PARIS – Among video game publishers, a hot new concept is getting industry actors excited, that of play-to-earn, where gamers play to make money.
Video games would no longer be a simple pastime, but a regularly profitable endeavour through a tie-up of gaming and cryptocurrency. While it may sound enticing, gamers are not yet taking up these challenges in droves.
Are video game publishers trying to put you to work? Well, in any case they want you to make some money (but don’t worry, they’re in it to make some too)! How? Simply by playing.
No more playing just to acquire gear in the game or gain experience in order to be able to face off against stronger and stronger opponents.
No, here the objective is to collect unique digital objects in the game certified by blockchain and facilitate sales between players.
Ubisoft recently made a surprising announcement with the creation of its Quartz platform where it is possible to acquire NFT directly from the video game Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Konami, EA Sports, Square Enix and Sky Mavis have all introduced video games where you can win money in the past few months. But players are grumbling, and it doesn’t look to stop anytime soon.
Apart from the possibility of making some money, in terms of the game experience, there is absolutely nothing new.
Which is frustrating for any gamer. For the buyers of digital objects, the advantage is to be able to make a profit when reselling and to make your time “valued.”
Except that gamers don’t see it that way and don’t necessarily want to participate in these speculative assets and all that surrounds them.
In any case, this is what seems to be happening in Europe, because in some countries similar systems have already been used in various games.
Some examples come from countries like Venezuela and the game RuneScape.
A few years ago, after the economic crisis in the country, a group of Venezuelan gamers took the liberty of keeping at any cost a place where gold could be obtained in the video game for several months.
Eight million coins were exchanged for one dollar, while the average salary in the country had fallen to 3.6 dollars per month.
The gold farming deal in this video game became widely known in the country. In India, the principle was almost the same, but with the game World of Warcraft.
If play-to-earn is not necessarily accepted in the West, it could be extremely different in certain countries where individuals are fighting poverty or hyperinflation.
For now, only PC and console games seem to be able to take advantage of this new approach.
The Apple and Android app stores do not offer any play-to-earn applications, although they may be integrated into those systems in due time.
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