rise of play to earn crypto games

as full-time working professionals, it’s difficult for many who grew up playing video games to take out time to sit in front of their console or PC and complete a few missions.

but what if you were told you could earn a decent living playing video games? you will have to leave your job but that would be fine because you’d be making money while having fun. does it sound too good to be true? it’s not.

this has been the case in several developing countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and India. players are paid in cryptocurrency for playing blockchain-based games such as Axie Infinity. And they can earn anywhere between Php 20,000 (Rs 29,316) and 50,000 (Rs 73,290) a month.

Such play-to-earn (P2E) games first became popular in 2017, with the emergence of CryptoKitties. But the trend didn’t pick up. Axie Infinity, currently the most popular P2E, was launched in 2018. it became popular during lockdowns in developing countries where many were working from home or had lost their jobs and were in search of another. 

how to make money playing games?

take Axie for example, it allows players to breed virtual creatures called ‘Axies’ which are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) minted on the Ethereum blockchain, and hence each one of these creatures is unique and scarce. players can battle among each other with their Axies and earn certain rewards in Smooth Love Potion (SLP), the in-game cryptocurrency, for completing certain tasks or level-ups.

since the SLP is an ethereum-based token, it is traded on various exchanges against fiat currencies. it can also be traded and held for ether tokens, which again can be exchanged for fiat currencies.

with this rise in popularity, it’s no wonder that the valuation of Axie Infinity also skyrocketed over the last year. in October 2021, the company raised $150 million at a $3 billion valuation.

many Axie Infinity-like games have emerged over the years. and their use of blockchain, NFTs, and other aspects of the crypto ecosystem is being seen as a way to realize the dream of a scalable metaverse.