5 Games That Would Make a Perfect Play-to-Earn Game

The gaming industry is ripe with quality traditional games across a multitude of genres that are enjoyed by millions of gamers around the whole world. Most of the highly-popular titles employ various microtransaction models that may or may not be consumer-friendly, and almost always favor the developer and publisher, and not the player, as gamers have no way of reselling their purchased items in a legal way. What if these games integrated blockchain technology, and gave players the option to turn their items into NFTs they can sell if they want to, at least to recoup some of the money they spent? Here are 5 games that I think could potentially be a perfect play-to-earn game were they to ever join the world of Web3: RuneScape, Magic: The Gathering, Counter-Strike, EVE: Online, and Football Manager.

RuneScape / Old School RuneScape (RS3 / OSRS)

One of the oldest MMORPGs still around, RuneScape, or its retro counterpart, would make a perfect play-to-earn game – in fact, just about any game in the MMO could likely make a good fit, but in terms of popularity, depth, and in-game economy, RuneScape very much so would be ahead of almost anyone were Jagex to ever decide to integrate Web3 technologies in their long-running title. Due to its sandbox-like gameplay, where players have the freedom to take on various different professions and focus on mastering any of them that they want, be it fishing, mining, fighting, and so on, the game’s economy is completely player-driven, and works thanks to each player contributing to it in a variety of different ways. By giving players the option to convert their efforts into a cryptocurrency and/or NFTs, it would be possible for gamers to cash in on their time spent, and use what they earn to purchase other game-related items, contribute to governance, or simply withdraw for use outside the game. The foundation here for a perfect play-to-earn game seems pretty much set.

Magic: The Gathering

One of the most popular card games around, Magic: The Gathering would make a great fit for a blockchain title due to its already-present collectible nature, as players scour for rare cards to keep or sell for high values. This built-in collectible and trading aspect easily aligns with the concept of non-fungible tokens and blockchain. By digitizing the cards as NFTs and implementing a play-to-earn model, players could earn rewards by participating in battles, tournaments, or by trading valuable cards within the blockchain ecosystem.

Counter-Strike

The all-time favorite FPS franchise for the majority, the Counter-Strike series of games, particularly with the selling of weapon skins in CS:GO, has definitely shown how well it would fit as a play-to-earn title. Valve does allow the reselling of skins through its own marketplace integrated in its Steam platform, but anything outside of that is not considered official nor supported. As a result, the most simplest and safe way of selling any acquired crates or skins is through its own closed, centralized garden, meaning that the funds you accrue over time are stuck on the Steam wallet, forcing you to spend what you’ve earned on games or apps published on their store, instead of having the freedom to choose as you wish. By purchasing games on Steam, Valve gets a 30% cut per sale, so it’s no wonder why they prefer to keep skin trading closed on their platform. While it’s definitely great that this option is available for their users, after all it’s better than being stuck with skins you won’t use anymore, it would certainly be even better if there was blockchain integration, allowing users to trade and own NFTs while receiving funds on their own crypto wallet that would give them freedom to easily transfer and spend earnings elsewhere, instead of solely on products available on Steam. It would also open up the possibility for players to actually own their items, and not worry about potentially having them removed by a centralized entity.

EVE: Online

It seems as if every few years, this space sandbox MMO makes the headlines on the epic large-scale wars that take place between community-owned clans, involving ships with values of hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of time and effort is needed to fully experience what this complex sci-fi world has to offer, making it perhaps truly the perfect play-to-earn game were it to ever be transformed to a blockchain title. Based on their announcement last year, that doesn’t seem to be in their plans, but interestingly enough, the studio behind this amazing MMO, CCP Games, have actually secured $40 million for a new AAA Web3 game earlier this year, so maybe we’ll actually get to see a crypto version similar to the popular sci-fi title sooner or later after all.

Football Manager

Imagine a real-life season taking place digitally in numerous leagues between dozens of managers setting up lineups of NFT players, who have their own agents, while the clubs act as fractional NFTs players can own by buying shares of the club, voting on various decisions such as deciding whether to hire or sack a manager, and so on. There is huge potential for a play-to-earn version of Football Manager, as users could take on many different roles. Aside from being a manager, someone could act as an agent for numerous NFT players, or be an owner of a club by owning the majority of shares, and so on. Perhaps a native token could be used as a reward for winning matches, as well as for spending on player transfers and more. It would be quite exciting to see something like that take place in reality, and as a fan of sports, Football Manager would for me make a perfect play-to-earn game.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, these are just some of the many traditional games that I think could work pretty well if they were to enter the world of crypto, at least in theory. If publishers and studios behind these successful Web2 games don’t take the leap, then perhaps we’ll see less prominent names lead the charge and create their own takes, their own blockchain variants of these popular classics.