There have been many historical twists along the path of the gaming path: from weak text-based games to games with great graphics, from tambourine modems to broadband access to high-speed Internet and even the advent of VR technology. Video games have brought a lot into our lives, they brought us together in a way that none of us could have imagined, when you start this amazing journey as a gamer, the world around you becomes digital and contrary to reality.
Imagine what technological boundaries we are crossing and how far we go to just play games. How strongly this desire propels technological progress. Every game we play somehow envelops us in its magic and turns us into its inhabitant giving us the pleasure we all value so much. The value of games is a very personal thing, besides, it is an experience that also brings everyone who plays the same games together. For example, we all shared our experience with our friends and talked about difficult levels in the game, shared achievements and impressions in the games that we played.
Achievements in the game affect us
Time and effort in video games used to be valued in different ways. If before the players paid for the game only once, in which, by the way, they could "get lost", I myself remember how I spent a million hours doing research of the location or trying to get to where it was impossible to get in the plot, where there was only the appearance of a continuation, but it was just an illusion, a dead end in game textures ... Then came the era of other games, some of these games were about “pay to play” or, even worse, “pay to win”, this in spite of changing the concept of games and nullifying the emotions that we used to be so anxiously kept inside ourselves from the excellent bestsellers of the gaming industry.
Why do players like to sit and play games like Dungeons and Dragons for hours? Or first-person shooters like Counter-Strike or Volorant, in which players sit and play for more hours than they should, given that this is already bad for their health? This is a familiar sense of accomplishment to many, where you are not judged for who you are in life, who you are, or how you look. It doesn't matter who you are, the important thing is that you are cool, when you do incredible clutches and a sense of accomplishment and competitiveness becomes the driving factor for you.
Pros and cons of collectibles and the impact of P2E
Games have intrinsic value, it’s not a secret and it’s always been that way. It is the result of the effort and time invested by the players themselves. This can be compared to the titles received, you played, you tried hard to achieve something and here is your title, your reward in the form of an object or some kind of card. You can exchange your items and cards with your friends, give them away or sell them. The collector, on the other hand, loves art and collects what he likes, sells and exchanges, exposes for all to see, but not only art. This also applies to emotions. NFT as well as luxury goods, jewelry, sneakers, watches, etc. are able to store and transmit emotions.
Let's look at NFTs as valuable items and cryptocurrencies as jewels. The only difference is that blockchain technology allows us to easily trade these NFT gems and items. Now, in the chain you don't need an intermediary or a local huckster to trade or buy. In a trustless system, this part is secure, and as a buyer you just have to make sure that what you buy is what you want. However, this does not mean that blockchain technology is free from fraudsters. Wherever money can be made, people will try to cheat the system - this is a pattern. It could be said that this is simply less likely because the blockchain itself is secure.
Cultural Creator Games are an important part of play value that began when games began to conquer hearts. Thanks to many games, we began to perceive people in a different way, the world around us and reality in general ... Isn't this a miracle?
In the past, games were a real novelty, around which a whole group of friends could gather and enjoy together and celebrate the completed level or completed quest, which delighted everyone, and this was the main value of the games. There is clearly something wrong with them today. And although this is not news for a long time, we have a chance to return the sacred that was lost. What is behind this value? Society and culture. With Play-to-Earn, we are witnessing a renaissance in gaming, bringing back what we once had: a community that shares cultural values. What many of us have wanted for a long time. This is something to be celebrated, not underestimated.
There is a long way to go, and on this path, most of the time there will be “random people” who underestimate the potential of these games and come exclusively to earn money and so will leave without it. It is important to understand that Play-to-Earn is not a player's earning model. This is a product monetization model, in which a donation to a developer in exchange for limited access to game assets is replaced by the tokenization of these assets and a full transfer of ownership. And the main monetization is not through “spokes”, but through commissions from the marketplace. And for this, you need to give the marketplace to the players, which for a very long time the developers were afraid of in the classic gaming industry. There is a chance to prove that through commissions game developers can earn more, while providing more freedom to players and even rewarding them for using the benefits of this freedom. In addition, developers in such gamified economies should rather act as an arbiter, regulator or administration, gradually transferring the management of the project development into the hands of the players, building a political system. At least some of the decisions should ultimately go into the hands of the players. This will facilitate not only possession of items, but also possession of the gameplay or even the entire game through the DAO.
