🎮 Play-and-Earn

Welcome to the 303 new entrepreneurs who joined last week. Hey there, Welcome to the 303 new entrepreneurs who joined last week. Congrats to [Affan]( (founder of Nuscreen) for becoming a Lifetime Trends Pro Member by collecting a Trends.vc NFT. We have another up for grabs this week. 👉 To check it out, [click here](. 📝 We’re still looking for [Trends.vc Analysts](. [Share this role]( if you know someone who’s a good fit. We'll send you $500.00 USD in ETH or BTC if they pass the trial phase. Note: The original topic for this report was Play-to-Earn. This implies that fun is secondary. The new topic is Play-and-Earn. A “fun-first” model that adds ownership as a bonus. 🎮 Let's talk about Play-and-Earn. Thanks to [Vajresh Balaji](, [Erwan Gallo](, [Prabhjot Lamba](, [Alex Edmonds](, [Ashwin](, [Sean Hua]( and [Michael Munger](. We had a great time jamming on this report. What you'll learn: - What’s play-and-earn? - What’s learn-to-earn? - What’s engage-and-earn? - How do players benefit? - How do developers benefit? - Why does digital scarcity matter? - What’s the history of play-and-earn? - What are 10 new ways to monetize? - How is play-and-earn related to DeFi? - (📈 Pro) How to acquire users? - (📈 Pro) What’s permissionless integration? - (📈 Pro) What are NFT primitives? - (📈 Pro) What are guilds? - (📈 Pro) Which index fund lets you invest in a basket of play-and-earn assets? - (📈 Pro) What challenges does Axie Infinity’s economy face? - (📈 Pro) How do play-and-earn games solve scaling problems? - (📈 Pro) Why is composability a double-edged sword? - (📈 Pro) What threats do play-and-earn models face? Unlock Trends Pro ✅ Access All Trends Pro Reports ✅ Stay Accountable with Daily Standups ✅ Meet Curious Entrepreneurs in Weekly Meetups ✅ Discuss Reports with Domain Experts ✅ Collaborate on Upcoming Reports [Become a Trends Pro Member](  Play-and-Earn]( [View on OpenSea]( “I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring.” — Vitalik Buterin 💎 Why It Matters Play-and-earn games are onboarding millions (and soon billions) of people into web3. 🔍 Problem Gamers spend billions of hours and dollars on games. Without ownership, alignment or governance rights. 💡 Solution Play-and-earn games give players: - Transferable assets - Strong property rights - The ability to participate in governance - The ability to exit and remix games via forks - The ability to build and monetize assets and experiences Play-and-earn games give developers: - New business models - Deep alignment with players - New ways to acquire and retain players - Faster development times with user-generated content ​​🏁 Players Play-and-Earn Games - [Axie Infinity]( • A card-based, battle-game. - [Decentraland]( • Virtual world owned by its users. - [The Sandbox]( • Community-driven platform that lets creators monetize assets. - [PoolTogether]( • A no-loss lottery. - [Zed Run]( • Virtual horse racing. - [Worldwide Webb]( • A pixel art metaverse with NFTs. - [Illuvium]( • A AAA game where players battle and earn ETH. 🔮 Predictions - Play-and-earn games will build increasingly complex economies. [Axie Infinity]( has [$AXS](, [$SLP](, [$RON](, [Axies](, [land]( and [other items](. Players can breed, battle, trade, lease, flip and govern virtual worlds. - Learn-to-earn models will become more common. [Coinbase pays users]( to learn about DeFi concepts and cryptocurrencies. - Engage-to-earn models will become more common. [Brave Browser gives BAT tokens]( to users that opt into ads. - The play-and-earn movement will birth new game studios. Incumbents like Ubisoft [face backlash]( from trad gamers. The same applies to [Discord](. New companies will attract aligned users and work from first-principles. - There will be crossover between in-game and non-game economies. [$SLP]( is used to pay for everyday products and services. Like [home internet](. ☁️ Opportunities - Explore new monetization models as a gamer or developer. - [Collect]( in-game assets - [Earn]( from in-game battles - [Breed]( in-game characters - [Fractionalize]( in-game assets - [Buy and sell]( land in virtual worlds - [Stake]( in-game assets for a return - [Lease]( in-game assets to other players - [Provide liquidity]( (loans) to NFT owners - [Receive royalties]( from secondary sales - [Represent]( players as a protocol politician - Create content and onboard players to play-and-earn games. - [Striker]( streams [Loot Relics]( - [Brycent]( streams [Axie Infinity]( - [Titokliber]( streams [Thetan Arena]( - Build a game for an existing community. [Realms (for Adventurers)]( built on [Loot (for Adventurers)]( by offering [mint passes]( to Loot owners. - Port traditional games to play-and-earn models. [PoolTogether]( and [MimirQuiz]( put a spin on lotteries and traditional quizzes, respectively. 🏔️ Risks - Complexity • Play-and-earn economies are becoming more complex. Game designers may not grasp the second-order effects of design decisions. Your assets may suffer. - Misinformation • Do your own research. Play games and engage with communities before investing. 🔑 Key Lessons - Earning from games is not new. Traditional games have unofficial secondary markets. [HQ Trivia]( paid players directly. The difference is that play-and-earn games have strong, irrevocable property rights, open-source code and governance tokens. - Play-and-earn is a gateway drug to [DeFi](. In-game assets can be traded, leveraged, staked and sold. Players will come to play. Then learn what crypto has to offer. - Play-and-earn will hush NFT skeptics. In-game [NFTs]( have utility. You can’t right-click-and-save a community. Or utility. 😠Haters “Money takes the fun out of games.”We play the lottery (with negative expected returns), poker and trade physical sports cards. Games are a form of escapism. Alignment improves these experiences. See [PoolTogether](. A no-loss lottery. “Where’s the moat if games are open-sourced and forkable?”We’re in the age of user-owned networks. See [Wolf Game]( and [Sheep Game](. Forks let you choose the reality that you want to live in. [Legitimacy]( must be earned and maintained. “I already own physical collectible cards.”Now you have digital scarcity too. Without a trusted third party. As we said in the [DAOs]( report, Can’t be evil is better than don’t be evil. 🔗 Links - [Who should I talk to about play-to-earn](? • The tweet behind this report. - [The Deceptive Complexity of Axie Infinity's Digital Economy]( • A look at the economy of Axie Infinity and adjacent play-and-earn games. - [Play To Earn Tokens by Market Capitalization]( • Tokens sorted by market cap. What else? [Trends PRO #0077 — Play-and-Earn]( has more insights. What you’ll get: - 24 Play-and-Earn Games (242% More) - 11 Predictions (120% More) - 9 Opportunities (125% More) - 5 Risks (150% More) - 6 Key Lessons (100% More) - 11 Links (266% More) - 10-minute audio episode with exclusive Play-and-Earn stories, insights and opportunities. With Trends Pro you'll learn: - (📈 Pro) How to acquire users? - (📈 Pro) What’s permissionless integration? - (📈 Pro) What are NFT primitives? - (📈 Pro) What are guilds? - (📈 Pro) Which index fund lets you invest in a basket of play-and-earn assets? - (📈 Pro) What challenges does Axie Infinity’s economy face? - (📈 Pro) How do play-and-earn games solve scaling problems? - (📈 Pro) Why is composability a double-edged sword? - (📈 Pro) What threats do play-and-earn models face? - (📈 Pro) Which DAO invests in play-and-earn NFTs? - and much more.. 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