Better Graphics And More Intense Gameplay Promise To Revolutionize Play-To-Earn Gaming
21 Março 2022 - 08:45AM
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Play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity exploded in popularity during
the COVID-19 pandemic, giving thousands of video games enthusiasts
in low-income countries like the Philippines a chance to earn a
living. The rise of P2E was a godsend for many, because in the
Philippines its gross domestic product declined 9.6% in 2020, its
biggest drop in more than 70 years, according to a study by IHS
Markit. With so many Filipinos finding themselves out of work,
thousands flocked to P2E games. Axie Infinity’s team reported in
March 2020 that more than 29,000 new players from the Philippines
signed up to the game, out of 70,000 new sign-ups worldwide in the
same month. Those players were signing up because Axie Infinity,
and other P2E games offer them a chance to earn a viable income
simply from playing and completing achievements. What’s more,
Axie’s community provided a solution to the requirement that
players purchase an NFT before they can start playing, offering
scholarships to new players in return for a slice of their income.
P2E’s rapid growth in low-income countries has been well
documented, but the real breakthrough for the industry will only
come when it manages to tap the traditional community of video game
players who’re not motivated primarily by earnings. That means
catering to the 66% of gamers that Statista says primarily play
games to unwind and decompress. Unlike NFT-based games, traditional
video games offer a much wider genre of titles, with
ultra-realistic graphics and rich storylines. Immersive sandbox
games such as Grand Theft Auto give gamers a way to completely
escape from reality and become totally immersed in a new world,
where they can put their own mundane lives on hold to become the
hero in an engaging story. The biggest P2E games don’t do this – to
put it bluntly, the gameplay in Axie Infinity is about as dull as
it gets, and until the industry does something about this,
conventional gamers who play for fun are unlikely to want to get in
on it. Top-Tier P2E Games Are On The Way The winning combination is
to have both P2E elements, a low barrier to entry, and an
exhilarating and enjoyable gameplay experience. Thankful,
developers of some of the most promising up-and-coming P2E titles
seem to be aware of this. Take Battle Drones, a soon-to-be-released
game on the Solana blockchain, which is a 3D isometric shooter game
that bears similarities with classic titles such as Call of Duty
and Fortnite. Video game purists will be eager to hear that Battle
Drones’ developers have built the game using Unreal Engine, a
popular and widely-used game engine developed by Epic Games. Using
Unreal Engine, developers can create massive virtual worlds with
incredibly rich graphics and smooth motion, meaning an altogether
different level of realism than is possible with today’s P2E games.
With Battle Drones, the developers plan to launch with a
player-vs-environment mode called Onslaught where players will be
able to win rewards such as BATTLE tokens and drone parts. There’ll
be a community leaderboard too, so players can chart their progress
and fight for recognition among their peers. In future, Battle
Drones will add additional game modes such as Co-op, multiplayer,
tower defense and even a drone racing mode to enhance the
experience for players. Players will be able to customize their
drone NFTs with various parts they can purchase from the Drones
Bones Store or win by beating their opponents and completing
challenges. The team also has ambitions to launch regular
player-vs-player Battle Royale contests, where numerous players
will get together and battle it out. A second promising title
that’s aiming to turn the P2E dynamic on its head is Plutonians, a
forthcoming MMORPG Metaverse space strategy game that will have
elements of strategy RPG, shooter action, multiplayer PvE, and
social alternate reality games. Plutonians is built using a
combination of Unreal Engine 5 and WebXR and will take place in an
enormous metaverse that’s accessible through multiple screens
including augmented reality, virtual reality, web and mobile. It
will be a space trading adventure game in the mold of the classic
game Elite, where players have the freedom to become a space pirate
and spend their time looting other vessels they come across.
Alternatively, they can take a more diplomatic approach, trading
with others at the nearest spaceport cantina. Players will need to
seek items including increasingly elaborate and more powerful
spaceships, weapons and technology, while traversing through the
immense Plutonians universe to explore new worlds and
opportunities. What Does This Mean For Guilds? New titles such as
Battle Drones and Plutonians promise to open up the world of P2E
games to a much broader audience of gamers that care first and
foremost about gameplay alone. The ability to earn a living will
merely become a bonus for gamers seeking an escape from the grind
of their daily lives, but one that’s potent enough that it could
well become the norm, with P2E aspects eventually incorporated into
most new video game releases. With that, it becomes harder to
predict which P2E games will have staying power, something that
could have big implications for gaming guilds such as Yield Guild
Games, Crypto Gaming Guild, and Avocado Guild to name a few. Guilds
play a vital role in the P2E economy, giving players without the
financial means access to the NFTs they need to start playing.
Yield Guild Games and its rivals have amassed vast collections of
NFTs that they rent to scholars in exchange for a slice of their
income, but it’s a model with inherent risks – if a game loses
popularity, those NFTs will quickly lose their value, to the
detriment of the guild that’s invested in them. As P2E shifts its
focus onto gameplay and newer, more exciting games constantly enter
the fray, we’ll likely see a shift in guild’s strategies. One
guild, Balthazar, is already doing this. Balthazar is a
decentralized autonomous organization, similar to other guilds, but
its business model is very different. Rather than buy NFTs, it
rents tokens from individuals before loaning them to its most
promising “wizards”. Balthazar sees itself as the “Airbnb” of P2E
gaming guilds, its chief executive John Stefanidis told Stockhead
in a recent interview. “We want to stay as asset-light as
possible,” he said, explaining that it’s impossible to predict
which P2E games will endure. Balthazar has a second model in the
works with Balthazar Buy, a soon-to-be-launched marketplace aimed
at investors. Balthazar will recommend promising NFTs for investors
to buy, and then when they purchase those tokens, it will rent them
from investors and loan them to its wizards. It makes sense because
Balthazar is well-placed to identify the highest-yield NFTs,
Stefanidis told Stockhead. The way the P2E game industry is headed,
it will only be a matter of time until the space is saturated with
dozens of top-tier games that are not just fun to play, but also
boast massive communities, on the level of Dota, Counterstrike and
GTA. Maybe even Battle Drones and Plutonians will one day enjoy the
same level of recognition. Meanwhile, progressive guilds such as
Balthazar will be well placed to profit from it, giving anyone who
wants to join in the action an opportunity to do just that.
Image: Pixabay
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