Play2Earn Forgot One Important Thing: Gamers Earn to Play

Ask any gamer what their fondest memories of video games are and they’re likely to tell you about a game or a character or even a scene from the game that made such an impact on them that they can easily recall it many years later.

Surprise, shock, awe, these games made such a mark on them because they created new experiences for people.

Now, ask a gamer about the games they loved and hated the most, and you also can begin to draw comparisons between the games that people wish they’d never ever touched, and games that will always hold a special place in their heart.

Why some games are loved

Of course, everyone’s got a different favourite game. One of my favourites was the original PC Historical Simulation Series designed by KOEI, with titles very loosely based on history, centered around momentous events and the characters that brought colour to the epics. These were designed in the late 1980s so there was very little to the music, and pixellated graphics and animations that left much to the imagination. But Nobunaga’s Ambition enthralled me with heroic notions of Japan’s medieval era. Romance of the Three Kingdoms told sweeping tales of loyalty, brotherhood and treacherous politics in the unification of China. Uncharted Waters introduced to me me the names of ports and ships and international trade in the Age of Exploration. Genghis Khan taught me who Uyghurs were long before I’d ever become familiar with their plight today.

They were hardly accurate, as I’d come to learn later. But that wasn’t important. These games and others after that latched onto my curiosity for the outside world, made history seem so much more interesting, and a single floppy disk would provide me endless hours of entertainment, with storylines and perhaps, more than I can admit, helped form part of who I am today as a person.

I don’t play games anymore, and I never really was much of a gamer anyway, so I may never come to know the splendour of titles like Red Dead Redemption or the entire Star Wars series but I can certainly appreciate how they would appeal to this generation of young minds, thrust into a fantasy world that told epic stories in grand universes, with hyper-realistic graphics and sound to help immerse them.

Why some games aren’t loved

Then there were also the games I tried but could never bring myself to love. They weren’t any less addictive, even, I would say, but I knew friends who’d spent as much time with me playing Age of Empires, shall we say, who’d also pour in equal hours later on games like Farmville.

I’ve found myself hooked on some of these games too, mobile games that initially drew me in and then sucked me into an addictive state of returning to get my fix. The thing is, I realised that there wasn’t really anything bringing me back to these games other than that deeply-ingrained psychology that I wanted to find out what was in the next level, or gain just more points to upgrade my character to become strong enough to overcome the next boss.

I knew the levels weren’t inherently innovative, nor the bosses. Just rehashing of old maps and characters and items with higher statistics. Yet I kept coming back, just as my friends spent years growing their farms on Farmville.

But once we did get out of the addiction, we all felt the same thing. That hollow sense of unfulfillment and lack of satisfaction. When I finished playing the games I loved, I even felt a sense of loss, because the pleasure and satisfaction I gained from them was no more.

God forbid I ever feel the same way about Farmville.

Few will look back fondly at Play2Earn

Now I know it seems I was getting nowhere, but the reason I described the differences between games I loved and hated was to criticise the entire wrongness of the current P2E model.

You’ll know from my past writings I’m not against blockchain games and not against NFTs and certainly, I’m not against earning as a part of player empowerment and inclusion into the revenue model. It is right, it is just, it is the future.

But the entire concept of Play2Earn is so much at odds with the gamer mindset. I played games because I loved the experience, and I know many gamers do. An escape into a different reality. A sense of fulfillment. A deep, enjoyable and satisfying hobby.

Aren’t those emotions and memories that we are willing -- and often do -- pay for? Why does a FIFA teenage boy save money every year to buy the next instalment of the game? Why do gamers spend salaries on skins and merchandise? Why do gamers lovingly upgrade their computers and even furniture to enjoy their games?

Certainly not to go in and work and grind their way to earn tokens that may or may not make them rich.

But P2E games are built ignoring the very psyche of the gamer. And then they act all surprised when their game suddenly drops dead from inactivity when their tokens crash in the market.

When you have token buyers and speculators coming into the game to earn, then shouldn’t you expect them to stop playing when they stop earning?

So I finally arrive at the point I wrote about in this article’s title. P2E games have completely overlooked the most important fact that matters in games with a token economy and earning model. That gamers earn to play.

Play is the end game for them. Not earn.

So in 20 years when you reminisce with fellow gamers about their favourite games, don’t expect anyone to look back with fondness on a random bland grindfest of a P2E game.