The hottest trend within the cryptocurrency world is play-to-earn games now. Wouldn’t you like to make money while engaging in your hobby? Who wouldn’t? This article aims to introduce you to the best play-to-earn crypto games.
Gamers are not considered as outcasts wasting their valuable time instead of being productive anymore as many countries even encourage a career in gaming. The cryptocurrency quickly understood how much potential this improving segment has and the blockchain-based technology’s effect on it. The emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has contributed to its possibility as developers realized that they could make and transfer tangible value in gaming; This was the moment play-to-earn games were born and are highly growing. In this article of TechTrends, we plan to explore the most popular play-to-earn crypto games.
Best Play-to-Earn Crypto Games
Before jumping into the best play-to-earn crypto games list, let’s clarify some of the essential concepts in advance as to what play-to-earn games are or whether they are free to play.
What Are Play-to-Earn Games?
Play-to-earn games are defined just as they sound – a business model that gives players cryptocurrency in return for their playing. In other words, play-to-earn games provide players with an enjoyable time in-game playing, like conducting battles, breeding the characters in the game, finishing quests, and other tasks. By doing that, the players can receive a reward ranging from appealing characters with changeable scarcity to an in-game currency that is usable for purchasing NFTs, transferring to a cryptocurrency wallet, or even selling or trading for currencies used in real-life.
Since play-to-earn games combine two activities that people have long been driven by – making money and entertainment – they have grown so much in popularity.
Are Play-to-Earn Games Free to Play?
Although there is a debate whether there should be free play-to-earn games, the fact is that each developer decides on what their path will be. While some free play-to-earn games are available, others need contribution to play.
Businesses create video games that are expensive to develop, and it is essential to know that the point of every business is to earn a profit. The free play-to-earn crypto games also need some investment early on for their capabilities to unlock.
Having said this, we will be discussing some of the best play-to-earn crypto games trading millions of dollars out there.
Axie Infinity
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Axie Infinity is one of the world’s most popular and best play-to-earn crypto games. The inspiration behind it has been taken from games like Pokémon and Tamagotchi. It was the first Ethereum-based NFT game to hit $1 billion in sales in 2021. Axie Infinity has over a million active users on its platform as it is the most non-fungible token game as well. The company that created it is Sky Mavis.
Players can collect, breed, battle, raise and even trade the Axies, token-based creatures. These creatures can come in different forms. Currently, there are more than 500 various body parts available that are classified as common, rare, ultra-rare, and legendry in terms of different rarity scales.
Those Axies are NFTs with different attributes, strengths, and unique body parts that determine their skill and rarity. Players can work on their Axies and upgrade them. Then, they can trade them for cryptocurrencies on the marketplace, which can be sold from $100 to $1,000. Those infrequent ones have already sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, like Axie #1733 (Venom). It was sold for 110 ETH in 2019 and another time for 104.25 ETH in 2020.
There are two cryptocurrencies in Axie Infinity, with the native one being Axie Infinity Shards (AXS), which can be used in participating in the game’s governance. The next one is the Small Love Potion (SLP) cryptocurrency. Users can collect it by playing the game, like completing adventure mode levels and winning arena matches. To breed Axis, however, you need both tokens.
Although Axie Infinity is one of the most popular play-to-earn crypto games, many NFT collectors are interested in it as Axies can sell for a significant amount of money. As DappRadar claims, it is the second-largest marketplace after OpenSea.
Currently, Axie Infinity token AXS is worth $94.11 with a market capitalization of $5,732,955,017 Billion.
If you want to start playing Axie Infinity, you should buy three Axies in the marketplace. Since the game pays a lot in many different ways, it is worth playing.
Decentraland
Another on the list of the best play-to-earn crypto games that is extremely popular is Decentraland, which Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordano made. However, they both stepped down from major positions and are the project’s advisors now.
The project was launched in 2017 and raised $24 million through an ICO. Decentraland is a digital world – a virtual universe based on Ethereum, and users can create, experience, and earn revenue. Players can buy plots of land and moderate and build on them to monetize them later.
There are many exciting things built on Decentraland. This virtual reality has a lot of potentials as some of its lands have been sold for more than $900,000.
As a guest user, you can play Decentraland for free. However, you may only be able to explore the world. Moreover, you need to have a wallet to participate in events or buy things in this digital world.
The native cryptocurrency users utilize in this game is MANA, while LAND is another. MANA is an ERC-20 token, which is usable for acquiring non-fungible ERC-721 LAND tokens. Players can also use MANA tokens to buy different names, wearables, avatars, and other things Decentraland marketplace offers.
The Sandbox
The next on the best play-to-earn crypto games list is the Sandbox. It is a virtual world based on blockchain, and players both enjoy the game and earn money. One of the many Metaverse hopefuls is that it plans to create an entire universe for users to explore.
