By: [0xG]Beeks
@beeksvybe / Officer at 0xG.
Crypto gaming guilds are becoming venture-scalable platforms bridging together gaming and investing through the means of play-to-earn, an innovative new gaming model that works by owning and using NFTs, which are digital in-game assets.
Play 2 Earn: having any in-game currency owned by the NFT project supporters.
Gaming guilds have always existed, especially with the rise and popularity of eSports. However with new and innovative ways to earn in web3, crypto gaming guilds are becoming the rising superpowers in the metaverse that even the biggest venture capital firms like Andreesen-Horowitz and companies such as Coinbase are aggressively looking to invest in.
Here’s some stats -
- 2.7 billion: the estimated number of gamers worldwide in 2021.
- 405 million: the number of subscribers on YouTube to the top-ten gaming influencers.
- $300+ billion: Accenture’s estimate of the direct and indirect value of the gaming industry — much higher than previous industry estimates.
The demand for blockchain gaming is growing at such a rapid pace that more and more players want what are known as play-to-earn scholarships. Scholarship programs are where players that don’t necessarily have the financial means to start playing apply for a ‘scholarship’ by managers, or players with the means to play but without the time necessarily to play full-time using their NFTs. In an exchange for lending out their NFTs to a scholar, managers receive a % or a cut of the earnings that the scholar generates as they play-to-earn using the NFTs. There are varying iterations of how these scholarship programs work. Most guilds aim to be a platform for new players, as well as a strategic group of players to compete in Player vs. Player (PvP) style competitions where players earn for winning.
Whereas gaming guilds in the past were primarily platforms for social exchange, crypto gaming guilds are becoming much more powerful economic organizations utilizing both play-to-earn and decentralized finance, or DeFi protocols to appreciate and grow their crypto assets. Some guilds like Yield Guild Games, one of the biggest play-to-earn guilds, have their own token, which is dependent on the price and value of the guild’s assets, and used by its members as a governance token to vote. You can think of these as shareholder voting rights where members of the guild that own the token have a say in the governance measures within the guild. Investors can also invest and trade these tokens, turning crypto gaming guilds into tradable companies.
One of the reasons investors are turning to crypto gaming guilds and not just the crypto gaming projects themselves is because play-to-earn is arguably the new iteration of the gig-economy — where gamers will value their time and effort and only play games where they will be able to earn money. With the surge of hundreds if not thousands of crypto games being developed, gaming guilds will not only be associated with one single game, but with many and all potential games that the guild strategically chooses to play, deploying its members to play-to-earn. This is where partnerships between guilds become highly valuable between game developers, web3 investors, and players looking to earn as they play.
“In five years, gamers will only be playing games that allow them to earn money, known as play-to-earn games.” — Alexis Ohaninan, Reddit co-founder.
