What Is Play-to-Earn? Complete P2E Cryptocurrency Guide

Play to Earn refers to a new type of video game genre where players can earn real money while playing.

In traditional video games, game studios' goal has been to make as much money as possible from players. This is why even Pay-to-Win systems were introduced to multiplayer online games, where players who made financial contributions were rewarded with in-game advantages. Play-to-Earn games, however, make the player part of the game's economy, allowing them to earn money while playing the game.

The Play-to-Earn system is currently used in many NFT and metaverse games. Users farm or collect tokens and NFTs that can be converted into real money as they play the game.

How to earn money with Play-to-Earn games?

If you want to join a play-to-earn game and make money from it, you first need to open an account with one of the cryptocurrency wallets supported by the game. Then you can log into the game with your wallet.

Generally, to earn satisfactory amounts of money in play-to-earn games, you need to make a certain investment. Although some games like Alien Worlds provide you with a starter tool, these are insufficient, and you'll want to acquire better tools, avatars, and lands to mine more tokens throughout the day. These are sold as NFTs in the game's marketplace. Buying and selling these NFTs is like any other NFT transaction; you pay both the NFT price and a transaction fee. Therefore, to generate income from play-to-earn games, you usually need to hold the game's token in your wallet. You can obtain these tokens from

Bitlo

and other cryptocurrency exchanges and send them to your wallet.

In play-to-earn games, you can earn money by collecting tokens and NFTs depending on the game's content. You can complete daily quests to collect more tokens and NFTs. Some games also allow you to increase your assets by staking your NFTs and tokens.

You can convert the tokens you collect into fiat money on exchanges and sell NFTs in marketplaces.

Why are Play-to-Earn games secure?

Earning money from games is not a new phenomenon. In many massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), developed characters, crafted items, and weapons were already being bought and sold between real people with fiat money. However, due to frauds like item duplication, gold/money cheats, and various scams, it wasn't safe to trade with money in these traditional games.

Play-to-earn games make earning money through gaming completely secure. This is because these games and their tokens exist on the blockchain. In other words, assets in play-to-earn games are blockchain data. Blockchain technology can easily prove authenticity and ownership. It's almost impossible for someone to alter, duplicate, or delete blockchain data. Therefore, it's impossible to produce counterfeit tokens and NFTs in a play-to-earn game.

Popular play-to-earn games

With the recent growing interest in the NFT and metaverse world, there has been an increase in the number of play-to-earn games. Therefore, it's important to spend time on play-to-earn games that are worth your time and where you can earn satisfactory income. You can find three leading play-to-earn games below.

Axie Infinity (AXS)

Currently the most popular play-to-earn game, Axie Infinity has over a million daily active players. According to DataApp data from December 14, 2021, the game's NFT marketplace transaction volume on the Ethereum blockchain network has reached $3.79 billion all-time.

Inspired by Pokemon and launched in 2018 by Sky Mavis company, Axie Infinity is a game where we collect and develop cute digital creatures called Axies and battle them against each other. To battle your Axies against other players' Axies in the game, you need to own at least three Axies.

Each unique Axie is also an ERC-721 based NFT and can be bought and sold in Axie Infinity's NFT marketplace. By battling your Axies and completing quests with them, you can collect in-game tokens called Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which you can later convert to fiat money.

Axie Infinity's governance token is called AXS. To play the game, you need to open a Ronin Wallet account, transfer an appropriate amount of AXS that you can buy from exchanges to your account, and link this account to your game account.

Bitlo

You can easily buy and sell AXS through Bitlo.

Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland is a 3D virtual world metaverse platform and play-to-earn game consisting of 90,601 parcels of land. Running on the Ethereum blockchain network, users in Decentraland can buy and sell virtual property as NFTs. NFT trading in Decentraland is done with MANA, an ERC-20 token. The NFT properties that users buy and sell are called LAND.

To join browser-based Decentraland, you need to connect your game account to a Web-3 wallet like Metamask. All properties in Decentraland are currently sold out, and users can build whatever they want on their properties, from galleries to virtual stores.

Decentraland also features various games and quests. These are created by LAND owners and designers. Some of these games and quests require an entry fee, but you don't need to pay any fee to spend time in Decentraland.

Bitlo

You can easily buy and sell MANA through Bitlo.

Alien Worlds (TLM)

Developed by Sarojina McKenna and Michael Yeats, Alien Worlds is a space-themed and browser-based play-to-earn game.

Alien Worlds is built on two main mechanics: Mining and battles. When you first enter the game, you're given a miner avatar and shovel as NFTs. Your goal is to mine on planets with this shovel and two other tools you can optionally buy from Alien Worlds' NFT marketplace. You collect Alien Worlds governance token TLM based on the style and quality of your equipment. Meanwhile, it's possible to find NFTs that you can sell for satisfactory prices in the NFT marketplace.

Another way to obtain NFTs and TLM is to defeat your opponents using your weapons and minions in the arena called ThunderDome Arena. So, instead of converting your found NFTs and mined TLM to fiat money, you might want to spend them to strengthen yourself in the game.

TLM, an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, is Alien Worlds' governance token and allows you to have a say in planet decisions through the DAO system. You can even become the administrator of planet councils in the game. All you need to do is participate in weekly elections and collect enough votes from other players.

This democracy, which is one of the game's internal mechanics, is actually present in the game's external mechanics as well. TLM's "cross chain" feature allows you to join the game from any blockchain you want. You can also choose where to store your TLM.

Bitlo

You can easily buy and sell TLM through Bitlo.