Most people play games in order to have fun. Much of that fun is confined to escape the terrible realities of capitalism. Games offer players an abundance and richness that look impossible in real life, making play-to-earn titles like Axie Infinity very bad.
It’s been worse that some advocates of NFT still see as a model example of the opportunities play-to-earn games offer. That’s, opportunities for the rich. We all need to turn around as NPCs.
THEGAMER VIDEO of DAY – THEGAMER.
Related: Axie Infinity Is A Classic Example Of What It takes For NFT Games.
In an absolutely depressing feature from Rest of World (via Kotaku), which discussed the collapse of Minecraft NFT, a consultant said that the next logical step for the play-to-buy system is to transform users from poor developing countries into non-profits of future games.
“You have people who have money, but don’t have time to play the game,” said Mikhai Kossar, a chartered accountant and member of the Wolves’ DAO group. He advises on NFT games.
“With the cheap labor of a developing country, people in the Philippines can become NPCs (non-playable characters), real-life NPCs,” said the coach. They could “populate the world, maybe do a random job or just go back, fishing, telling stories, shopkeeper, anything is really possible.”
In Axie Infinity, Filipino players used to earn good money playing the game with Axies owned by wealthy people. After the gruelling crypto crash, a high profile hack, and Axie infinitys constantly-expanding herd of monsters made the game unprofitable, even though you didn’t have an NFT, you still ‘wanted’ the games, technically. It seems hard to believe that someone is advocating for that same players to just walk back and forth in a game where an AI could do the exact same job for free.