But this is not the only key point. An important milestone is the uniqueness and interoperability of items and the simple conversion of in-game finance into physical values, rather than bury it somewhere in the developers' databases. Moreover, you can bury not only finances, but also history. Time will go to waste. When storing it on the blockchain and receiving some POAP, it gains great value and prolongs the life of iconic moments for the player. All this enhances emotions, and the opportunity to receive a reward for the time spent allows the most extreme fans of games not to break away from the process. And there is a real chance to revive gaming and bring it to a whole new level. The main danger lies in the "rolling" of the nascent industry into the plane of moneymaking. Therefore, it is important to develop crypto games now, not GameFi.... Otherwise, when getting acquainted with the project, we will get stuck at the stage when new participants ask: "And what is the ROI / return on this project?" And this is clearly not about gaming. Let this model remain somewhere out there and live its own life, but cryptogaming should go further and broadcast cultural values, and earnings only as a side effect of the time, attention and contribution to the project.
If we talk about the financial and economic components, then crypto games should not be a means of enrichment and make the rich even richer and the poor poorer. Rather, on the contrary, it can be an excellent means of redistributing assets from the rich in exchange for the pleasure of playing with other players from poorer strata and standing out with “cosmetics” in front of them, and the latter, in turn, can earn money by extracting values in the game and reselling them. In addition, it is an excellent engine for international trade.
Money, valuables, fraud - what do they have in common?
Why are developers and publishers often opposed to open economies?
- The main reason has always been money. Developers and publishers do not profit from secondary market deals. Therefore, their job is to get as much as possible through some cashier where they can continue to sell. (in fact, this can hardly be called a sale without a transfer of ownership. It is rather a donation)and you can keep buying things that don't really belong to you. Things that they could always copy and duplicate, devaluing not only your experience, but also your purchases with real money. After the purchase, if you try to exchange or sell these items, you may well qualify for blocking this item or your account in general. This is one of the main points that can help fix the blockchain, it gives us the ability to monetize a deal after the sale or exchange of an item, it is an implementation that gives companies the opportunity to earn money without the need for constant promotion (DLC). On the contrary, it allows you to truly focus on making the game as fun and interesting as possible, without the negative consequences of trying to sell or trade a particular thing or item.
- The second point is control. Closed economies are easier to manage. In open economies, there is a risk of a pay-to-win slide. If a richer player can constantly pay for advantages and receive a rarer card, then he has more chances of winning, which generally reduces the competitive interest of the rest. And there is always a risk that someone from the outside can always influence the project. For example, damp the rate and throw in negative news, then to buy up the asset. But in our opinion, this is just lazy or outdated game design. There are opportunities to create an open economy with the support of a competitive spirit and create conditions where the richest do not always win and it is definitely worth experimenting with. At least for the developers themselves, it can be more profitable, not counting the interests of the players. win-win.
You can trade any NFT items more securely and reliably through various marketplaces, but scams will still remain. Moreover, at this stage, the general level of knowledge about WEB-3 is still low. But somehow, older systems are even more filled with fraud, chargebacks, disputes, etc. This is a completely new and modern fight against online scammers. Let's talk a little about this, because fraud is a big problem, especially in video games, and this is another reason why developers and publishers did not provide their users with the opportunity to trade items for free. Unfortunately, with the constant growth in the number of video games, the number of thefts has also increased since 2015. And we are not talking here about paltry millions of dollars, but we are talking about hundreds of millions to billions of dollars! How much value is there in the power of the game economy, right? It was not only today, it was yesterday, it was last year and 5 years ago. But if you've never paid attention to this, you've never seen a huge number of communities, forums, where friends and like-minded people come together to sell, buy or exchange items in their favorite games - despite the dangers and risks.
Video games are reaching the next level, the future is near
It is difficult to give someone an example, but if you single out something from the list of crypto games that can use its potential to make money in them, then it should be noted Ember sword и Blank block party... Oh Star atlas it's too early to tell. One of the few people who wondered about the impact of pay-to-win and attempted to fix it on the blockchain was Bright Star Studios. According to the developers, the game plan for Ember Sword will be to release new digital items to the game every month, which players will find through searches, working their way through fun adventures and quests. Players will have the opportunity to earn really valuable NFT items through gameplay as it will be much more profitable to just play the game and have fun in the long run. Whether this is true or not, we will be able to find out only after the release of this game, promises always sound very rosy, let's see what awaits us in practice.
Longread was inspired by article Mark Lorsen of Bright Star Studios.
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