Play-to-Earn Game Guide 2024

In 2021, play-to-earn (P2E) games became very popular. This was mostly due to the growth of games like Axie Infinity and the Sandbox. Users could try a new way to play games and make sure they are in charge of their gaming experiences and assets. Are you interested in the best play-to-win games and what they have to offer? Well, there are a lot of other P2E games out there to choose from right now.

So, in the play-to-earn landscape, you are likely to find more than one best choice. But you can find your way to the best P2E games by taking a quick look at what they offer and how they are different from other digital games. In the next post, you'll find a list of the best free-to-play games you can play in 2023.

What are Play to Earn Games?

If you want to find the best "play to earn" games, you need to know what those games are. Play-to-Earn (P2E) games are basically one of the most important changes to the traditional gaming industry. You can think of them as regular games that use a blockchain and smart contracts to change the way games make money and how people play them. Players would have to find different ways to help them make more money from their gaming adventures. Players could get rewards in the form of cryptocurrency or NFTs, or the value of the NFTs they already own could go up.

On top of that, some use cases give players the freedom to bet tokens they have earned as rewards. The staked tokens could also be the basis for decentralized governance in the P2E gaming community, which is an interesting idea. Some of the most popular ways to earn money could be made much better if you could bet tokens on them.

With the help of "staked tokens," players could vote on proposals about how the game should be made and how other parameters should be changed. Some play-to-earn games imply that players must have a certain cryptocurrency or non-fungible token (NFT) in order to play. On the other hand, you can also find F2P games, which stands for "free to play."

Popularity of Play to Earn Games

When we talk about some of the most profitable play-to-earn games, we can also think about where the P2E game industry is right now. With an evolutionary step, play-to-earn games have already shown that they have the potential to change the way games are played. As time goes on, play-to-earn games could become an important part of the metaverse, giving users more immersive experiences. But, since the concept of "play to earn" (P2E) is still pretty new, the list of "play to earn" games may be limited. On the other hand, the P2E gaming industry has grown like a rocket, with new games coming out all the time.

By 2021, almost 1.4 million wallets were linked to gaming apps that did not have a central server. Also, the in-game NFTs made up almost 20% of all the NFTs that were traded in 2021. On top of that, the popularity of some games has led investors and venture capitalists to put more than $4 billion into blockchain-based games.

Popular Play to Earn Games

Play-to-earn games have grown in a random way, which has opened many doors. People are looking for ways to use crypto in play to earn games and coming up with new ways to use the P2E ecosystem. Do you want to play a game where you can win money? For first-timers, the best thing to do would be to play a game for free.

It can help you understand how blockchain-based games work and get used to the basics of P2E gaming. Play play-to-earn games to earn virtual tokens and learn how they work before you spend money on one of them. Don't buy in-game items right away, and make sure you've read up on the game to see if it's right for you.

On the other hand, some of you may have already decided to dive into the world of P2E. Here are a few of the best play-to-earn games that you should play in 2022.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity would be at the top of any list of games you can play to earn money. The NFT-based game is one of the most popular Pay-to-Win games, and it became well-known during the 2020 pandemic. In fact, people in the Philippines used the game to make money when they lost their jobs during the pandemic. The game takes place in a dystopian world where players can use NFTs to breed creatures called "Axies."

In their quest to learn more about the virtual world, players could pit their Axies against those of other players. You can also make kingdoms for the Axies with this game. Axies are interesting because they come in different types, and their rarity depends on what traits they have. Players can use the different ways to change their digital creatures to give them unique traits. As a reward for winning a creature battle, the winner gets a love potion, which can be traded for AXS, which is a native token of the P2E gaming platform.

More than eight million people play Axie Infinity, making it one of the most popular games to play to earn money. Almost a million people play the game every day, and it has had a huge impact on the digital economy. Every day, sales on the Axie Infinity marketplace were worth millions of dollars, and the cute creatures sold for thousands of dollars each.

Most importantly, Axie Infinity has a unique design element that lets it handle a huge number of players and transactions. Since the game uses the Ronin sidechain, there is no need to worry about Ethereum's high gas fees. With the power of creativity, Axie Infinity keeps adding new features and fun things for players to do.

The Sandbox

Play-to-earn games like The Sandbox, which focuses on the metaverse, are also very popular in 2022. It is a fun game that is based on the blockchain and has virtual pieces of land of different sizes. On their virtual plots of land, the owners of the virtual properties could create new experiences and build things.

