6 ms·

I agree: There is no killer-app from the perspective of a first-world citizen. For low-wage workers in developing countries the killer app is play2earn gaming.

pjc50 5y ago
> play2earn gaming Where does the real economic benefit come from in this? "Paying people to play games" cannot possibly scale beyond the existing gold-farming niche. It's also something that historically games have tended to ban.
- pengwing 5y ago
  You asked for the econ perspective, so prepare for some darkness: When judging the economic productivity of the lowest class of wage workers the usual expectation is negative. Violent crime and substance abuse leads to a huge cost in terms of medical care and law enforcement. If you have a way to keep them busy and earn esteem without hurting anybody, that's a huge economic benefit.
minzi 5y ago
Admittedly I’m not very well read on the whole play2earn. However, I think the article posted on hn the other day about it makes a pretty compelling argument that it’s a Ponzi scheme. Article: https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/ https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/
- aardvarkr 5y ago
  Strongly agree :)
icambron 5y ago
Why does play2earn require (or is made much easier by) crypto? I'm missing a step in the logic
- yucky 5y ago
  I'm not an expert on it, but I think this refers to the various "things" that can be bought/owned on various metaverse type environments. People from first world countries are able to buy these things since it's easier than "earning" them. People from developing countries can then do the earning part for them, and sell what they've got on various NFT marketplaces, for desperately needed money. Why crypto is needed is because that is the tech that makes it possible for Player A to actually own Thing X, when Player A sends money to Player B who actually spent 8 hours playing or doing in order to earn Thing X. There are a few of these examples starting to gain steam like Axie Infinity[1] for instance. Although I suspect FB & Roblox are going to really go all in on this soon, if they haven't already. And their user bases are enormous. [1] https://axieinfinity.com/ https://axieinfinity.com/ (click on their marketplace link to see for yourself, the prices are crazy)
  - icambron 5y ago
    You can build a marketplace without crypto, though. The question is why crypto is an important enabling feature. E.g. would Axie Infinity be as successful if it simply let you buy/sell assets directly? (Putting aside any of the surrounding discussion of pyramid schemes; I'm not really interested in Axie in particular, more how the concept is supposed to work)
    - gilleain 5y ago
      I am also unsure as to how crypto benefits ownership of assets (eg "Axies"). I looked into NFTs recently, and (to my very simplified understanding) there seems to be: Asset <-> Token <-> Blockchain where the <-> are links of some kind. I understand that the T-B link on the right is secure and uses all the fancy crypto stuff (smart contracts, whatever) . However, the A-T link is less clear to me. Concretely, if you 'own' a Pokeman/Axie then that is the T-B link, but what links the Axie to the token? A URL/URI? So where is that stored - in a database somewhere? It all seems very suspect, but maybe I'm missing something.
    - yucky 5y ago
      I think the bridge into the financial system is the value. In theory, any game could create a way for you to "own" a rare item, and maybe even trade it within the game. But then how do you transfer ownership with a guaranteed exchange that can be cashed for fiat? The exchange would require us to trust each other, and I would paypal you the money? I think the NFT serves not only as the proof of ownership, but the chain of ownership and the escrow as well.
lalaland1125 5y ago
Play2earn gaming is just a disguised ponzi scheme 99% of the time. It's a closed loop system so the only way for people to earn money is to get it from other gamers. And gamers aren't going to throw money at these games when they could play a better "centralized" alternative. And the reason why non-pay2earn alternatives will always be better is because non-pay2earn games are much cheaper because they only need to pay the game devs while pay2earn games need to pay both the game devs and the freeloading "earners".
- pengwing 5y ago
  I always like to imagine how we will look back onto subjects 5 years from now, which helps to come up with more precise terminology and potential perspectives: "Generation 1 of play2earn gaming popularized in 2021/2022 was based on an ongoing influx of capital and generated profits only in the form of its redistribution. This changed when ... "
thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> For low-wage workers in developing countries the killer app is play2earn gaming. Farming resources in MMORPGs was happening before cryptocurrency became popular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming The killer app is illegal markets, malware / ransomware payments, and money laundering.
s-lambert 5y ago
The killer app sounds like a dystopian hell to me, wow work that is the epitome of pointlessness.

