The principle of play-to-earn gaming is simple: participants acquire bitcoins or NFTs produced by the blockchain-based game. The next way users make money is by exchanging their earned cryptocurrency prizes or in-game NFTs for real money. 

Play-to-Earn Market Overall

It is important to note that play-to-earn games industry is not a notion that is unique to the web 3.0 world; rather, it became well-known as a result of blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies. For game creators, gamers, and investors, the rise of blockchain technology, token and NFTs has opened up a completely new world.

Play-to-earn cryptocurrency games are now the expanding segment of the web3 market. The supremacy of play-to-earn gaming sector is expanding, claims DappRadar, even in the midst of the crypto winter, in which the value of cryptocurrencies has crashed and several important crypto enterprises have failed.

What are types of gaming business models? 

Purchase games to play

Gamers must purchase the game that adopts this business model in order to install on their own devices and play it. The newest business model in pay-to-play is membership packages, which charge a set monthly subscription fee in exchange for access to a selection of games. 

Depending on how much involvement and interest their game garners in relation to others, the game creators get compensated as a proportion of the overall membership payments.

Free games to play

As the name suggests, free games don’t demand payment from players before being downloaded or played. The games are free to obtain and enjoy, but if users want to have particular features or ingame goods, they will need to pay. Game developers may also make money by placing advertisements within the games.

Most of the income in the gaming sector is produced by free games, and this business model has gained popularity among players. The free gaming model is currently used by almost all mobile games and a growing number of personal computers and console games as well.

Play-to-earn

The latest business model to enter the gaming industry is play-to-earn game, which pay players with real income (such as cash, tradeable digital assets, or a crypto) for playing or taking part in in-game activities.

Play-and-earn

With play-and-earn games, also known as play-to-earn counterparts, players’ main focus is on having a good time of playing the game, with rewards coming from spending time and effort while participate in the game. Play-and-earn games’ main goal is for players to have fun while making money thanks to ingame economics and the technology of blockchain.

How does the play-to-earn gaming model generate income?

The currency that players earn on the platform is what gives all play-to-earn games their worth. Different games have different economic models, and some obscure games only exist to cash in on the metaverse craze.

For in-game transactions and player trade, the majority of games include native tokens. They gain value via the use of their tokens, which are prized by users and cryptocurrency dealers.

Is Play-to-earn sustainable?

Maybe, however there are a lot of issues with this idea since the allure of making money can ruin the game experience. The capacity of a game to maintain the economic growth it seeks to create is a significant risk. A play-to-earn model can only be sustained if the game’s players are of a high caliber.

People utilizing bot-farmers as a technique to maximize the game just for the sake of residual money might dilute the enjoyment and true enjoyment of playing.

The future of gaming

Cryptocurrency and play-to-earn gaming industry had significant growth in 2022, and this trend is expected to continue in 2023. The gaming industry is in for a great future because to the influx of individuals into the metaverse and improvements in blockchain technology.

Additionally, more individuals worldwide will depend on play-to-earn games as a source of income as these games’ economies continue to expand. There is no way to predict how far play-to-earn gaming will advance, but as digital ownership and gaming advance, the possibilities seem to have no limit.