had mentioned were Bunny Blitz:
https://www.cryptonite.ae/global/bondex-launches-bunny-blitz-telegram-game
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/bondex-reveals-new-telegram-game

Then to a lesser degree one on shib from the failed not coin:
https://cryptonews.com/news/is-notcoin-doomed-not-price-falls-5-amid-viral-surge-of-new-shiba-inu-alternative.htm
This was from a clicker app which was taken over by botfarms.

Most of these new P2E games are deployed on the platform telegram.

[Odohu]

Play-to-earn games was also popular in my country few years back but seems to have been losing grounds for reason I think is not far from reduced rewards just like you rightly stated.

However, I do not see P2E games as gambling because they do not mostly involve making a deposite,  hence the risk that defines gambling is not there. Gamble should be involved when deposit is required and the expectations is to earn rewards greater than the deposit.

[justdimin]

Just look at the concept which itself is a failure cause it's just free money and anyone who wants to have it can just play the game and have it which means no demand which makes it completely worthless. In the beginning, it might give profits but these all are just short term and it's not new either so the chances of making one-time profit itself is in big question.

And also I just want to mention Gambling involves games but not every game is gambling.

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things, I don't know what they are because I never played the game but my cousin used to play and he used to buy axies or whatever the characters are named and then use them to play the game to earn tokens that would then be sold for money or other cryptocurrencies.

If a company says that they are creating a game which everyone can play and earn money from it, they are either bluffing or the money earned would be worth nothing more than dust because if such things existed, everyone would be sitting at their homes playing games and earn a bunch of money from them.

[Hirose UK]

Play-to-earn games was also popular in my country few years back but seems to have been losing grounds for reason I think is not far from reduced rewards just like you rightly stated.

However, I do not see P2E games as gambling because they do not mostly involve making a deposite,  hence the risk that defines gambling is not there. Gamble should be involved when deposit is required and the expectations is to earn rewards greater than the deposit.

Not only in the country you live in but also in the country I live in there is similar thing where play-to-earn games are really of interest to many people regardless of age limits, I sure that now almost all countries have the same thing happening popularity of play-to-earn games.
I also agree with you that for context like this and the involvement of play-to-earn games, it is not included in the category of gambling games, this is just kind of game that is often said to be an airdrop, maybe wrong but I think that is fairly accurate definition.

Basically, gambling is an activity that involves depositing and betting, anything that is not related to risking money or valuables is not gambling, but perhaps everyone response will be different regarding this kind of thing.
But I also see that there are several games that require users to make deposits with the aim of increasing certain things, I don't know whether this can be called form of gambling activity, but in my opinion, if there is no indication of betting activity, it is not appropriate to call it gambling.

[Taskford]

Just look at the concept which itself is a failure cause it's just free money and anyone who wants to have it can just play the game and have it which means no demand which makes it completely worthless. In the beginning, it might give profits but these all are just short term and it's not new either so the chances of making one-time profit itself is in big question.

And also I just want to mention Gambling involves games but not every game is gambling.

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things, I don't know what they are because I never played the game but my cousin used to play and he used to buy axies or whatever the characters are named and then use them to play the game to earn tokens that would then be sold for money or other cryptocurrencies.

If a company says that they are creating a game which everyone can play and earn money from it, they are either bluffing or the money earned would be worth nothing more than dust because if such things existed, everyone would be sitting at their homes playing games and earn a bunch of money from them.

Axie infinity need investment since you need to buy good axies then have good team composition so that you will have more higher chance to win against your opponent. Although right now its hard to earn and many people rely only for their bounty rewards which is totally small which other people doesn't like to play this game anymore.

No company will create a game where people could earn for free. Since they also need to sell something so that they could sustain their ecosystem but also they can earn profit from those people who buy their digital assets.

But right now there are p2e games which running on beta phase where they reward their players or shall we say give a airdrop rewards for their early participation on the game. They just need to finish those quest or task then they earn points to became eligible for aidrops. This is common thing people joined at the moment and this beta testers like task became trend nowadays.

[hedgeh0g]

Axie infinity need investment since you need to buy good axies then have good team composition so that you will have more higher chance to win against your opponent. Although right now its hard to earn and many people rely only for their bounty rewards which is totally small which other people doesn't like to play this game anymore.