The essential purpose of this free play-to-earn game is to represent blockchain tech in the gaming world in a successful way.
It is the combination of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) capabilities and NFTs to make a virtual world with an enormous gaming community. Since it is managed on the blockchain, this digital world enables players to build, create, purchase, and sell many different assets in the game. No matter what skill or preference players have, they all can find something to do and earn cryptocurrency.
Like Decentraland, the Sandbox has two cryptocurrencies, one of which is SAND. This utility token is recorded on the ERC-20 protocol with a finite supply of three billion. The next one is LAND – a non-fungible token – with only 166,464 available now. Among the usages of LAND, we can mention hosting games, creating housing, building multiplayer experiences, etc.
Gods Unchained
This best play-to-earn game on the list, which is also free to play, is managed on the blockchain, and it is a trading card game where users fight one another using a deck of cards, core cards, and genesis cards. Core cards are the ones you can earn for free when playing the game. However, should players aim to skip grinding; they can purchase card packs. Before launching the game, these were sold and are not produced anymore. It means you have to buy them from other players if you want them.
Since the game is run on Ethereum and uses Immutable X marketplace, users can purchase and sell the game cards, but you require a MetaMask wallet or other supporter wallets. In addition, the cards have various rarity and stats, and the most expensive ones are the rarer cards. One of the most significant cards sold on God Unchained in 2019 was a Mythic card. It is valued at 210 Ether ($31,000).
Furthermore, you have to register for an account to play this game in the list best play-to-earn crypto games. There are a set of free cards for the new players to begin. However, they will not be live on blockchain. The reason is that you have to win the player-against-player matchups to earn Flux, which can be used to forge two duplicate trading cards and mint them on the Ethereum blockchain. Players can use their own strategies to win as Gods Unchained’s design represents some level of fairness, making sure that similar ranking players are matched together. In contrast, most P2E platforms provide an opportunity for those who have the rarest and most powerful cards, avatars, and weapons to win.
The cryptocurrency used for this game is a native one called the GODS token, an ERC-20 one. It can be used for crafting NFTs, buying packs from the Gods Unchained marketplace, and earning more rewards through holding the GODS tokens in Immutable X. Another important value of this token is that it has voting power and allows you to take part in governance proposals that affect the game’s future growth.
This token is now being traded at $6.69. In addition, it is among the most valuable gaming tokens in the market, making this game worth playing.
Blankos Block Party
Blankos Block Party, similar to Minecraft and Roblox, is another open-world, free, and best play-to-earn game. It is also one of the most ambitious games managed on the EOSIO blockchain technology. It contributes to creating a digital asset economy through a marketplace.
Players can make unique characters and worlds, and other players will leverage them. The characters are NFTs, which means they can be bought, sold, and showcased. In this vibrant, colorful open-world game, you don’t need to spend anything to start playing. You can play tag, compete against others, and dance at block parties.
There are a few different ways To make money playing this game. When you complete various challenges, like daily, weekly and seasonal challenges, you will earn money, Blanko Bucks and NFT. Another way to make NFT is by participating in events like Build challenges. You can then turn these NFTs into real-world money.
Plant Vs Undead
The last but not the least game on our list of the best play-to-earn crypto games Is Plant Vs. Undead. This versatile game and its farm mode will keep players engaged with the chance to earn Light Energy. It can later lead to PVU tokens. No upfront fee is needed, so it is a free play-to-earn crypto game.
In this game, users can take care of their farm and produce Light Energy (LE) in-game currency. While controlling the in-game Plant Vs. Undead assets in the form of NFTs, you can make money.
To make LE, you have to harvest seeds, do daily quests like watering the plants of other users, and do many other things around the farm. PVU’s current value is at $0.675261, which can lead to a great payday once playing for a long time.
Furthermore, NFT plants can be sold on the marketplace, where regular NFT plants are worth 10 PVU tokens, while the rare ones can go more than 100 PVU tokens.
Final thoughts
Play-to-earn games are making a splash in the industry. Since the NFTs implementations, players have more control over their assets in the game. The users have a chance to earn tokens by either playing the game or creating and selling NFTs on each platform’s specific marketplace. Whether you like cryptocurrency or not, it is here to stay, particularly in the gaming world. The above best play-to-earn crypto games are the ones that will pay the most. Therefore, they are worth playing if you are looking for an exciting game.
Many merits support the narrative that blockchain gaming is the gaming industry’s future. Play-to-earn games are becoming a viable business model. They help game developers and players make money with their time while doing something they enjoy.
With the real world becoming more digital due to the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in many traditional social interactions going online, it is logical to think that the future is, in fact, digital.