Are We Gamers?

Recently @beaker007 forwarded me an article about the web-3 gamers, the world I spend a lot of time in. It raises a serious question that I have rarely seen articulated in this lucid way.

Because every time I open a Web3 gaming server, I see the same split. Half the chat is arguing about builds, strategies, and whether the new update fixed the busted meta. The other half? They’re in price chat, sweating the token like it’s a boss fight. Spoiler: the boss isn’t dying, it’s just dumping.

I spend a lot of time at Splinterlands discord. In a surprisingly similar manner, I see a group of people always talk about game play, while the other group worry about ROI and Tokenomics. In fact in case of Splinterlands, the intelligent ROI discussion now is far less, it is mostly a discussion on price most of the time. To be more specific, a doom-and-gloom discussion on price on SPS and other in-game tokens.

The key element of the web-3 game is the 'money' part. I think that is what makes it different from web-2 games (where you spend money for fun and get nothing of tangible value in return) and it's the same element that typically cause its demise. I think we can say that the web-3 games are now a bit matured compared to 2018. I have plotted below the number of web-3 games launched each year since 2018 and also the number of games that closed shop. Do you see the skyrocketing trend since 2024? I have added more major crypto events that I left relevant in a table below the plot for some additional context.

I am going to argue that lockdown due to Covid-19 was the primary trigger for the web-3 games. I am also going to take Philippines as a case study and ideal population to showcase the growth of p2e model.

Lockdowns and Economic Shock

April 2020 unemployment spiked to 17.6% in the Philippines during strict Covid lockdowns. Traditional job opportunities were severely limited, creating demand for alternative income sources.

Digital Infrastructure

Internet penetration rose from 67% in 2020 to 76% in 2022, enabling access to online platforms. By 2025, penetration reached 83.8%, making digital participation nearly universal.

Play-to-Earn Adoption

In 2022, 25% of Filipino internet users engaged in P2E gaming, with Axie Infinity leading the trend. Filipinos represented 40% of Axie Infinity’s global user base at its peak. By 2025, 2.8 million Filipinos were active in the P2E ecosystem.

What is the Problem?

The problem with Web-3 games are multi-faceted.

• Difference in mindset between gamers and degens
• Play-2-earn model fundamentally promises a payment for gamer's time, but does not have a financial model
  • Where is money going to come from?
• Without a financial source of revenue (both for the team, and the players), team resorts to token sale first
  • After the token sale is over, if the game still is alive, then it is a product sale
• Both models require new players to purchase items or tokens to fund the program
• That by definition becomes a Pyramid scheme

What is the Solution?

This is a loaded question, and I am going to argue that no one knows the answer to this question for Web-3 games. I will share another article that discuss this point. Yet, I think I must list the solutions that do not work:

We’ve tried everything: bigger drops, louder memes, more quests, yet nothing sticks. Clicks come, connection doesn't. Maybe Web3 doesn’t need better marketing. Maybe it needs a reason to be remembered

The following items do not work to popularize a web-3 game, or to make the project successful

• Marketing: Yes, Marketing for an web-3 play-2-game doesn't work
• Giveaways and airdrop doesn't work
• Meme coins and telegram/X campaigns are worthless
• A coin with a De-fi farming attached to it, is worthless
• You can't create value out of thin air

Yet, you can create a game out of thin air. We have done it. Splinterlands is one. Also you can create a community out of the game, which is willing to spend millions of dollars on a game. Again we have done so at Splinterlands.

What we must think about is that Nintendo didn't hire YouTube influencers to popularize Pokemon, or Niantic didn't hire twitch streamers to popularize Pokemon Go. They were just engaging game. Those games were memorable.

Similarly, millions of people put money in the savings account for a small APR. No marketing campaign is required for that. Only two reasons that works:

• People "think" the bank will remain in business, and if not, their money is insured by the government
  • Perhaps from my tone, you can appreciate that none of these assumptions are 100% true
  • Yet, they are mostly true, under most normal cases
• The currency that they put in the bank, typically hold value, unlike a de-fi token, that perpetually decline since its launch
  • Again, the currency holding value is not always true, but it is mostly true for most stable countries

Potential Solution

So, we have a rather daunting task for a web-3 game; that it must be as engaging as Pokemon or Mario Karts and also certain part of the game must act as a bank or a savings account. I think as an ecosystem we can offer both. We can offer HBD as an alternative to a savings account. Or a player can earn in game token that they can possibly convert to stable coin and hold that. They also have a reason to hold in-game assets, cards, that will propel their game play forward to higher level. They must always see, these are the cards they have, and these cards are that much better compared to the other guy who doesn't have them! We must built an engaging game that people like to play like Splinterlands. Thankfully we already have a die-hard community, albeit small, but definitely here for the long term.