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“Play-to-earn” is an insidious new phrase that’s made its way into the gaming sphere in the last year or so. The concept of being paid with in-game money or resources that have real-world value might be appealing to a small subset of gamers now, but Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian believes that sentiment will increase exponentially in the next five years.
Why does Reddit co-founder think “play-to-earn” will be 90% of the gaming market in five years?
Alexis Ohanian had this to say about the “play-to-earn” model during the December 23, 2021 episode of the Where It Happens podcast:
“90% of people will not play a game unless they are being properly valued for that time. In five years, you will actually value your time properly. And instead of being harvested for advertisements, or being fleeced for dollars to buy stupid hammers you don’t actually own, you will be playing some on-chain equivalent game that will be just as fun, but you’ll actually earn value and you will be the harvester.”
For most gamers, this prediction seems wholly divorced from reality. After all, we all play games for fun, right? Who cares what Alexis Ohanian thinks about gaming trends?
Well, unfortunately, the financiers and management behind most game companies are just like Ohanian. Time and again, player sentiment has been ignored in favor of what’s most profitable. No matter how negative the gaming community is against NFTs and crypto in games now, we’re headed down the same road we were when Horse Armor became a big meme. Publishers have nickeled and dimed players with DLC, season passes, and microtransactions to the maximum possible, and we’re about to enter the next stage.
Proponents of “play-to-earn” will fall under one of two demographics mostly. They could be young gamers with little income who mostly play grindy, monotonous titles. Alternatively, and the ones that will be pushing this the hardest, are predatory businessmen who froth at the mouth about the prospect of getting a bit of royalty money out of every transaction a player makes in a “play-to-earn” title.
In other news, a Battlefield 2042 dev admits that fixes are taking too long, and we ask which studio Sony will buy next.
[Source: Business Insider]