Looking back in time, there wasn’t many PC games that were widely adapted worldwide. But those who did, remains to be a ever-lasting classic, even until now.

When there are games, there are in-game economy. It is the nature of all games that gamer trade within or beyond the game. Looking back to this organic process where gamer and trading economy within the game became well-blended, we often feel shocked by the power of evolution.

The economy

For all games in the Web2/Web3 realm, growth of player and user being a hyperbolic graph is an inevitable process. Like it or not, player decreases over time. This phenomenom made in-game economy a downward sloping trend eventually. Profit comes from someone’s pocket, flowing into other’s pocket, by the time this endless loop ends, who exactly is the last player in the game that take the loss? Yes, all game economies are have correlation to a ponzi structure, at least to some degree.

Simple trade cycle

In all games especially MMORPG, early players always get the cherry on top under fair competition and healthy game environment. By saying cherry, it can either represents Rare Items, Honors, Game Currency, etc… Later on players either spend more time and effort trying to claim the same reward or directly buy it from the early players. People trades valuable in-game asset until nobody is willing to pay for it anymore (in the context of previous article: when the game players is down to nearly 0)

The “Earn” trait

Profit therefore gets generated during the in-game trading cycle, in most cases, profit can be recognized in fiat currency. So will this “Earn” trait disrupt the way people see game’s “Play” nature and furthermore turn the game into a financial tool that only generates profit under a ponzi structure? The answer is: Only when the game itself is in bad shape.

Recreational nature will be amplified by “Earn”

Game that possess good quality, and by saying “Good” I mean great quality, will be amplified by the presense of “Earn”. A great game is a organically well-structured game environment where players enjoy the game itself and utilize the in-game economy to empower the “Earn” trait with a certain balance. Under the pre-conditions that the game itself has to be fun and versatile, the “Earn” trait serve to lite up player’s passion even more.

The Earn/Die Paradox

Along the in-game trading cycle, with player decreasing overtime, there are always the last group of player that can find their buyer in the game, either due to the decreasing of player or the dilution of item’s rarity. Therefore a death spiral begins, pushing the game to die even faster. So can we say game die because people earn? Absolutely no, in the scale of Earn and Play, organic balance is vital to keep the game healthy and running. We can therefore conclude: Earn does not lead to the death of a game, but it can expedite the process if it is improperly balanced in the game’s ecosystem.

Blockchain/Gamefi under the spotlight

Being very similar to traditional web2 games, web3/blockchain games share a very similar economy nature, but more wicked and profit driven. Looking back at the so called “revolutionary” gamefi projects from it’s ATH to now, none of them survived from the storm crisis. Following their failure, investor and token holders had dreafully fallen alongside3 with diminished wealth and invaluable assets. What’s the problems? They focused on earning way too much than they should, eventually causing it to fail.

The definition of a “Successful” game

Witnessing the exolution of gaming space, a successful game does not only mean popularity, it also represents “the surviver”, and will always remain as a symbolic being of a specific time period. Take the game “WorldofWarcraft”, a very famous and successful game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It survived as time continue to wear off it’s presence among all the games out there, it also suffered from the decreasing of players. But with constant updates and iterations, the life of this game becomes a cycle, with continuous support of new bloods joining the ecosystem. The product itself is the strongest statement, profits will cease to exist after drained by seeker, creativities will be the only element that is holding up this industry within the foreseeable future.

“Gamefi is only getting started, we are building a new realm where web2 and web3 organically blend-in with each other. Standing back up from the failure we made, we only become stronger. The time of web3 will come, and web3 need gamefi, just like religious culture need Jerusalem.”

Credit: Discord Member @Leeloe, @wanngthegang