A Billion-Dollar Crypto Gaming Startup Promised Riches and Delivered Disaster

In reality, Axie is not a nation. It does not have a functioning economy. It’s more like a well-intentioned small-town employer that is struggling to pay its workers, because the primary thing the workers do—play Axie—does not create sufficient economic value.

Most games won’t cross the adoption chasm from the early market (crypto enthusiasts) to mainstream market (traditional gamers or low-SES players). Nonetheless, games like Axie are paving the way for others to cross over to a large population of people who want to earn by playing games.

Play-to-Earn can onboard new users looking to earn a living and keep them engaged in ways that look more like long-term employment than the latest gaming fad. Turning Axie Infinity into a platform, and one owned and governed by users at that, can create stickiness via network effects and high switching costs, as platforms are wont to do. The Metave... See more

The most straightforward example here is the play-to-earn gaming movement kicked off by Axie Infinity. Axie is neither the most fun game in the world nor the highest-paying job in the world, but it was able to attract over a million players because it offered more money than the games they were used to playing, and more fun (and often money) than t... See more