No company will create a game where people could earn for free. Since they also need to sell something so that they could sustain their ecosystem but also they can earn profit from those people who buy their digital assets.

But right now there are p2e games which running on beta phase where they reward their players or shall we say give a airdrop rewards for their early participation on the game. They just need to finish those quest or task then they earn points to became eligible for aidrops. This is common thing people joined at the moment and this beta testers like task became trend nowadays.

I also played with Axie Infiniti, but I'm not a Phillipine, but I know that it was so popular there that not a single cryptoist demonstrated such results. I liked this game, but then when the earnings began to fall there due to the fact that the token course fell, I stopped playing it. Still, potential earnings are important for so many, because many are not ready to waste their time on this. But on the other hand, interest is no less important, and I really hope that the CritePoheming still release some amazing game that will capture gamers from around the world. Thanks to such games, Phillipins understand well why cryptocurrency is needed and how to use it, it was an excellent experience for many.

I would not call it gambling, because these are the possibilities in which even without luck could earn real money.

[mirakal]

Now this is not new and I remember how people were saying they were playing a very well known title of these play-to-earn video games in exchange for cryptocurrency called Axie Infinity.
Where some were playing for extended amounts of time and claimed they had made enough to afford a modest house where they reside.

This was more so for those players of these crypto-games who hail from the Philippines.

Yeah, I could still remember when Axie Infinity once became the mainstream where a lot of my friends and known players got hooked on it and even convinced me. It can't be denied that a lot of people make a lot of money, a huge amount, especially early adopters and gamers. Even I thought it would stay longer but just like the others, it's gone.  

But times have changed since then and from what I remember the coin from those earlier games had dropped significantly. And these games such as the one fore mentioned had fallen off and not as popular as it was before due to the drop in in price.

But now there are a new batch of games that those developers want to pay players to play once again.

Gamers wait for another P2E game and they are ready to spend more money and gamble thinking that they could earn more. Unfortunately, nothing followed like what the Axie game did, it is just one of a kind. Of course, we can't be hopeless at all but yes, we can also expect such hype again. Filipinos will still gamble and are willing to risks if there is an opportunity like that again.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Yes, if the video game is actually paying out real crypto that is worth significant earnings if converted to peso, then it is a good advantage that will even be profitable to the citizens, but I feel that in those kinds of activities, you will definitely have to meet some requirements, such as spending so much time by playing continuously, before you can even earn enough coin that can be worth a good amount. The company also has a way of making profit through the activities of their patrons, and they cannot pay more than what they are getting in return. The company will definitely have the lion's share of the profit. Just like casinos always have a high odds of making a profit from gamblers,. 

But yes, there will be some requirements before they can withdraw their money and that could be a limitation for them to achieve.

Yes, there are usually some requirements that must be met for such activities, but I guess that they will not have too much over tasking requirements before their customers (the citizens that participate) can withdraw.

[rdbase]

A similar phenomenon happened here in Venezuela as well, but back in the day it did not have anything to do with cryptocurrency, at all. People here started farming gold on Runescape classic, since the big inflationary crisis we have had in 2016. When Bitcoin and cryptocurrency games become well known and kind of a big market back two years ago, it was usual to see young people investing into Axie Infinity and playing the game using rented axies and equipment, I don't think the market here was as big as it was in the Philippines, but it took the play to earn concept to the main stream media.

Whether it is gambling or not, I believe it depends whom one asks. Some would claim play-to-earn is not sustainable in the long term.

Good thing you had mentioned this.
Many of these players had a launching pad into the online video game community from somewhere.
And many of those started from Runescape.
Heck, even the owner of Stake has mentioned he began his online identity from that gaming platform and learned his financial economy basics from this game. He farmed gold and actually met many of his business partners from joining it early on and even had streamed a session on their weekend races.
But with all of these genre type games it did lose it's value so he only does it for fun on occasion instead of on a daily basis so to level up resulting in more experience and riches.

Filipinos Playing crypto games for a living - Developer even says it is gambling well based on your story this developer just implement the good old days of play to earn so for me this is not gambling and you just play to earn money.

Well if all categories as gambling then playing online game is gambling now, why most of the online game has in game currency that some of it you need to buy using real fiat and thoose in game currency used for an gacha sistem for rare reward you can consider this gambling right haha, heck basically life is a gambling hehe

As mentioned before, it is gambling because anytime a player needs to put any sort of investment into one of these platforms then it is just that-taking a risk.
And what is gambling but Risk taking.
And you are obviously investing one's time into the game.
Are you not?

