Play-to-earn games set to become viable component of gig economy

Crypto gaming is a decentralized system that allows players to have full ownership of their in-game assets like weapons, gold bars, avatars, costumes, and plots of land, which they can be able to convert into real-world money to accumulate these items through gameplay. Players also use crypto to purchase characters to level up and then sell them at a higher price.

Talking to Bizz Buzz, Amanjot Malhotra, Country Head - India, Bitay, says, "Most crypto games also use a play-to-earn (P2E) model, where players can earn crypto as a reward by dedicating time to level up, completing quests and challenges, and improving their characters. They also generate revenue on their land that other gamers pay to use or by matching against others in tournaments."

In addition to crypto gaming, investing in the token of the platform is another way to make money. Data shows that, from the first half of 2021, crypto gaming businesses raised $476 million. With sales totalling $2.5 billion, Axie Infinity has been one of the most successful games in this segment, he added.

1.8 million people are currently playing the Ethereum-based game each day. Gaming coins can have serious growth potential since they are a new industry. Some crypto games also include the form of staking, where players can lock away specific tokens to earn annual interest, and other rewards are used to buy additional in-game items.

Talking on are play to earn games worth, he says, "First of all, I would like to say that the vast majority of these games are not free to play. But do need some sort of initial investment – either in the form of buying NFT or depositing cryptocurrency."

That puts us in an awkward position. In order to make any money at all, we must first overcome this initial investment. In a game, we've never played before and don't know if we'll be good at it. The game difficulty is usually not such a problem, these games are simple, at least most of the time. A bigger problem is with competitive games. In competitive blockchain games, whoever puts more investment into the game wins more often because they have some form of advantage, which can be frustrating.

Overall you will always manage to get back at least your original deposit. Any further earnings are usually tied to a lot of time spent in the game.

Will this replace your traditional workday or part-time job? Absolutely not! But if you would otherwise be at home watching Netflix all day then it's probably worth spending a few hours in a play to earn game. So, yes if you would otherwise be wasting your time completely unproductively.

Kameshwaran Elangovan, co-founder and CEO, GuardianLink says, "There are a lot of professions that we know of today which were once considered as a fad and not even a part-time or rather a gig economy. If someone were to tell a little over a decade and a half ago that they would become content creators or YouTubers or Instagram influencers or bloggers, people would have laughed at them! Today, however, being a content creator is considered a mainstream profession."

This, precisely, is the juncture where the entire P2E realm is at when it comes to its viability as a gig economy. Not many P2E games exist, and even if they do, some of them are quite difficult to understand conceptually. There are a lot of parameters that go into creating a perfect P2E ecosystem which includes, but is not limited to, controlling the demand and supply of NFTs, the token economics, the way in which rewards should function, and above everything, the sustainability of the game.

P2E games are going through their early adolescence right now. Once people start to explore the viability of the games and the dependability of those P2E games as a standard source of income and livelihood, P2E games will be more prominent in the landscape of additional earnings and the gig economy.

We have seen the transformation of the Philippines, Vietnam, and a few more Southeast Asian countries. They capitalized on this P2E gaming wave and made it a standard gig economy. It is only a matter of time before the entire world embraces P2E gaming, he said.

When the awareness among people has been created, when the game economics become understandable when the game becomes sustainable when regulations become more transparent when the community becomes more enthusiastic when there are more games like cricket that enter the P2E space, and when people come to understand that gaming could be serious, P2E is all set to become a viable component of gig economy, and people will start looking at it as an alternative source of income if not the main source!

Vikram R Singh, Founder, and CEO, Antier , says, "Over the last few years, the crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) space has taken the world by storm with Play-to-Earn (P2E) emerging as the next big model. It gained extensive global visibility owing to its value proposition of earning while playing. It changed the world of gaming as play-to-earn was a commodity only available to professional gamers, streamers, or in fantasy sports games that involved a certain level of investments. With P2E games, one could easily plug into the play and start incentivised earning basis their progress."

Today, P2E gaming platforms have become a great source of alternative income. Furthermore, the demand for P2E games is expected to equate to 16 million users globally by the end of 2022, as pointed out by analyst Udi Wertheimer.

In India, P2E tops the user chart with the most extensive online gamer base. A recent study also highlighted that in terms of adoption of NFT gaming, India stood with 34 per cent of gamers who have played P2E games and 11 per cent willing to play them in the future. The most interesting part was that a majority of this population included homemakers, school or college-going children and non-professional gamers.

Looking at the wide-scale adoption of technology, especially after the pandemic-induced lockdown, the blockchain industry is growing exponentially. Governments and corporates across sectors are encouraging its mass adoption for economic growth. In the case of P2E, we believe that the mass interest and adoption by established and upcoming gamers has paved the way for a viable source of passive income through virtual currencies or NFTs with trade values, and also opened the gates for further advancements in the gaming industry

The pandemic ushered in a period of considerable economic uncertainty and unemployment all across the world. Amidst such a situation emerged Play-To-Earn (P2E) gaming, powered by blockchain technology, that transformed the way gamers approach gaming in modern time.

Abhay Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Colexion, says, "P2E gaming enables players to earn in-game rewards in form of cryptocurrency and NFT, which can become a source of revenue in the real world. In a game based on P2E model, players can purchase and earn NFTs. These digital tokens are purchasable units stored on a blockchain and are represented by digital art. They represent characters, items, in-game moments and even virtual land, with differing values based on the token's rarity and ownership. These digital tokens are unique and provide players an opportunity to own actual stake in the virtual world."

They form a part of the game's tokenomics and virtual economy, earning rewards through the game's smart contracts. Players earn these tokens and other cryptocurrencies through winning battles, completing missions and tasks, solving puzzles and selling items. When players wish to cash out, they trade these tokens over a crypto exchange for fiat currency or other cryptocurrencies. P2E gaming allows players to own a part of the game, making them stakeholders in the game's ecosystem and establishing players as investors. With the expansion of blockchain gaming, many mainstream gamers have adopted P2E gaming as a means to create opportunities for new streams of revenue, making it more of a side hustle rather than a mere hobby. Therefore, P2E gaming is emerging as an option for investments for many gamers, making it an attractive opportunity of the future.