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Reddit Founder Says 90% of Games Will Pay You to Play Them in 5 Years

18 points by serverlessmom 5y ago

lifeplusplus 5y ago
If games could produce free money, they will not be selling games but producing those coins
- numpad0 5y ago
  Which captures and integrates more human activities into economy.
  - lifeplusplus 5y ago
    robberies and natural disasters also spur human activity, you know because you have to rebuy everything you lost. This is to say activity has to be productive in at least some fashion. But the whole argument has nothing to do with gaming companies giving money to their users, because unless their software is literally mining coins on user's machine there is no business model.
WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
I agree with this but I hope the games become educational. Imagine getting paid to take English class via a game. Right now it cost thousands to educate a kid. Imagine a time where the kid gets paid for learning grammar, math, whatever and education costs plummet because the basics can be taught using a game. It's a win win situation.
- pjc50 5y ago
  See other comment: by whom? (you can actually get paid to learn by the government in non-England UK, it's £15 a week. https://www.gov.uk/education-maintenance-allowance-ema https://www.gov.uk/education-maintenance-allowance-ema )
foreigner 5y ago
Coincidentally I just re-read "The Red-Headed League" yesterday!
jokethrowaway 5y ago
Get a job in a game, spend money in a game, the developers pocket a portion of the e-currency? Second life but crypto? I doubt the current generation will fall for that, maybe in a generation or so, if they manage to indoctrinate kids well enough.
- Olreich 5y ago
  Roblox business model right here
pjc50 5y ago
By whom? Who's taking the other side of this trade? Write out the sentence without the passive voice: "Games companies will pay players in 5 years" and "Investors in game companies will pay players" etc. If you look closely, in many of these examples the people paying are "new players", in which case it's the straightforward pyramid/MLM approach. Herbalife for gamers.
- PythagoRascal 5y ago
  The only way I see this working out, is if the game is actively mining crypto during play. But even then, why would big game companies leave that revenue on the table and give it to players? I can see the crypto miners in games being a thing in the future, but at best players will receive a funky hat or a new gun once in a while for their efforts.
- imtringued 5y ago
  All these get paid for nothing schemes (even banking and the stock market) have one thing in common. Someone else has to do the work.
- gexla 5y ago
  Shooting from the hip here as I'm not a "game economist." Money comes in through whales paying for rare items and relatively fast progression. This isn't a new idea, as games such as WOW had a gold farming economy. As with WOW, the game developers would have to be continuously adding layers of content to progress though, to keep the economy churning. If they're trading tokens, I would guess they would need some sort of burn mechanism to keep inflation in check. I guess the game would be feeding 3 different machines then, play for pay players, the developers of the game, and a void for tokens to disappear into? The pay for play element would likely be to work to create the items which the whales would buy. Ponzi scheme? It could be in the sense that early players gain enough power in the game that they're better able to adapt to changing conditions. I don't know much about Axie, but an influx of players during the pandemic drove up the price of the required assets to play. I don't know if there is an element for whales to buy fast progression. From what I have seen, it doesn't look like a fun game. It just looks like work for everyone involved. Maybe the developers could come up with a way to cap how many players could actually earn, based on factors such as market conditions and income from whales. You earn your spot with the bar of difficulty rising or falling. I suppose this would be sort of like mining Bitcoin, except the players are grinding.
blackbrokkoli 5y ago
This reads like satire. Why is the Reddit co-founder giving out elaborate think pieces on hypothetical blockchain games? Doesn't he have a company to run? This article completely fails to mention who would pay me and generally does not seem to understand that money can't just magically generated but is a tool of wealth transfer? "alternative to universal basic income"...now you are just fucking with us. Even without the wild economic mechanics described, the gaming market may be big but not that big. Most interesting to note here is the Reddit chairman engaging in crpyto-bro theorizing, me thinks.
- gexla 5y ago
  And how would it be universal basic income if you're still having to work? No play, no pay. The big story in play for play, has been Axie in the Philippines. Many Filipinos can't afford to buy the required assets to play, so they get into "scholarship" arrangements where they play for a manager who splits the income. You have to apply for scholarships, and if you don't play, then the manager will want to assign the asset to someone else. Play hard, then the manager may give you more assets. Sounds like a job to me, and without government regulations to protect the workers.
stnikolauswagne 5y ago
With the huge development times of games nowadays this would mean that all the big AAA games starting production right now would need to have P2E schemes planned in, not to mention LoL/CS:GO/Fortnite/etc transitioning to it rather quickly. Also console manufacturers would have to get on board or the walled-garden nature of console gaming would have to collapse. That all seems like a lot of changes that show very little current progress. For a space whose killer-app is Axie Infinity, a game whose gameplay looks straight out of a 2010 era browser game these are some big claims.

