In the grand scheme of things, Play-to-Earn (P2E) gaming is still an astonishingly young phenomenon. It exploded in popularity over the course of the pandemic, as it presented a means of remuneration for many young tech-savvy gamers from all around the world who were feeling the economic and social effects of COVID-19. With the meteoric rise of P2E gaming also rose an entire ecosystem of gaming guilds and scholarships that - at least on paper - are meant to facilitate gamer’s entry into the P2E space. The ways in which P2E has affected the gaming industry, blockchain, and gamers themselves merits a deeper study. In this article, we focus on the latter. What kinds of relationships exist between gamers, games, and gaming guilds? And what is being done to make this relationship work better for gamers?
P2E’s origins
The earliest P2E game, CryptoKitties, appeared in 2017. But the phenomenon did not gain steam until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and remained a fixture of daily life, decimating local economies and confining people to their homes. Axie Infinity, perhaps the largest P2E game to date, saw a meteoric rise in users in 2021. Clocking in 2.5 million daily users and generating 1.2 billion USD in revenue according to . 35% of the game’s daily traffic, and the largest share of its player base, are in the Philippines.
Almost all P2E games require players to purchase a token, playable avatar, or other digital assets in order to get started in the game. In the aforementioned Axie Infinity, a starter set may cost over 100 USD. For many of the P2E gaming base, such costs can be prohibitively high. This is where the guilds and scholarship programs come in.
Guilds can cover the costs of entry into the game by purchasing the required assets and renting them out to players. But these profit-sharing schemes are far from perfect. The vetting process of a prospective player can be costly and take precious time. These inefficiencies prevent the entry of new players into the play to earn space. Furthermore, the centralization of wealth and assets in a guild goes against the decentralized ethos of blockchain technology. Simply put, gaming guilds and scholarships are standing in the way of the mass adoption of crypto in gaming.
But what is the solution? How can games and gamers cut out the middlemen of P2E gaming? One solution is to apply the aforementioned decentralizing principles of crypto to asset lending. One exciting new company in the P2E space, LuduFi, offers peer-to-peer lending between investors and players. Through its platform, players can build up a profile that captures their skill level, scores and total playtime. The platform’s easy-to-use dashboard allows investors to view player data and make informed decisions about who they want to invest in. LuduFi essentially removes the middlemen and creates a direct peer-to-peer transaction, opening the GameFi industry to individuals who have NFT assets and want to make passive income through this structure. At the moment, it is challenging for individuals seeking to invest in P2E games to find players for their assets, especially as they find themselves competing with gaming guilds that have thousands of assets.
LuduFi
LuduFi also benefits guilds by providing them with further use cases. Currently, guild tokens practically have no functionality outside of the guild ecosystem. However, LuduFi gives the option of consolidating tokens to the players and investors in their preferred token, such as USDT, the in-game token, or LUDU tokens (where they would see minimal transaction fees).
LuduFi also benefits games. With the bear market ravaging on, games are struggling to sustain their in-game economies as their token price drops over time. LuduFi aims to invest the players’ earned in-game tokens back into the game. In exchange, players can provide LuduFi with NFT assets that it could lend out. LuduFi aims to incentivize their most dedicated users to continue using the platform through a variety of means, such as locking players’ tokens or allowing players to stake on LuduFi’s platform and receive a share of company revenue.
By applying innovative blockchain solutions, LuduFi is one step closer to creating a more fair gaming ecosystem for P2E players.
