Blockchain technology’s new play-2-earn gaming segment picked up steam worldwide after the Covid-19-induced lockdowns in 2020. The P2E markets rapidly grew by leaps and bounds and currently boast a market cap worth billions of dollars. The top player in the play-2-earn gaming segment Axie Infinity had a market cap of $4.5 billion earlier this year. Currently, close to 9 million users have created an account on Axie Infinity to play and earn rewards.
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Why Play-2-Earn Games Might Never Have A Future
Games are meant to be played to free one’s mind and bring in the element of entertainment and relaxation. However, play-2-earn games are a different breed as it neither brings entertainment nor is relaxing. The only focus is to earn money and the ‘enjoyment’ factor takes a beating.
The number of P2E users will rapidly grow, but an equal number of users will decide to quit. Why would they quit instead of earning money, you may ask? Well here’s why!
Play-2-earn games are a trade-off for your relaxation time, sleep, and mental health in exchange to earn cryptocurrencies. The games are connected to an economic payout you receive for winning a task the game assigns you to complete.
Over time, the same P2E game will eventually catch up with users’ health and affect them both physically and mentally. Lack of sleep, personal and family time takes a beating, and users’ minds will always be filled with ‘earning cryptos’.
In a nutshell, play-2-earn games are mentally affecting users by giving them no personal space to breathe. Users will eventually realize that their health is more important than earning cryptos and decide to quit.
In addition, P2E games are not easy to win and earn. The games are hard and also require precision gaming skills to make it through to the next level. This builds frustration that earning cryptos just by playing isn’t as easy as thought previously. Only a handful of users are capable of breakthroughs and climb various levels faster.
You may argue that even normal PC/Xbox/PS5 games trade users’ time, sleep, and health. Yes, they do! But in return, they ‘entertain’ and make users feel relaxed. Therefore, players don’t consider it to be painful. In play-2-earn games, users barely feel relaxed and there’s anxiety always.
What P2E Games Must Do To Have A Future?
P2E publishers should firstly make life easier for players by creating missions that are considered easy and medium to complete. Making tasks impossible to play and the only way to win is to upscale gaming precision will eventually backfire.
Also, P2E publishers need to bring revolutionary games into the blockchain sector to attract the mainstream audience. There are already hundreds of normal games in the market that outperform P2E games by a large margin.
The P2E sector needs just one revolutionary game similar to how Apple changed the mobile phone sector. In simple words, P2E needs a breakthrough and create games as big as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Minecraft, among others. Only then will the mainstream audience find P2E to be credible and worth their time.
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