[Coin_trader]

As mentioned before, it is gambling because anytime a player needs to put any sort of investment into one of these platforms then it is just that - taking a risk.
And what is gambling? Risk taking.
And you are obviously investing one's time into the game.
Are you not?

This is a clever point on the risk of playing games to be incorporated in gambling. I do understand the point since I consider my time as precious especially if I’m investing it to something that I knew that it will generate profit.

Those fellow Filipino players is indeed gambling for investing time for this game hoping to gain profit later on. There’s a lot of success and horror story for this kind of game but people keeps entering knowing the risk involved since Filipino love gambling even with their time.

[Hispo]

A similar phenomenon happened here in Venezuela as well, but back in the day it did not have anything to do with cryptocurrency, at all. People here started farming gold on Runescape classic, since the big inflationary crisis we have had in 2016. When Bitcoin and cryptocurrency games become well known and kind of a big market back two years ago, it was usual to see young people investing into Axie Infinity and playing the game using rented axies and equipment, I don't think the market here was as big as it was in the Philippines, but it took the play to earn concept to the main stream media.

Whether it is gambling or not, I believe it depends whom one asks. Some would claim play-to-earn is not sustainable in the long term.

Good thing you had mentioned this.
Many of these players had a launching pad into the online video game community from somewhere.
And many of those started from Runescape.
Heck, even the owner of Stake has mentioned he began his online identity from that gaming platform and learned his financial economy basics from this game. He farmed gold and actually met many of his business partners from joining it early on and even had streamed a session on their weekend races.
But with all of these genre type games it did lose it's value so he only does it for fun on occasion instead of on a daily basis so to level up resulting in more experience and riches.

Filipinos Playing crypto games for a living - Developer even says it is gambling well based on your story this developer just implement the good old days of play to earn so for me this is not gambling and you just play to earn money.

Well if all categories as gambling then playing online game is gambling now, why most of the online game has in game currency that some of it you need to buy using real fiat and thoose in game currency used for an gacha sistem for rare reward you can consider this gambling right haha, heck basically life is a gambling hehe

As mentioned before, it is gambling because anytime a player needs to put any sort of investment into one of these platforms then it is just that-taking a risk.
And what is gambling but Risk taking.
And you are obviously investing one's time into the game.
Are you not?

Ones country needs to be pretty much in a deeply bad situation if it is more profitable to farm a game like RuneScape than actually getting a job or doing usual commerce like the rest of the people of the country, to be honest. Such things would never happen in the first place if the countrys economy was not so much in a bad shape. In that sense, many of the people who manage to make a living off their activities in those games would argue they are not actually partaking in gambling at all, as the money is guaranteed, as if they were partaking in any other regular job.
I would only take it as gambling if they happened to be investing their time in a very speculative and volatile market within the game itself, or even if the game is about speculation.

[Casdinyard]

Seen a video released recently about how the video game industry had been trying to reinvent itself by offering a reward in the form of cryptocurrency for those who choose to play their games.

Now this is not new and I remember how people were saying they were playing a very well known title of these play-to-earn video games in exchange for cryptocurrency called Axie Infinity.
Where some were playing for extended amounts of time and claimed they had made enough to afford a modest house where they reside.

This was more so for those players of these crypto-games who hail from the Philippines.

But times have changed since then and from what I remember the coin from those earlier games had dropped significantly. And these games such as the one fore mentioned had fallen off and not as popular as it was before due to the drop in in price.

But now there are a new batch of games that those developers want to pay players to play once again.

So here is the video report on this phenomenon making the rounds once more in the land of the Philippines where playing a game can make you enough in riches so to make a living?
You can decide for yourself if this statement has any truth to it or if those companies are just taking advantage of the situation to the impoverished who do not have stable work.

