How to make money playing Web3 games
Making money in P2E games is more than just playing them. Here are a couple of ways most web3 players earn using blockchain games.
Ever since web3 games were introduced in the markets, people of all ages are now curious about exactly how blockchain players can earn by playing an online game. It’s not going to be as simple as pressing a few buttons, some of which require complex strategy or in-depth knowledge of game mechanics.
Here are 5 common ways players can make money in blockchain games.
1. Flip NFTs
Most blockchain games can only be played with an NFT character, usually manifested in fantasy-like creatures or characters. They have distributed grades through a coin sale.
NFT coins are spread with NFT flippers. During a project’s mint phase, they are usually at their maximum hype. As sales progress, other players will want to buy into the hype.
This tactic allows you to make money by entering the coin before it sells out (requires you very early!), buy more NFTs and sell them for a high profit on the open market. This is a risky investment strategy, but it can work for some players.
2. Breed NFTs
Certain crypto games offer breeding abilities with their NFTs. For example, Axie Infinity allows users to breed Axie NFTs to create new NFTs. Using blockchain technology, the newly created creature cannot be replicated or copied. It is completely unique.
The NFT players often have less utility or power in the game, so they are less valuable, but you can still sell them on the open market. But honestly for most games this won’t be the main way you make money.
3. Sell the in-game currency
The reality of most bet-to-earn games on the market is that “earn” might not be the right word for them. Therefore, it is very important for the users to take profit as much as they can.
The P2E markets often showcase a very popular game look, with its many fans hyping the currency and claiming it goes to the moon. But when the hype dies down, this leaves many investors with massive regret for not selling earlier.
Currently, most P2E games consist of players staking NFTs for their playable character, putting them into turn-based passive combat that takes a certain amount of time, then you get a certain amount of the in-game currency as a reward.
They are essentially P2Es strike. Players earn in-game tokens as a reward for spending their digital NFTs, and this is at the heart of most money-making games.
4. Effort for liquidity pool
Liquidity pool betting in blockchain games usually works like this:
- You earn the in-game coin from the game
- You merge the coin with another coin, usually either $SOL or $ETH
- You stake your total coins in the game (like depositing money in the bank)
- In exchange for giving this liquidity to other users, you get more of the coin in the game as a reward (like earning interest from the bank)
For example, DeFi Kingdoms is mostly a series of gamified liquidity pools, where you passively stake coins into the game for different APRs.
The percentage return on some of these liquidity pools may be abnormally high. But the problem is that if the in-game coin drops, the value of your coins will also drop.
If this happens, no insanely high APR can possibly make up for the drop. And these percentages are not fixed, the more people enter the pool, the more they lower the APR.
5. Buy digital land
Some open-world metaverses allow players to buy and build on virtual land.
For example, Decentralized country is an open metaverse where players can buy virtual land and build shops where they sell digital assets such as clothing for their in-game avatars. Users build their own mini-games on the digital land, which earns you $MANA, the game’s in-game token.
This is the primary method investors can make money in open metaverses.
There is no doubt that one of the main factors for the massive growth P2E has experienced was that users wanted to earn. Earn quickly they did, but in turn some also lost money on a game they did not fully understand.
It’s important to take notes and do your research before putting your savings into the next big P2E project. While the space has made significant strides towards improving GameFi as a whole, don’t let the visually appealing graphics fool you – games to earn can and will drain you of your money if you let it.
Edmond is a passionate writer for video games, GameFi and Web3. He has worked for top GameFi companies and video game/crypto news sites.
