All terms
Games where in game assets are real tokens the player owns and can sell.
GameFi puts game items onchain so players genuinely own them and can trade them outside the game. Play to earn went further, paying players tokens for activity.
The first generation of play to earn largely collapsed, because economies that pay out more than they take in are not economies. The durable version treats ownership as a feature of a game that is fun first, rather than a yield product with graphics.
Several layer 3 chains exist specifically for games, so player transactions never compete for block space with DeFi.
That play to earn makes a game sustainable. In most of them the earnings came from new players buying in, which is a structure with a name, and the games that survived were ones people wanted to play regardless. Fun first, tokens second.
Common questions
Why did play to earn collapse?
Is owning game items actually useful?
Where to go next
More web3 terms
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Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.