Playing crypto games for a living: Filipinos seek to escape poverty
"Can you make a living from playing video games? Millions of Filipinos who earn cryptocurrency playing online games seem to think so. Players earn tokens they then trade in a virtual market for pesos or dollars. They can earn up to twice the minimum wage – an irresistible prospect for young Filipinos hoping to escape poverty. But cryptocurrencies are also extremely volatile. Their value in the Philippines is estimated at $7 billion, but they can collapse at a moment’s notice. Our team on the ground reports."


source from France24 a public broadcast service:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q0-n8WHlwI

This is how you know we're so cooked here in the Philippines. We can't even rely on proper employment anymore to save us from being poor. We literally had to get help from Lord Jihoz himself to see some semblance of relief. And honestly, the few months when Play-to-Earn was the biggest thing in the Philippines was one of the best months I had financially, and other aspects as well. Everyone's earning more than the minimum wage, people are actually enjoying their lives. It was a massive bummer that it all had to end, but it gave the people some semblance of a glimpse of what crypto could do for them.

So yeah, people here in the Philippines are definitely looking at crypto as a means to earn money, maybe even escape poverty. But that's not on them, the fact of the matter is that we just had so much poor performance leaders in here that would rather see their pockets fattened up from ill-gotten wealth and tax evasions than to actually help the public.

[ethereumhunter]

Yes, there are usually some requirements that must be met for such activities, but I guess that they will not have too much over tasking requirements before their customers (the citizens that participate) can withdraw.

The requirements will be different from one application to another so people must ensure to search what is the requirements. If they thinks that the reguirements is not too difficult for them to apply, they can continue playing the games until they meet the minimum payments.

But some people will thinks that the requirements is too high especially if video games providers have a high requirements too achieved. Usually, that games providers will gives another ways to people to achieve but that will be a long time process to achieve. We must be careful with that applications because some application require us to pay for the first time before we can withdraw the money. That will be too risky to use the application.

[Solosanz]

Do you know what? if someone decide to earn money through games when they're not a pro player or joining in the top competition, it means the world is fucked up. How can the government didn't have enough jobs for their citizen, if the jobs is enough, people wouldn't jump to playing games for living.

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things, I don't know what they are because I never played the game but my cousin used to play and he used to buy axies or whatever the characters are named and then use them to play the game to earn tokens that would then be sold for money or other cryptocurrencies.

If a company says that they are creating a game which everyone can play and earn money from it, they are either bluffing or the money earned would be worth nothing more than dust because if such things existed, everyone would be sitting at their homes playing games and earn a bunch of money from them.

Axie Infinity gives you free Axie if you joined the early access, so you don't have to spend your money.

The company do give free to play and a chance to earn money, but it won't last long because when there are so many people join to play, the reward would be smaller and smaller.

[Peanutswar]

~
Noticed today on a crypto-influencer channel I was watching they mentioned about new Play To Earn games and they mentioned about this thread I highlighted above and it is infact the very same concept:

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/07/08/what-hamster-kombat-did-how-telegram-built-a-web3-gaming-juggernaut
~

This projects become one of the next trade play to earn, before Filipinos sees the potential of the Axie infinity and now this news are now widely spread that they can earn a lot of money the same with the axie so people now spam their referral links even in the market place in facebook, tons of invites and different videos that they will earn a lot of money by just doing the tap and daily rewards of this game in the telegram, does not if the release the market yet but still people hope they will earn a lot with this free game.

[danherbias07]

As mentioned before, it is gambling because anytime a player needs to put any sort of investment into one of these platforms then it is just that - taking a risk.
And what is gambling? Risk taking.
And you are obviously investing one's time into the game.
Are you not?

This is a clever point on the risk of playing games to be incorporated in gambling. I do understand the point since I consider my time as precious especially if I’m investing it to something that I knew that it will generate profit.

Those fellow Filipino players is indeed gambling for investing time for this game hoping to gain profit later on. There’s a lot of success and horror story for this kind of game but people keeps entering knowing the risk involved since Filipino love gambling even with their time.

That's true. I cannot even remember how much time and effort I put into the game Mir4 just so my character could get stronger and I could join the top clans that give more perks daily. Thanks to that, I get items that are not available for players that are not on the top and also you can mine the Darksteels without anyone doing a PK because the clan owns the mining field. Those are the ones that can be sold for real money and I actually made it happen for like a year or more.

Truly, it's a time-consuming thing and I agree with OP that it's also a gamble. I may not have spent a dime for that game but every day you cannot be offline or else you will be kicked out and it will be difficult to have the same perks with another clan.

[stompix]

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things,

That's what people here don't realize about these "earnings".
You need to have a constant inflow of new players to buy that stuff from you with real money, the moment the inflow dries out and the amount of players frows there is little money compared to the players, and your earnings go down the drain!

