Forget Play-to-earn, ‘Play-and-earn’ Is Fixing GameFi

UniX Gaming is a gaming guild, community and launchpad with over 27 million stream viewers and 5,000 members

article-image

Blockworks Exclusive Art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Play-and-earn gives players the entertainment they want while also providing earnings and ownership
  • “Play-to-earn is basically a job. It’s not fun. You do something, and you get rewards. Then people cash out their earnings, over and over.”

The initial iteration of blockchain gaming in the form of a play-to-earn model has garnered a lot of attention. However, a new paradigm is emerging in the space; The play-and-earn approach refactors priorities and seeks an expanded audience with a more lasting effect.

Axie Infinity was the first blockchain-based game to put down a marker, with the Ethereum-oriented NFT game reaching $1 billion in sales last August, according to data from Cryptoslam! — rising to $4 billion by February.

From play-to-earn to play-AND-earn

Following the initial success of Axie, there has been a scramble to get similar games onto the market. However, while the play-to-earn gaming model is innovative, it loses sight of the core motivators behind gaming — playability and fun. Pivoting to a play-and-earn model seeks to address that, and it is this approach that is necessary to bring blockchain-based gaming to the mass market.

The play-to-earn and Axie hype was evident all through 2021 and continues into 2022. However, the hype and interest will hold only as long as the profits do. If the playability of a play-to-earn game is not of a high enough standard to attract and engage gamers organically without such financial incentive, it’s not likely to come anywhere close to matching the popularity of games produced by AAA games publishers.

In contrast, play-and-earn gives players what they want while also providing earnings and ownership. It’s an evolution of gaming rather than a complexification of investing. As Mirko Basil, founder and CEO of UniX Gaming, put it, “It’s never been play-to-earn, it’s always been play-and-earn. We’re adding crypto as an earning vehicle to gaming.”

The importance of community

UniX Gaming is very much seizing the initiative in terms of pursuing a play-and-earn approach. Basil said:

“Play-to-earn is basically a job. It’s not fun. You do something, and you get rewards. Then people cash out their earnings, over and over. They don’t contribute to the community, they’re just doing their tasks and getting paid. Play-and-earn is fun and rewarding. People spend hours, days and months playing and getting better, competing and collaborating and building a really incredible community.”

The emphasis doesn’t stop at a consideration of game playability: “Gaming is not only playing; It’s owning, building, sharing, chatting and more”, he explains. “In gaming and in crypto, the most important focus is community. The greatest feats of both industries are creating attractive and impactful communities.”

With a nod to the importance of community, UniX has established itself from the outset as a gaming guild — a gathering of gamers that play together, which has evolved to include business and social projects. This aspect of the evolution from play-to-earn to play-and-earn also has implications for other community participants such as streamers, game developers and investors.

With play-and-earn, guilds become organizations capable of great innovation and social change. Leading by example, UniX has organized itself as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), becoming itself just one group within a large symbiotic ecosystem it creates in gaming communities.

Gamers are empowered to use their voices and resources together with regard to what they want the landscape of play-and-earn to be. In recent weeks, UniX has been adding AAA titles to its ecosystem via its Initial Gaming Offering (IGO) Launchpad, and players have been forming investment guilds, development guilds, competitive guilds and more.

With early adopters in the blockchain gaming space such as UniX leading the way, it’s clear that this evolution in gaming is ongoing with the likelihood of mass gaming adoption in the not too distant future.

DAOs were said to be the evolution of the governance and organizational structure, and gaming guilds are the evolution of DAOs. 


This content is sponsored by UniX Gaming. To learn more about UniX, explore the website.

Tags

Upcoming Events

HYATT REGENCY SALT LAKE CITY

TUES, OCT. 8, 2024

Guided by the expertise of Blockworks Research Analysts team, this one day event will feature senior leaders, entrepreneurs, and developers from across the crypto industry. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in an immersive experience to explore the latest trends, […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Pack your bags, anon — we’re heading west! Join us in the beautiful Salt Lake City for the third installment of Permissionless. Come for the alpha, stay for the fresh air. Permissionless III promises unforgettable panels, killer networking opportunities, and mountains […]

recent research

hivemapper.jpeg

Research

We believe crypto market participants overlook Hivemapper’s fundamental potential due to a poor understanding of both the niche map data market and Hivemapper’s positioning relative to incumbents. Hivemapper’s token model catalyzes both a cost and product advantage via unmatched map freshness and near real-time accuracy, which is its wedge into a market characterized by stale data and high data collection costs. Its current and potential future product suite may represent one of the strongest possibilities for PMF in crypto today.

article-image

The Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced back-to-back lawsuits against KuCoin Tuesday

article-image

Judge Failla found that Coinbase didn’t operate as an unregistered broker in offering its wallet service

article-image

A fund by Laser Digital offers investors exposure to the Polygon network, while a new 21Shares ETP focuses on staking rewards from Toncoin

article-image

Sponsored

The TRON network’s integration into Dune brings a wealth of data and insights to the fingertips of users

article-image

A BTC futures fund offered by Hashdex and Tidal Investments has gotten regulatory clearance to hold bitcoin directly

article-image

At launch, Chain Signatures will be compatible with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cosmos network chains, as well as DogeCoin and XRP Ledger