A New Paradigm: From "Play to Earn" to "Play to Build" Gaming

Today, a new paradigm is emerging in the online gaming industry—one that allows gamers to not only earn money within games but also own a part of the games they play. Instead of buying or downloading a game in a “pay to play” format with in-game micro-transactions, players can now use digital currencies and NFTs to purchase in-game digital products to both “play to earn” and “play to build.”

This new breed of gaming experience, in which the players can earn a portion of the game’s in-game currency by simply playing the game, is known as a “play-to-earn” NFT game.

The concept of play-to-earn is straightforward. The more you play, the more digital currencies or NFTs you can earn. These games offer users NFTs for the time and effort they put in. They’re also a great way to earn crypto while having fun and getting to know your favorite game better.

Accenture estimates that the full value of the gaming industry now exceeds $300 billion.

This is “more than the combined markets for movies and music, driven by a surge in mobile gaming and an emphasis on social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.” With many play-to-earn games already online, they will only contribute to the explosive growth of the gaming industry.

How NFTs Contribute to the Online Gaming Economy

Play-to-earn games are another way game designers are creating and leveraging in-game NFT items and rewards that can be bought and sold within the game or via third-party marketplaces such as Opensea.

For instance, let’s say you’re designing a game that involves racing. In the game, players earn digital currencies if they win a race. Because the racetrack is built on a blockchain, the in-game currencies or coins can’t be copied or cloned. They’re also transferable, which means you can trade them for other coins, or sell them to other players in the game for fiat currencies.

Some of the most successful play-to-earn games such as  Axie Infinity let players purchase, battle and breed virtual characters that are minted on the Ethereum blockchain and then sell them on third-party marketplaces.

Combining Play to Earn with Play to Build Games

Play to Build game mechanics create sustainable economies within metaverse worlds where players can play to earn NFTs or connect on/off-chain activities to build NFTs. Just like the real world economy, gamers can choose what they want to specialize in or play within the metaverse.

In the case of Phala World, Play to Build links the real-world behaviors on the Phala network blockchain with the activities of Phala World in the Metaverse. Phala World is a Metaverse based on the Phala Network blockchain that utilizes the ‘Play to Build’ gaming concept. The upcoming game combines user behavior, characters, communities, and sci-fi stories on the Phala blockchain, while integrating strategy, development, MMORPG, and other game types.

Phala World is also a community-driven game that rewards community contributions and participation to Phala network in-game assets. Players can earn, trade, and build while playing the game. Phala is also collaborating with RMRK and Bit.Country to develop NFT and Metaverse gaming infrastructure.

Phala’s vision is to build the world’s first ‘Play- to- Build’ Metaverse game that connects Phala World and on/off-chain actions in the real world, where millions of players can turn their passion for gaming into real assets. Players will be able to play a game they enjoy, while simultaneously earning, trading, and building in a massive, open-world economy.

Phala World will combine the following gameplay attributes:

NFTs as game identity: A player's in-game identity is called a “Spirit NFT” and represents a non-transferable NFT that combines attributes and activity from Twitter, Discord and other data on the Phala chain. For example, if a player commits code to Phala's GitHub, the in-game NFT avatar value will increase. Phala will use the decentralized DID protocol to implement this system developed with Litentry.

The back-end system of the game records the player's in-game experience acquisition, construction records, etc., so as to push the data to the Spirit NFT for permanent records. We plan to deploy this game service using Fat Contract running on Phala's decentralized computing nodes. Unlike traditional smart contracts, Fat Contracts provide low-latency, computationally-intensive services, and can even interact with HTTP requests in the contract.

Mapping: mapped community roles with game roles (career), and mapped on-chain activities with game activities. For example, A Bot-druid is actually a miner on the Phala blockchain, and the Druid can summon Robot fighters which match his computation nodes amount on the Phala blockchain.

Socialization: NFT avatars are divided into different camps according to the user's role on-chain or off-chain. In Phala World, different camps can compete according to the construction speed. The winner can unlock a metaverse land plot based on auctions.