• The first successful Play-2-Earn game was Axieinfinity
• Play-2-Earn games reward players with different rewards for completing different in-game tasks
• The Play-2-Earn movement is still in the early stages of development and there is still a huge amount of room for growth
• Most of these games require an initial investment in order to join them

Play-2-Earn or P2E for short, are games that reward their players with in-game digital assets ranging from NFTs to cryptocurrencies, which hold real-world value.

But how does it work? 

It implements a unique earning mechanism, unlike any traditional game. Players create value for other players as well as developers, by being part of the ecosystem. These games run on various blockchain networks, most notably Solana and Ethereum, but are not limited to only these two. By being part of those games, players receive digital assets such as NFTs and cryptocurrencies. These cryptos can be both native to the game and/or hold real-world value.

NFTs (short for non-fungible tokens) are unique digital assets, where each one is unique from the others. This uniqueness is one of the main reasons NFTs have gained so much popularity. Owning something unique that no one else has is a really good selling point, especially in today's society where being unique is seen as something to admire. Who are the best people to sell this uniqueness, other than gamers who spend countless hours playing and grinding games, in the hopes of acquiring items or other game assets that not many have?

Each Play-2-Earn game differs, but in general, almost all of them work the same way.

The first thing to take into consideration is that most of those games are not free to join, with some exceptions. You would need to own an NFT associated with that game, to be able to complete different tasks and challenges which in return give you new NFTs and digital currency.

Those NFTs can be purchased at different places, they could be sold on NTF marketplaces such as Opensea or can be purchased directly from the in-game marketplace.

There are countless play-2-earn games available on the internet, each with different mechanics and styles of play. So there should be no problem for a person to find the type of game that interests them. Do you like turn-based games? There is a Play-2-Earn game for that. Do you like to gamble? There is a Play-2-Earn poker game. Do you like… Well, whatever you like there is probably a Play-2-Earn game out there for you.

Now let us take a look at some of those games.

Decetraland Ice Poker

Ice Poker was born on the trending Decentraland platform, which was the first metaverse land, where users could buy the land property and use it as they wish. Huge casino buildings in different realms give ICE NFT owners the opportunity to play virtual poker and earn their native token ICE.

ICE NFT owners are given the option to check in every single day. Doing so, they receive 3000 chips which they can play with until the day is finished at UTC+0. While playing, they are shown different missions with increasing difficulty, 3 in total, which they have to complete in order to receive ICE crypto. The easiest mission gives you 15 ICE, and the hardest mission rewards you with 120 ICE. These are the numbers with level 1 NFT, and by playing and gaining experience points, users are able to level up their NFTs and increase earnings.

Another factor that determines earnings is the daily leaderboard. As we mentioned, each day you start with 3000 chips, the starting amount can be increased by owning multiple NFTs. When the day finishes at UTC+0, the system looks at the leaderboard to see what percentage of users won a specific amount of chips and what percentage of users lost a specific amount of chips. Then the system looks at your wins/loses and places you on the leaderboard where your earned ICE gets multiplied, ranging from 2x for best performers and 0.03x for those who placed all the way at the bottom.

One of the best things that ICE Poker has is that you don’t have to invest anything into it, as there is a delegation system, where you can get an NFT from someone who owns one, and at the end of the day profits are split 70/30, 70 going to the player and 30 to the delegator.

If you want to learn more about ICE Poker, their discord server is the best place to go, where community members are more than happy to help newcomers.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is the pioneer of Play-to-Earn games, as it was one of the first games to blow up and gather a huge player base. At its peak, Axis (NFTs) were selling for thousands of dollars and generating millions in sales each day.

When it comes to game mechanics, it’s pretty easy to understand. It is a card-based battler game, where you own Axis who are little creatures, and also NFTs. Each Axi has different statistics which determine how good your Axi is.

This battle takes place as 3v3 PvE (player versus entity) or PvP (player versus player). Each of these mods is interesting, but our main focus should fall on a PvP arena mode where you battle other players.

When it comes to the paying mechanics of the game, there are two cryptos players can earn. The first coin which most players earn is SLP (small love potion) which you can earn by playing against other players and winning those battles. The payout depends on your ranking and the statistics of your Axis. Another token, AXS, is the more lucrative token, which only the best players earn by placing at the top of all player bases.

Another way to earn money is through breeding. When you own multiple Axis you have the opportunity to breed them and birth new unique Axi which can be sold on the market for cryptocurrency.

"I think everyone is really focused on just building, you know making fun workable products" - Jeffrey (Jihoz) Zirlin

Pegaxy

Pegaxy is a PvP (Player versus Player) horse race game, which allows users to own horses as NFTs and race them for winnings. Currently, it is a 2D game that determines the winners of the race through RNG (random number generator), but there are plans for it to move to 3D with skill-based gameplay.

One of the best things about Pegaxy is that there are multiple ways we can approach the game and its earning mechanics, which means more diversity for its users.

"Pegaxy has barely begun. The minds in this team are outrageous. We came to build, and that’s what we’ll do." - Corey Wilton

So what are those different approaches?

• Buy NFT and race with it
• Be a Scholar by racing someone else's horse and splitting winnings with the NFT owner
• Rent a horse from someone for a fixed period of time and race
• Breed horses to create new NFTs that you will be able to sell on the market
• Breed horses to create new NFTs, so you can race with more horses and increase your earnings
• Own a stadium and earn yield from races that take place at your stadium (Coming Soon)

While it seems really good to play and earn money like that, there are also many risks involved with the Play-2-Earn ecosystem.

This style of gaming is just a womb compared to the original gaming industry, which means there are many different things that need improvement.

One of those things is sustainability. Right now it is impossible for us to spend a few thousand dollars on Play-2-Earn NFTs and expect the same amount of payouts for a really long time. There are more people who look at these types of games as quick cash-grab opportunities and don’t care about the ecosystem and the community, this causes the game to get flooded by those who only take out money from the project without giving something in return.

These types of players in the end put most of the games in what's called a death spiral, where there is a huge spike in the player base which causes prices and payouts to rise really high. But with these higher payouts, projects are going bankrupt because way more money is flowing out than in, and soon prices crash.

So in conclusion, it is still early days to say with confidence that this is the future of gaming, but there is still huge room for growth and with more experience and development, there definitely is a market for these types of games. We should look at the market and find the game that seems appealing to us, which has a cheap entry price, or no entry price at all and give it a go.

• Play-2-Earn games are great projects for those who like to play games
• There is still huge room for growth
• Right now most of these games go through a death spiral where they lose a lot of value after huge spikes