Other games promise a lot… by a lot, I mean a lot.
As you might already know, each play-to-earn game has its own cryptocurrency. These cryptos have prices and their prices are driven mainly by supply vs demand, and speculations of investors. The developers of these games know this, and therefore, they make huge promotional campaigns about their games to attract early adopters and launch a successful Initial Coin Offering (ICO). This is what provides these developers with enough cash flow to operate. That’s the best-case scenario, and developers will actually use that money to develop the game. The worst-case scenario is a rug pull where they’ll run away with the money, but that’s another subject.
Since these developers are unknown studios in most cases, they don’t have much money, and they don’t have much to bring to the industry. So, they lie, a LOT.
Look at most of the trailers of blockchain games, and they’ll all seem like the next big hit. But how many companies could actually provide, and make something that looks close to these trailers? I’m not sure I have the answer, and maybe not even the developers of these games do. But one thing is for sure, many will not be able to make something similar to what they promote, and all these promotional campaigns are ways to fool players to invest in their games and to be on the early adopters’ list.
But play-to-earn game developers didn’t stop here. Now, before a game is launched, you’ll find the developers selling virtual plots of land. And, the prices are in tens of thousands of dollars, for a piece of code that exists on a blockchain. These plots of land are represented by NFTs, and the fancy name is what makes them valuable as it seems to me.
Well, yeah, developers would tell you that by owning land, you’ll be able to monetize it and earn more cryptos against your competition (play-to-win again).
I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to spend thousands of dollars on a piece of virtual land in a Metaverse no matter what perks it brings. I mean, look at the market crash that occurred and how Bitcoin plunged 50% from its all-time high price of $69,000 in only two months, and you’ll notice that alternative coins saw more severe losses.
Of course, with the plunge, blockchain games saw a far worst bloodbath and shed most of their value in no time. I certainly don’t want to risk keeping my money in virtual land, in a game that I don’t know much about its future, and that its economy isn’t stable.
The case with Axie Infinity will probably be the case with other games. If play-to-earn games developers will keep their focus on selling dreams, and promoting games to people who just want to earn from playing, then this would be like a death sentence. Players will just cash out what they earned, and one day, the ecosystem will be full of players, and earnings will start to decrease, and players will run away to another game, and then re-do the same. Adopt it early, play and make a profit as much as you can, and then leave when the economy destabilizes.
It seems like play-to-earn games are a beautiful nightmare or a Ponzi Scheme, whether blockchain games developers know it or not.
