Anyone who has ever told you not to waste your time playing video games may very well change their tune once they learn about play-to-earn (P2E) games.
One of the fastest-growing segments in crypto, GameFi enables you to earn tokens just by playing games. And if you manage to gain a professional edge doing so, you can even earn a living with GameFi.
While the P2E gaming model has its fair share of skeptics, there are also those who believe it will revolutionize the way we interact on the web. In this lesson, we will explain what P2E is and how to get started.
What are P2E games?
P2E games operate atop of blockchains and allow users to earn, collect and farm tokens and NFTs by participating in missions, battles, tournaments or tasks created by the gaming community.
Blockchain is the distinguishing factor that makes P2E games different from other games. By definition, blockchains are distributed databases maintained through numerous computers connected on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. As all these computers and their users hold a copy of blockchain data, it is nearly impossible for scammers to change or duplicate this data.
In addition to security, blockchains enable users to easily prove the ownership, legitimacy and rarity of different tokens and items. For instance, you can easily identify someone trying to sell you a counterfeit card because you can check if it is indeed from an original collection.
Limited edition game items are also a significant feature of P2E games: for the first time in gaming history, digital objects can become scarce. Just as Bitcoin (BTC) has a maximum supply of 21 million, game objects and tokens can have a limited supply — and the scarcer something is, the more valuable it will likely become.
In regular games that don’t use blockchains to store their data, in-game transactions are secured and stored on centralized data servers. As such, there is no underlying technology that can verify your progress in one game on multiple platforms, which means you can’t move your assets from one game or marketplace to another.
How to start playing and earning
Behind each P2E game is a group of developers who aim to design gamer-friendly experiences supported by sustainable economies. Of course, all teams set different requirements for new gamers, so you should always check the requirements before you start playing. But generally, P2E games require at least a crypto wallet (like MetaMask or Huobi Wallet) to connect to the games and store your in-game assets and tokens.
Although you can earn profits playing P2E games, many of them initially involve some costs for the players. In fact, P2E games can be categorized as either free-to-play or pay-to-play. With pay-to-play P2E games, you must make an upfront allocation to start playing. This allocation can be an NFT purchase, tokens, or other items approved by the game developers.
For example, Axie Infinity requires players to purchase three Axie NFTs (specific in-game characters) to start playing. This is one of the major differences between P2E games and traditional video games, where you have to buy the actual game in order to play. In pay-to-play P2E games, you buy something that lets you enter the game while still owning the assets.
To make your P2E journey easier, you can go to Huobi Wallet’s GameFi section, which lists all the biggest games and essential information about them. You can even start playing some of the games straight from the app. Find out how to set up and use a Huobi wallet here.
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