The first wave of the play-to-earn (P2E) gaming boom seems to be coming to an end. There are still plenty of blockchain studios staging successful multimillion dollar raises around the globe, but competition for funds has tightened to the point where only standout projects are winning backers.
With great strategy more important than ever, here are a few tried-and-true steps you can take that will help set you apart when you’re seeking capital and preparing for liftoff.
Leverage experience in the traditional gaming studio sphere
The blockchain gaming market is full of builders who are experienced in crypto but haven’t built traditional games.
I’m a prime example. Pegaxy was the first game I worked on and the first I launched. Like many other web3 games of its time, its mechanics and graphics were fairly basic at the start. But while simplicity was fine with the web3 gaming crowd, it has become increasingly clear that P2E will need to attract traditional Web 2.0 gamers if it is to scale, and these gamers demand much more. To please this demographic, builders will need games that have it all: superb graphics, strong mechanics and rich lore.
You can have the best team and the best game, but without a solid monetization strategy, those mean little.
That’s why a founding team that pairs an understanding of web3 fundamentals with experience in building and monetizing Web 2.0 games for mobile, desktop and console platforms will set you apart in this market.
It’s also why, after Pegaxy was launched, we founded Mirai Labs. We wanted to assemble an expert team to build games that appeal to the traditional gaming community.
Develop a clear, straightforward monetization strategy
Most traditional P2E games have fairly simple revenue models that rely on users buying and holding the token that serves as the in-game currency.
This means that when large groups join and play a game at once, token prices and revenues rise in tandem. But when market conditions change—or when players just lose interest in a game—there can be a mass exodus of users. This is bad for revenue and can be catastrophic for token prices. Therefore, building a game that succeeds in the long term means developing monetization strategies that can weather market ebbs and flows, those that couple the best of web3 tech with proven Web 2.0 revenue models.
