I've been thinking all day long of what to write on Hive today. It wasn't easy because I couldn't find anything I felt like I wanted to write about. I've found something now though, something of personal pertinence.
I want to write about gaming and making money from gaming.
Over the past decades gaming has become more and more involved with our lives. Even if we're not serious gamers we're bound to play something every now and then.
A decade ago when I was still in school I was really into gaming. It was more fun than studying, that's for sure. I found out that in some games, competitive games, you can actually make some money out of it--if you were good enough to beat the competition anyway.
Back then playing games and earning an income was not something seen n the same sentence. I gave it a try. There were various factors that really didn't give equal opportunities for every player to participate and be rewarded. The playing field just wasn't equal. That and I wasn't good enough. A dream passed by as just a dream then. Over the years the e-sport scene has only continued to grow, seeing more genres and titles added to its rank. Year by year the prize pool topped the previous. I knew some skilled players were making a lot of money from playing games. They were competing and they were winning. It sounded like a dream come true. Getting paid enough to comfortably enjoy life while playing games. It was a distant thing from me, however.
It was only a few months ago that learned about play-to-earn games and it was only last month that I had actually tried playing them myself.
The amount you get each day wasn't stellar, you won't ever get to retire early with it. You could probably make more each day flipping burgers, but as someone who lives in a developing country the little amount each day was more than enough, almost equivalent to a day's work with minimum wage.
From play-to-earn I learned the concept of NFT, investing, and even learned more about crypto, a topic I had not been following for years.
It was at this time that I seriously thought about making a living from playing games and trading crypto, and "investing".
It's been almost two months since I actually got into the field and I can assume a few things now.
I can make money from the "play-to-earn" games, and trading cryptos and NFTS.
I haven't gotten into NFTs but I see that it's a risky field that I know nothing about and the chances of failure are high. So I won't try it.
Day trading crypto is tempting. But the stories of failures outweighs that of success. Long-term crypto investment or staking won't work for me either. I don't have that much money to be able to live off of passive income.
I had fumbled about, tried things, did my research and soul-searching. But in the end, I've come to the conclusion that for me to make money at home the only choice was play-to-earn games.
It was the option I actually had the least optimism about: play-to-earn games. They are centralized by nature, if something happens to the company and they go bankrupt any asset I have in the game disappears and I can no longer continue to have a stream of income from it. Investing in NFTs and cryptos is different. The price may go up or down but my cryptos and nfts will always be in my wallet unless I forgot my seed phrase.
Although play-to-earn games have been out for a few years now it has only come to prominence in recent times. There is not a single game that is still not in development with plans, roadmaps, and promises. Not a single game has fully matured and proven that it can stand the test of time. Most that I've seen are simply pyramid schemes or ponzis. Everyone wants money. The players want money, the developers want money. The developers make the game and create a medium in which value can flow. They can tweak things to always generate value for themselves like token ownership, or market trading fees. The money has to come from somewhere and all these $$$ being made by the developers are the player's money. The players come into the game knowing full well it's a play-to-earn with an expectation of making money. If the day where they're no longer making money ever comes they will drop it without blinking twice. Where does the money that this player hopes to obtain come from? it comes from the initial investment of the players as most play-to-earn require an initial investment into the ecosystem. So how the economy works is the developers are making money and some players are making money while others are losing money. And the game goes on until there is no more profit to be made and everyone leaves.
It's the stuff of dreams and desires, just like any market. It'll go up and end up crashing eventually and whether it can stand up again or not is uncertain. There has been no game that has stood the test of time and proven a sustainable play-to-earn ecosystem. The new ones and the old ones are still "in development".
So it's a risky way of making money. When one game goes down, the only choice is to find another game.
I can't say it's my first choice, but it seems it's the only
viable path for me. I'm playing a play-to-earn game right now. I'm making a small amount each day. If this game goes down one day I'll probably jump to another one. Or maybe I'll play two or more play-to-earn games to augment my income. Whatever the case may be, this is the conclusion I've come to after testing the waters and trying my options among crypto trading and staking. Those weren't just options who had little money like me. Those ways will always provide safe passive income without me having to do anything. Play-to-earn is like working, you don't work you don't get paid. But I'm glad I still have the option to earn with gaming in the first place.
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