Purpose Over Amusement? Analyst Claims That “Fun” Isn’t Necessary For Player Retention In Play-To-Earn Games

Play-to-earn games have a hard time keeping people interested, which is why one analyst says they should put function over fun.
Late in 2021, investors became interested in “play-to-earn” (P2E) blockchain-based games. Axie Infinity led the way with more than 2 million active users. As a player moves through a P2E game, they earn crypto tokens or non-fungible tokens (NFTs). People can sell these digital assets on marketplaces and cryptocurrency exchanges to make money in a decentralized way.

But P2E is very different from how PC and console games have been played in the past. Due to the limitations of blockchain technology, crypto games are about 20 years behind in this way.
Yes, most crypto games lack a decent user experience

Even though AAA-level crypto games could be made in the future, most of the games that have been released so far are digital trading card battles, decentralized finance (DeFi) games that look like role-playing games, or collectibles.

Analyst Udi Wertheimer pointed out that critics of crypto games focus on the lack of fun or a similar user experience compared to the traditional market. This is not a big surprise.

Anton Link, CEO of the NFT renting and leasing protocol Unitbox Protocol, says the following:

“Play-to-earn games are not meant to be fun like most Web2 games. Their main goal is to make money and be the first to get new, useful experience that they can use to make money as part of a guild or cybersports team.

In terms of how many people use them, traditional games are much more popular than movies and TV shows. A recent report from Newzoo said that the market for video games will reach $200 billion in 2022, which is an increase of 5.4% from this year. The report also says that 3 billion people play games, which is a lot more than the estimated 320 million people who use crypto around the world.

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Even if Wertheimer’s comments are true, which means that there won’t be much demand for crypto games, getting just 0.5% of this market would mean 16 million users. Also, there’s nothing that stops someone from trying to make money with P2E while also playing traditional games on consoles, PCs, and mobile apps.

Anton Link, the CEO of Unitbox Protocol, said this about the possibility of the P2E user base growing: “I think NFT blockchain games and the GameFi sector will be the key drivers of the industry in the next few years. New NFT-based DeFi products will also become a vehicle for the mass transition of new users to the crypto industry.”

There is a big difference between collectible NFTs and avatars, armor, weapons, land, and spaceships that you can use in the game. According to data from DappRadar, the number of NFT trades dropped by 67% from May to July of 2021. This is probably why people don’t like P2E games. Also, on March 29, a huge Ronin bridge hack cost $600 million and caused a lot of trouble for Axie Infinity.
Games that focus on DeFi could make money for many

People have a lot of good reasons to complain about the crypto gaming industry, and making users buy items or tokens is near the top of this list. But it’s important to know that many of the DeFi apps look like games, like DeFi Kingdoms, Farmers World, and Sunflower Land. In these situations, it would be strange to expect free compensation without putting in anything first.
Link said, “It will only be a matter of time before institutions start lending against NFTs,” even though it can be hard to get new users and make in-game economies that are sustainable and have enough incentives.

He went on to say:

“Once the institutional lending infrastructure is in place, we expect the demand for NFTs to rise as well, because institutional money can flood into the country because of the extra use that comes from securing their NFTs.”

Players might not have to buy digital monsters and spaceships to go on adventures in play-to-earn in the near future. Even though there are good reasons to criticize the crypto gaming industry, a 10x increase in active players to 16 million is not impossible. More importantly, this growth and the new models that support it don’t need the same user experience as traditional games that don’t use blockchains.

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