![]() ![]() Those who choose to monetise their work have typically done so via Patreon, or by using their work to form new, original games – but the vast majority of the modding community creates content for fun.įor many, it’s a hobby. They also work with games by choice, to exercise creativity, or practice skills. Modders are not developers – they don’t own the assets they work with, and they typically produce smaller-scale, derivative works. They use existing assets, and an existing game engine created by Bethesda Game Studios. But they’re not contributing from scratch. Modders in Skyrim contribute new quests, new armours, new quests, and new characters to the game. In this, Matsuda is somewhat correct – modders, who he seems to be referring to, typically spend hours or even months working with in-game assets to recreate them in new ways. He further claimed that blockchain tools would change this, and allow players to claim rewards for their contributions. In the letter, Matsuda expressed enthusiasm for this trend, and said he believed ‘traditional gaming has offered no explicit incentive’ to people who, through goodwill and enthusiasm, create content for games. ‘However, I believe that there will be a certain number of people whose motivation is to “play to contribute,” by which I mean to help make the game more exciting.’ ‘I realise that some people who “play to have fun” and who currently form the majority of players have voiced their reservations … and understandably so,’ Matsuda said of the trend towards play-to-earn. To kick off 2022, Yosuke Matsuda, President and Representative Director of Square Enix, penned a letter addressing players, indicating the company would create tailored games for the play-to-earn crowd in future. Square Enix appears to support the ‘play-to-earn’ movement While the ‘play-to-earn’ concept has largely been thrown around in niche groups, whispered about alongside ‘blockchain’ and ‘NFT’ games, mainstream video game companies are already catching wind of the movement and working towards creating play-to-earn titles. ![]() Despite players pouring thousands into the game, its value creation system is still based on speculation and the assumption that players will be willing to fork out incredible sums of money for virtual goods, as with the sale of NFTs. Will players actually be able to earn money? There’s no tangible evidence yet. Rather than being for fun, Legacy is a game designed to milk cash. By purchasing virtual land and businesses in the game – some of which cost upwards of US $50 million (AU $70 million) – players have been promised a chance to earn real-life money back. Legacy, an upcoming game from Peter Molyneux – once a celebrated designer, but more recently a notorious over-promiser/under-deliverer. In this way, players would come to ‘own’ part of the game, and have their own personal stake in it. By ‘participating’, it’s believed that players should be able to earn some sort of compensation – forming a transactional relationship with developers that bears constant fruit. In the world of play-to-earn, video games are seen as jobs – grinding, difficult slogs that yield some form of reward for players. They believe games should somehow contribute monetarily, with gameplay bearing real-life, real-world benefits. They shouldn’t be about education, escapism, or mental stimulation. They believe games shouldn’t be about relaxation or working through real-life problems. In the same way an alien would poke at human culture and wonder why we stare at flat screens for so many hours a day, play-to-earn enthusiasts seem to believe playing video games should be about dollar-based value creation, rather than fun. The growth of the term ‘play-to-earn’ demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘play’ really is. This transactional understanding of what video games are appears to be gaining traction with a certain crowd of players – older, desperate adults who believe that even fun should be monetised and rewarded in our capitalist wasteland. ![]() ![]() The assumption appeared to be that because players had ‘contributed’ to these companies by purchasing and playing their games, they were owed some form of compensation or stock based on their dedication. ‘Play-to-earn couldn’t come sooner,’ this Twitter user said. When the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft was announced, one desperate punter lamented that the ‘community’ would not see a single dollar from this transaction. ![]()
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