The new Generation of Play&Earn has arrived!

What’s up Banger crew! Spring is here (for us northerners), and it’s only fair we celebrate and welcome the good and warm vibes with a review of where our industry is at, explicitly surrounding the Play to Earn world. If you´ve been following the industry lately, you probably know P2E has suffered quite a few reputational jabs to the jaw and requires assistance. However, a lot is changing, and it’s happening rapidly. Regardless of its current state, the industry is worth more than ever and is showing the potential to put the crypto space upside down, leading the charge of a new paradigm, just like we’ve been saying here at Banger.

But before we look at everything to come, we want to go over why the Play to Earn side of gaming is on a downer and why we believe it’s about to rise like the phoenix.

This is not our first time talking about why the P2E industry has failed in the past. It’s really quite simple. Since the crypto space became a field of green grass for companies to create their currency and use it to finance their projects, many rushed into it without a solid tokenomic structure. This is true for the general crypto space and certainly in the crypto gaming industry, with pretty much every single P2E game launched up to date.

In fact, the P2E space probably has it even worse. Not only is there a lack of depth in the structure of the tokens (their mining structure and token sustainability), but most importantly, we see a space packed with games closer to being click to earn rather than play to earn.

So on top of a weak economic structure, we find games that don’t really incentivize players to come back to an ecosystem for the game itself. This has led to users mining quickly and investing aggressively to sell out as soon as possible.

Even the best games out there, such as Axie Infinity, asked their audience and discovered how over 50% of their players go back to the game for the money rather than the gameplay. This is the main reason behind their constant drop in value since its peak less than eight months ago.

At this point, we can safely say that Play to Earn games have miserably failed to provide their promise consistently, to the point of disappearance. If that wasn’t enough, add a massive rejection from a large part of the gaming audience that firmly believes the point of gaming is having fun, not making money.

All clear so far. However, what’s the real issue here? Is it the model, the system, or our approach towards it?. As we mentioned before, the industry is moving so fast that what was hot and trending six months ago is now dead in the water. Many have taken advantage of a young and yet to be fully understood approach. Still, many others have seen the potential behind the concept of giving gamers more ownership over their digital assets and rewarding them for their time spent in-game. It’s the latest who have poured light over the future of the play to earn industry, understanding two main things;

1. As much as we all like money; we game for the fun first.
2. A sustainable tokenomic structure can only be achieved if gamers play regularly.

Does this mean that the entire idea behind monetizing your in-game time goes down the drain? Absolutely not; it just means that gaming always comes first.

Let’s start with our second point, which worries pretty much everyone in and out of the crypto gaming space. How is a sustainable economy within games going to be achieved? Well, it’s a good thing here at Banger we like to consider ourselves fortune tellers.

For starters, speculation has to stop being the main driver behind purchasing a game’s tokens or NFTs. Speculation means unpredictability, and even though the Crypto space has been defined by its speculative and unregulated nature, things have to change if we want to see the real benefits in the long run. It is always great to reward early adopters, but never to the point of sacrificing the sustainability of the economics of the game. We already know this has been the case for pretty much all businesses.

So what are upcoming games going to have to focus on? It is probably a wide variety of things, such as real NFT Utility beyond avatar representation and lower start-up fees (if not nonexistent). This could allow gamers themselves to grow the game and its token organically based on gameplay and game progress. It’s precisely this last aspect that takes us to our initial argument. WE PLAY FOR FUN.

Publishers have really understood this and, fortunately for us, have been working on it for quite some time. We believe this current division existing amongst gamers (crypto vs. traditional) will come to an end soon. The future of gaming will revolve around the perfect combination of AAA games and blockchain technology. The industry wants top-tier publishers to keep improving visuals, gameplay, and performance. Still, we also want to see more benefits for the amount of money we spend, especially considering the options out there. We want ownership over the assets we earn, and why not, power to have a say or a vote on the future of a game or platform; at the end of the day, that is what Defi and Web 3 are all about, right?

As we mentioned before, publishers are well aware of the potential and the need to evolve, which is why 2022 is packed with releases that are looking to deliver on our demands and bring the community together like never before.

Releases like the much-awaited and hyped Illuvium lead this new generation of Play and earn (see how we have gone from P2E to P&E, cheeky, right?). However, they are not alone. Some titles are already applying these new principles we have just discussed, such as Gala Games’ Spider Tanks, which, even though not AAA, it’s free to play and offers a considerably higher level of entertainment than the games released so far.

Here at Banger, however, we are most excited about the release of games such as Last Expedition, with Halo developers behind it, The Walking Dead Empire, with a giant like AMC funding it all, or Ember Sword, which doesn’t even have in-game NFTs, clearly focusing first on gameplay and then on potential monetization.

To sum it up, the future is looking more promising than ever. All you have to do is look at how strongly funds are investing in the crypto gaming space, a space which, by the way, were going to stop calling as such. If you want to build a new future, you have to take some risks. Here at Banger, we not only appreciate the risk, but we also want to create a brighter future where ALL GAMERS reunite under one same ecosystem, a hub where all gamers matter. Maybe we can call ourselves the “Reunited Gaming Alliance”… too Star-wars-like. Or how about the “Universal Gaming Union.” Perhaps a “Banging gaming Community”… if there’s one thing we can keep speculating about, it’s this, so feel free to let us know; what do you think this new generation of united gamers should look like? Until next time Bangers!