Nobody will be paying you just to play, it's all a simple MLM scheme, yet some still think this will be the future of gaming, it's really funny!
We talk all day about demand and offer and suddenly we forget about these when it comes to this!

A similar phenomenon happened here in Venezuela as well, but back in the day it did not have anything to do with cryptocurrency, at all. People here started farming gold on Runescape classic, since the big inflationary crisis we have had in 2016.

Oh, the Green Dragon Genocide that destroyed the gold market and turned many of RS players into PK!

[ralle14]

I've never gotten into the P2E games, but i'm glad that my friends got involved with cryptocurrency through the help of these games and most of them earned a decent chunk before the hype died down.

We've been doing this ten years ago since the heyday of Dota, and Cryptocurrency does not yet exist. Gamers upgrade accounts so they can sell them through personal dealing, so it's no wonder that people here will look for games that they can play to upgrade their accounts and sell them using Cryptocurrency.

As someone who's played countless online multiplayer games, this is so accurate. Once you find the other side of the gaming market you'll always find people selling in-game cosmetics and well-made accounts to earn a living, until now I assume it's still a thing. Even in arcades, I remember someone tried to make a deal with me by selling some maxed-out accounts from a racing game.

[Hispo]

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things,

That's what people here don't realize about these "earnings".
You need to have a constant inflow of new players to buy that stuff from you with real money, the moment the inflow dries out and the amount of players frows there is little money compared to the players, and your earnings go down the drain!

Nobody will be paying you just to play, it's all a simple MLM scheme, yet some still think this will be the future of gaming, it's really funny!
We talk all day about demand and offer and suddenly we forget about these when it comes to this!

A similar phenomenon happened here in Venezuela as well, but back in the day it did not have anything to do with cryptocurrency, at all. People here started farming gold on Runescape classic, since the big inflationary crisis we have had in 2016.

Oh, the Green Dragon Genocide that destroyed the gold market and turned many of RS players into PK!

Well. I was not even aware it was called the "Green Dragon genocide" and it has turned away members of the game.  . To be honest, I thought the economy of a game which is as massive as RuneScape would have not been affected by gold farming from Venezuelans, but I assume I could be wrong, we are talking of thousands of people affecting a single game.

It is good also to have the perspective of the gold famer and realize those weren't people who wished to harm the game or harm others within the game, they just happened to find a reliable source of income in the least expected place of the internet. Actually, I have a family member who earned some bucks off farming World of Warcraft.

[milewilda]

Games that offer you bonuses that are convertible to real cash aren't available for free, even if we use Axie Infinity as an example, playing it wasn't for free, you would need to buy certain things,

That's what people here don't realize about these "earnings".
You need to have a constant inflow of new players to buy that stuff from you with real money, the moment the inflow dries out and the amount of players frows there is little money compared to the players, and your earnings go down the drain!

Nobody will be paying you just to play, it's all a simple MLM scheme, yet some still think this will be the future of gaming, it's really funny!
We talk all day about demand and offer and suddenly we forget about these when it comes to this!

A similar phenomenon happened here in Venezuela as well, but back in the day it did not have anything to do with cryptocurrency, at all. People here started farming gold on Runescape classic, since the big inflationary crisis we have had in 2016.

Oh, the Green Dragon Genocide that destroyed the gold market and turned many of RS players into PK!

In short, there's no such thing about free money on this world and this is something that people should really be realizing in the first place on which its not really that totally a play to earn thing without having investment or money that had been put up even if we do speak about "Axie Infinity" on which buying up or breeding those axies would really be coming with a cost. Therefore,  there's really that flow
in between buyers and sellers and on the moment that the minting of SLP becomes uncontrollable because tons of people who are already farming it, and having not proper or solid utility of those tokens
then this is the main reason on why it goes down to the floor and tons of people had lost up money specially to those who had heavily invested. On the time or moment that you would be diving in things
then you should really be wary and careful about on the possibilities that it could go down.Proper economy and utility would really be the key to sustenance.

Play to earn without investment is imposible, it would really be needing up those funds to circulate around and if there would really be no new investors that would really be engaging
in, then you could really be able to expect that it would go down and this is something that could really happen. Making a living? Its possible but doesnt mean that it would
be so damn easy, on the moment that you are on such condition then good for you.