How to Earn More in the Play-to-Earn Ecosystem

One of the joys of growing up as a kid was the availability of gaming devices. It made childhood enjoyable for most children and even now as adults—trust me, I would know. The gaming industry has existed for decades now. In this time, it has provided us with so much fun and entertainment regardless of age or gender. There’s been a significant evolution in games since the early days of Nintendo and console pads. The continuous improvement of technology has made this fun pastime almost become lifelike. Today, the blockchain has improved the general gaming experience and the economy backing it. The global Play-to-Earn (P2E) Games market size was valued at $32.9 billion in 2022 and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 17.93% to $88.6 billion by 2028.

The industry has consistently moved away from the traditional model where players had to invest in games to gain any sort of in-game advantage. This model ensured that gaming projects generated revenue from the players. This is now being overshadowed by the rise of P2E games. These games leverage blockchain technology to reward players for their time, skill, and dedication.

In this article, we will discuss the exciting world of P2E gaming, and how they are shaping the future of gaming by providing alternative means to earn rewards.

Play-to-Earn Gaming

The average daily Unique Active Wallet (UAW) count for blockchain gaming platforms reached 1.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. This underscores the continuous increase in blockchain gaming. The level of success you achieve in the P2E ecosystem most often is directly proportional to your skill level. Unlike traditional gaming models that reward your repetitive actions, P2E games are designed with skill in mind and they focus on rewarding your strategic thinking and mastery of the game’s mechanics. You can earn impressive rewards when you excel in Player-versus-Player (PvP) battles, completing complex in-game challenges that require strategic decision-making, optimizing your management of resources within the game’s economy, and collaborating effectively with teammates in cooperative game models.

Many P2E games move away from gaming mechanics that rely heavily on luck, for example, loot boxes or random character draws. This is intentional as these games try to de-emphasize luck and reward skills, ensuring that consistent skill development and strategic thinking have a larger impact on the success and earnings of a player.

Another quality that will help you earn more in this space is understanding the game’s mechanics in-depth. Understanding the character’s strengths and weaknesses and mastering different strategies are valuable assets that you should want in your arsenal. Players who invest time and effort into honing these skills gain a significant advantage. Some examples of skill-based P2E games include strategy games, trading card games, eSports games, etc. It is vital to mention that not all P2E games are purely skill-based. Many still incorporate elements of chance.

Powering Your P2E Strategy With Data

The hallmarks of a successful P2E player are strategic thinking, excelling in competitive battles, conquering complex challenges, mastery of game mechanics, and optimal resource management. Luck is minimized and is instead replaced by a focus on knowledge and experience. All of these are great, but a vital ingredient you should add to your blockchain gaming sojourn is data.

Data empowers your P2E strategy, especially when you use platforms like UpOnly that offer insights into different P2E games. UpOnly is the CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko of the P2E world. It offers users a comprehensive view of the P2E market landscape. UpOnly provides in-depth and up-to-date data on various P2E games, covering factors like token prices, in-game asset values, and player activity. The platform offers a decentralized infrastructure that allows spectators to leverage the data they provide into real-world value for themselves by using these data to bet on the outcome of play-to-earn games.

With proven data platforms like these, you can identify trending in-game assets, evaluate the values of NFTs, and track opportunities like scholarship programs, minimizing risks and maximizing returns. By analyzing the data, you can anticipate market movements, spot emerging P2E games early, and predict fluctuations in token prices, giving you a valuable edge in the P2E space. Data is a powerful tool, and when combined with research and experience, you most likely achieve optimal P2E success.

Bridging the Gaming Gap

For some (especially newcomers accustomed to traditional gaming experiences), the blockchain gaming world can sometimes be intimidating. This is where projects like Outlanders, Sidus Heroes, and Astra Nova are vital.

A Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), Outlanders uses blockchain technology to bridge the gap between traditional and Web3 gaming. By providing a good user experience and interfaces, the game onboards both experienced gamers and newbies into the world of cryptocurrency.

On its part, Sidus Heroes is a futuristic NFT-oriented P2E MMORPG. It uses NFTs to allow players to own in-game content, which creates a player-driven economy wrapped in a blockchain journey filled with adventures and opportunities. With these games, players can enjoy Web3’s immersive world, practical character development, and the full MMORPG experience while they reap the rewards of the P2E model as they play. This model has the potential to accelerate mainstream adoption by significantly onboarding new users via gaming.

Astra Nova is a free-to-play revolutionary Web3 RPG that allows you to step into an imaginative world soaked in millennia of interplanetary lore. The game draws inspiration from classic games like Fortnite, FF14, etc. Astra Nova, like with the Outlanders and Sidus Heroes, is shifting power away from traditional gaming studios into the hands of gamers.

What these games are doing for MMORPG on the blockchain is what QORPO is doing for eSports on the blockchain. With a mission to make eSports accessible to everyone, QORPO is at the perfect intersection of blockchain and eSports. The company’s technology is used to power the hero shooter game Citizen Conflict, a game that merges fast-paced gameplay with eSports intensity for ultimate competitive action.

The Future of P2E

The global gaming market is estimated to reach $206.4 billion by 2025. This makes the integration of blockchain technology into the market a phenomenal opportunity. The projects I have highlighted in this article offer a glimpse into the potential of P2E gaming. Challenges, however, remain.

For one, there’s the issue of scalability. This problem causes slow transactions and high fees, which leads to poor user experience. Ethereum for instance Averages around 15 Transactions Per Second (TPS). A number that isn’t ideal for a gaming dApp.

Polygon, a layer-2 scaling blockchain is solving this problem. The network offers faster transaction speeds (up to 7,000 TPS) and maintains compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem. There are other layer-2 solutions in the industry, so the future looks bright in this regard.

There’s also the issue of ensuring the security of in-game assets. This is important for long-term success.

Regardless of these challenges, the future of P2E gaming is undeniably bright. As the blockchain industry and technology continue to evolve, P2E platforms will address the challenges they currently struggle with, which will in turn see a surge in innovative games and a more robust P2E ecosystem.