On Sandbox, for example, people who own virtual land could make games, places for people to meet, or anything else they could think of. Sandbox has been around since 2012, when it started as a simple mobile game. Then, in 2018, Animoca Brands bought Sandbox and turned it into a web3 version. On the platform, the sale of virtual land began in December 2019. Since Snoop Dogg likes the Sandbox, it's clear that it's one of the best P2E games out there.

How do virtual pieces of land relate to pay-to-play games? Since Sandbox is a metaverse game, a lot of people would question its place as one of the best play-to-earn games right now. Even though the Sandbox might not be a popular P2E game, it is more than that. On Sandbox, landowners could make P2E game mechanics that give players unique experiences.

Play-to-earn rewards in Sandbox games would depend on how the game is played and how it is made. Beginners can think of The Sandbox as a free metaverse game for learning how virtual real estate works. On the other hand, you would need cryptocurrency to buy or rent a virtual plot.

With its "voxel-based" game assets, the Sandbox's look is almost the same as Minecraft's. VoxEdit and The Sandbox Game Maker can both be used to change the way a game is played. Even though scripting can be hard, you can make P2E games with the help of the tutorials and other tools on Sandbox.

Splinterlands

The crypto landscape of play-to-earn games is very appealing, and Splinterlands makes it even more so by adding the excitement of card games. It's almost like a play-to-earn trading card game in the auto-battler style, where players could only earn rewards in the form of tokens or cards by playing. The cards are unique tokens that can only be used once, and players can fight to win. Players would need to have the best cards that can help them beat their opponents.

But players have to go through a lot of quests before they can fight well. The free-to-play game has guilds, rewards, weekly tournaments, daily quests, and a marketplace inside the game. Players could join guilds and compete against other guilds every week to get the best rewards. Splinterlands is a free-to-play game, which is good news. It's a great way for people who are new to play-to-earn games in 2022 to learn how they work. You can also move ahead in the game by spending $10 on a Summoner's Spellbook NFT.

Gods Unchained

Gods Unchained is a big name among the best games you can play to make money. The IMX blockchain is used, and it is also a trading card game. The free-to-play game is easy to get started with, and players can fight against each other to see who is the best. In the battles, the game has interesting parts about war, magic, death, light, trickery, and nature.

The goal of the battle for each player is to get the health of their opponent's god down to zero. At the beginning of the game, each player can take a deck of 30 cards and pick the neutral cards. They also have to pick the cards that match their god. Also, you would have to follow some extra rules during the game.

Players could collect NFT cards to use in battles against each other. Each card had its own special abilities that could help players win. The winners of the battles could be paid with GODS tokens, which are the game's currency. It's clear that it's one of the most profitable play-to-earn games, and it can help you get ready to enter the P2E arena by building your confidence. The Immutable X blockchain, a layer-2 solution that offers scalability without expensive transaction fees, is one of the most interesting parts of Gods Unchained.

Pegaxy

A list of play-to-earn games would also include Pegaxy, which had a beta version that came out by the end of 2021. The horse racing theme of the game shows that it was made with creativity. Players could use their NFTs to buy horses, which they could then rent out, breed, and use in races. In the Pegaxy game, there are 12 horses in each race, and the top three horses get the prizes. In a short amount of time, the P2E game has shown growth in both the number of users and the ability to make money.

As of right now, the game is still in V1, which is a 2D version. But over time, it would grow into a full-fledged 3D version with more skills and elements based on strategy. The people who made the game planned to make horse breeds with unique traits more rare. Most importantly, Pegaxy is an easy way for people who are just starting out to play play-to-earn games in 2022. There are many ways to join. You can rent a racehorse or buy a horse NFT with your money to take part in races.

You can also join the game by breeding horses and racing or trading the foals. In the game, unique traits called "bloodlines" with different levels of rarity have been added. For example, the Hoz bloodline is the rarest, while the Campona bloodline is rare. Klin is the least common bloodline in the game, while Zan is the most common. Also, there are different breeds of horses in the game.

Bottom Line

The detailed look at some fun games you can play to earn money in 2022 gave me some great ideas.

The top contenders for P2E games are Axie Infinity, the Sandbox, Pegaxy, Splinterlands, and Gods Unchained. But there is more room on the list of play-to-earn games you looked at here for new games.

Play-to-earn games can give game designers more control and give more people a chance to make games. Play-to-earn games have a unique creator economy and give players the tools they need to make assets or new experiences. But it's risky to put money into play-to-win games. So, you should learn everything you can about play-to-win games before you try your best game.