What is play to earn? How to make money with NFT games

With the rise of NFTs, Web3 users have begun to wonder how they can make money with NFTs. One way is by playing NFT games. Among other things, the play-to-earn model promises players the prospect of financial prizes.

Play to earn, or P2E for short, is a business model that lets players of NFT games make money by playing video games. In order to play NFT games, gamers first need to register for the game they want to play. While reg­is­tra­tion is free, playing usually requires some initial purchase of game content in the form of an NFT.

The goal of most NFT games is to find, create or buy the most valuable items or creatures. Since these game items are NFTs, they can also be resold. As such, supply and demand play a decisive role in these games—the more players a game has, the greater the pop­u­lar­i­ty of a rare item in the game. Game items can be bought and sold at different rates, causing profits generated with P2E to vary widely.

Most people don’t au­to­mat­i­cal­ly associate NFT with gaming. In fact, the most popular NFTs belong to the category of NFT art. This is why non-fungible tokens are often equated with digital works of art. However, the scope of NFT also extends to gaming, where the unique tokens are ideal for rep­re­sent­ing rare items that gamers can find or purchase within a game.

NFTs are no longer only used as a means for col­lect­ing rare game items, they are now also being used as the foun­da­tion of NFT games. These games are played on the blockchain and mostly work according to the play-to-earn principle. Ethereum is arguably one of the most popular blockchains for NFT games.

Despite the hype sur­round­ing NFT games, the games them­selves and the play-to-earn model have been heavily crit­i­cized.

One fre­quent­ly voiced criticism of blockchain and NFT gaming is the burden it creates on the en­vi­ron­ment. Trans­ac­tions with non-fungible tokens, such as creating and selling NFTs or bidding on tokens, require blockchain cal­cu­la­tions. These, in turn, consume large amounts of elec­tric­i­ty.

Currently, most NFT games run on the Ethereum blockchain. The popular altcoins blockchain uses the proof-of-stake algorithm. This sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces energy con­sump­tion, making NFT games more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly.

The play-to-earn strategy has also faced con­sid­er­able criticism. With tra­di­tion­al computer games, users are required to pay a fixed fee. Reg­is­tra­tion for NFT games tends to be free, but to have full access to the game, players are often required to purchase tokens or NFTs. Because the gaming market and cryp­tocur­ren­cies are subject to extreme fluc­tu­a­tions, in­vest­ments in NFT games are spec­u­la­tive and risky.

Despite criticism, the blockchain gaming market is vast and continues to grow. Several NFT games have already im­ple­ment­ed the play-to-earn model. Here are three of the most popular blockchain games:

Cryp­toKit­ties is an NFT game on the Ethereum blockchain. Players purchase virtual cats as non-fungible tokens and then pair them together to breed new cats that are more valuable. To do this, players must first purchase the cats using ETH. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the mating of NFT cats must also be paid for using the Ether currency.

The objective of the game is to obtain the rarest and most valuable cats through skillful breeding. The bred cats then become NFTs that can be sold. This is where the play-to-earn aspect comes in. Players who have bred par­tic­u­lar­ly rare specimens may be able to sell them at a profit to other players of Cryp­toKit­ties.

Like Cryp­toKit­ties, Axie Infinity also uses the Ethereum blockchain. It is the most played blockchain game.

At the center of this game are Axies, which players can acquire as NFTs. After having obtained an Axie, players are tasked with raising them and then pairing them together. The game mechanics are rem­i­nis­cent of tra­di­tion­al Pokémon games. Each Axie is unique and users can compete against each other using their Axies. Similar to Cryp­toKit­ties, players can earn money by breeding rare, strong Axies and then selling them.

Soccer en­thu­si­asts can get their money’s worth with Sorare. The game on the Ethereum blockchain allows players to make a name for them­selves as managers of their own soccer team. A team consists of five soccer players rep­re­sent­ed by NFT trading cards. The pool of players includes NFTs that are based on real-life soccer players. After creating their own teams, players can take part in matches and win more trading cards and Ether.