pjc50 5y ago

> play2earn gaming Where does the real economic benefit come from in this? "Paying people to play games" cannot possibly scale beyond the existing gold-farming niche. It's also something that historically games have tended to ban.

pengwing 5y ago
You asked for the econ perspective, so prepare for some darkness: When judging the economic productivity of the lowest class of wage workers the usual expectation is negative. Violent crime and substance abuse leads to a huge cost in terms of medical care and law enforcement. If you have a way to keep them busy and earn esteem without hurting anybody, that's a huge economic benefit.

minzi 5y ago

Admittedly I’m not very well read on the whole play2earn. However, I think the article posted on hn the other day about it makes a pretty compelling argument that it’s a Ponzi scheme. Article: https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/ https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/

aardvarkr 5y ago
Strongly agree :)

icambron 5y ago

Why does play2earn require (or is made much easier by) crypto? I'm missing a step in the logic

yucky 5y ago
I'm not an expert on it, but I think this refers to the various "things" that can be bought/owned on various metaverse type environments. People from first world countries are able to buy these things since it's easier than "earning" them. People from developing countries can then do the earning part for them, and sell what they've got on various NFT marketplaces, for desperately needed money. Why crypto is needed is because that is the tech that makes it possible for Player A to actually own Thing X, when Player A sends money to Player B who actually spent 8 hours playing or doing in order to earn Thing X. There are a few of these examples starting to gain steam like Axie Infinity[1] for instance. Although I suspect FB & Roblox are going to really go all in on this soon, if they haven't already. And their user bases are enormous. [1] https://axieinfinity.com/ https://axieinfinity.com/ (click on their marketplace link to see for yourself, the prices are crazy)
- icambron 5y ago
  You can build a marketplace without crypto, though. The question is why crypto is an important enabling feature. E.g. would Axie Infinity be as successful if it simply let you buy/sell assets directly? (Putting aside any of the surrounding discussion of pyramid schemes; I'm not really interested in Axie in particular, more how the concept is supposed to work)
  - gilleain 5y ago
    I am also unsure as to how crypto benefits ownership of assets (eg "Axies"). I looked into NFTs recently, and (to my very simplified understanding) there seems to be: Asset <-> Token <-> Blockchain where the <-> are links of some kind. I understand that the T-B link on the right is secure and uses all the fancy crypto stuff (smart contracts, whatever) . However, the A-T link is less clear to me. Concretely, if you 'own' a Pokeman/Axie then that is the T-B link, but what links the Axie to the token? A URL/URI? So where is that stored - in a database somewhere? It all seems very suspect, but maybe I'm missing something.
  - yucky 5y ago
    I think the bridge into the financial system is the value. In theory, any game could create a way for you to "own" a rare item, and maybe even trade it within the game. But then how do you transfer ownership with a guaranteed exchange that can be cashed for fiat? The exchange would require us to trust each other, and I would paypal you the money? I think the NFT serves not only as the proof of ownership, but the chain of ownership and the escrow as well.

lalaland1125 5y ago

Play2earn gaming is just a disguised ponzi scheme 99% of the time. It's a closed loop system so the only way for people to earn money is to get it from other gamers. And gamers aren't going to throw money at these games when they could play a better "centralized" alternative. And the reason why non-pay2earn alternatives will always be better is because non-pay2earn games are much cheaper because they only need to pay the game devs while pay2earn games need to pay both the game devs and the freeloading "earners".

pengwing 5y ago
I always like to imagine how we will look back onto subjects 5 years from now, which helps to come up with more precise terminology and potential perspectives: "Generation 1 of play2earn gaming popularized in 2021/2022 was based on an ongoing influx of capital and generated profits only in the form of its redistribution. This changed when ... "

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago

>> For low-wage workers in developing countries the killer app is play2earn gaming. Farming resources in MMORPGs was happening before cryptocurrency became popular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming The killer app is illegal markets, malware / ransomware payments, and money laundering.

s-lambert 5y ago

The killer app sounds like a dystopian hell to me, wow work that is the epitome of pointlessness.