18 points by serverlessmom 5y ago

lifeplusplus 5y ago

If games could produce free money, they will not be selling games but producing those coins

numpad0 5y ago
Which captures and integrates more human activities into economy.
- lifeplusplus 5y ago
  robberies and natural disasters also spur human activity, you know because you have to rebuy everything you lost. This is to say activity has to be productive in at least some fashion. But the whole argument has nothing to do with gaming companies giving money to their users, because unless their software is literally mining coins on user's machine there is no business model.

WheelsAtLarge 5y ago

I agree with this but I hope the games become educational. Imagine getting paid to take English class via a game. Right now it cost thousands to educate a kid. Imagine a time where the kid gets paid for learning grammar, math, whatever and education costs plummet because the basics can be taught using a game. It's a win win situation.

pjc50 5y ago
See other comment: by whom? (you can actually get paid to learn by the government in non-England UK, it's £15 a week. https://www.gov.uk/education-maintenance-allowance-ema https://www.gov.uk/education-maintenance-allowance-ema )

foreigner 5y ago

Coincidentally I just re-read "The Red-Headed League" yesterday!

jokethrowaway 5y ago

Get a job in a game, spend money in a game, the developers pocket a portion of the e-currency? Second life but crypto? I doubt the current generation will fall for that, maybe in a generation or so, if they manage to indoctrinate kids well enough.

Olreich 5y ago
Roblox business model right here

pjc50 5y ago

By whom? Who's taking the other side of this trade? Write out the sentence without the passive voice: "Games companies will pay players in 5 years" and "Investors in game companies will pay players" etc. If you look closely, in many of these examples the people paying are "new players", in which case it's the straightforward pyramid/MLM approach. Herbalife for gamers.

PythagoRascal 5y ago
The only way I see this working out, is if the game is actively mining crypto during play. But even then, why would big game companies leave that revenue on the table and give it to players? I can see the crypto miners in games being a thing in the future, but at best players will receive a funky hat or a new gun once in a while for their efforts.
imtringued 5y ago
All these get paid for nothing schemes (even banking and the stock market) have one thing in common. Someone else has to do the work.
gexla 5y ago
Shooting from the hip here as I'm not a "game economist." Money comes in through whales paying for rare items and relatively fast progression. This isn't a new idea, as games such as WOW had a gold farming economy. As with WOW, the game developers would have to be continuously adding layers of content to progress though, to keep the economy churning. If they're trading tokens, I would guess they would need some sort of burn mechanism to keep inflation in check. I guess the game would be feeding 3 different machines then, play for pay players, the developers of the game, and a void for tokens to disappear into? The pay for play element would likely be to work to create the items which the whales would buy. Ponzi scheme? It could be in the sense that early players gain enough power in the game that they're better able to adapt to changing conditions. I don't know much about Axie, but an influx of players during the pandemic drove up the price of the required assets to play. I don't know if there is an element for whales to buy fast progression. From what I have seen, it doesn't look like a fun game. It just looks like work for everyone involved. Maybe the developers could come up with a way to cap how many players could actually earn, based on factors such as market conditions and income from whales. You earn your spot with the bar of difficulty rising or falling. I suppose this would be sort of like mining Bitcoin, except the players are grinding.

blackbrokkoli 5y ago

This reads like satire. Why is the Reddit co-founder giving out elaborate think pieces on hypothetical blockchain games? Doesn't he have a company to run? This article completely fails to mention who would pay me and generally does not seem to understand that money can't just magically generated but is a tool of wealth transfer? "alternative to universal basic income"...now you are just fucking with us. Even without the wild economic mechanics described, the gaming market may be big but not that big. Most interesting to note here is the Reddit chairman engaging in crpyto-bro theorizing, me thinks.

gexla 5y ago
And how would it be universal basic income if you're still having to work? No play, no pay. The big story in play for play, has been Axie in the Philippines. Many Filipinos can't afford to buy the required assets to play, so they get into "scholarship" arrangements where they play for a manager who splits the income. You have to apply for scholarships, and if you don't play, then the manager will want to assign the asset to someone else. Play hard, then the manager may give you more assets. Sounds like a job to me, and without government regulations to protect the workers.

stnikolauswagne 5y ago

With the huge development times of games nowadays this would mean that all the big AAA games starting production right now would need to have P2E schemes planned in, not to mention LoL/CS:GO/Fortnite/etc transitioning to it rather quickly. Also console manufacturers would have to get on board or the walled-garden nature of console gaming would have to collapse. That all seems like a lot of changes that show very little current progress. For a space whose killer-app is Axie Infinity, a game whose gameplay looks straight out of a 2010 era browser game these are some big claims.