Web3 games are evolving fast, and you can earn tokens from playing and even moving
Blockchain technologies enable the gaming industry’s development for everyone. We must compare play-to-earn and move-to-earn. These two emerging areas promise to revolutionize how we connect through video games. Let’s dive into this fascinating industry.
Crypto gaming is here to stay
The gaming industry as we know it is bound to change. Thousands of people have already embarked on this wave, as you can read in the DappRadar x BGA Games Report #6.
“Blockchain games represent almost 60% of the industry’s usage, with $857 million in transactions.”
These next-generation games allow players to earn real money from spending time and contributing to the game community.
That’s when both play-to-earn and move-to-earn games come in.
What are play-to-earn games?
As the popular name implies, play-to-earn games financially reward players through elaborate tokenomics. You may have heard of some famous play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity and Alien Worlds.
Whether you call them play-to-earn, play2earn, or play-and-earn, it still means that the reason behind your choice to play has something to do with earning tokens. Of course, this can be bad or good, depending on each game’s economy and gameplay.
Play-to-earn games also still face strong opposition from traditional gamers and much of the traditional industry overall. As many of the first blockchain games created focused mainly on the “earn” part, the gameplay was often forgotten, and playing for fun simply didn’t exist.
However, this is changing as more game studios and developers are jumping into web3 technologies.
What are move-to-earn games?
At its peak in 2022, move-to-earn games have merged physical activity with cryptocurrencies. Some of the most popular dapps of this kind include STEPN and Sweatcoin.
As with play-to-earn games, here you are financially rewarded for using the dapp while recording physical activities.
In addition to the financial benefit, those who use these fitness platforms are also motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle. An extra over play-to-earn, if we look at the bigger picture.
But as beneficial as sports are and as much as a person moves to earn, there is again the “to earn” factor.
Play-to-earn vs Move-to-earn
Although both play-to-earn and move-to-earn games have been on the rise in recent months, some questions about the stability and strength of the projects remain, natural for any new industry.
In the vast majority of games where you win for having played or moved, you first have to pay to be rewarded. Therefore, these projects have a big challenge in their hands to come up with a sustainable in-game economy that allows all players to earn, not only early adopters.
When comparing the two types of games side by side, it’s clear that play-to-earn is a step further.
There are already blockchain games where players are rewarded who are increasingly worth playing for fun. Metaverse virtual worlds like Decentraland or The Sandbox are partnering with global brands and using NFTs on a large scale to ensure ownership of in-game assets. Earning is becoming a mere detail in these games.
In contrast, move-to-earn games have way more to prove and also huge competing web2 apps to beat. The fitness industry is light years ahead of most move-to-earn projects, which struggle to prove to their own communities that they are not Ponzi schemes.
Finding the best web3 games with DappRadar
We can all agree that what makes a game great is the experience players get when playing it. Whether it is built on a blockchain or it’s the good old Mario Kart, people will only play games that give them a nice time.
In the future, we can expect all that, plus being fairly recognized by the gaming community as a whole.
If you are interested in following the future of gaming, you’ll be glad to know that the DappRadar blog publishes awesome GameFi content regularly.
You can track the best blockchain games with the DappRadar Games Ranking, or visit our Blockchain Games page to have a complete overview of the market. We have overall usage stats, links to important articles, and highlighted must-try games.
The above does not constitute investment advice. The information given here is purely for informational purposes only. Please exercise due diligence and do your own research.
