I have 3 main "Play2Earn" Games that I played in the past year and kept statistics on, these are the 1-year earnings from each compared along with some general thoughts...
Game 1: Mobile MiniGames
Mobile Minigames General Opinion
It has been 1227 Days since the official release of Mobile Minigames (Clash of Streamers / Athene AI Heroes) and I continue to play it daily as it has become a routine and it doesn't take up a lot of time (2-10 minutes max on my phone). I also still very much enjoy the grinding nature of the game compounding my earnings. In a way, it's a much more advanced clicker game like Hamster Combat with an economy which is holding up at least after the initial crash. It's a finished unfinished game which means everything works properly with years of gameplay and progress to be made while the development for now has shifted to other priorities.
Mobile Minigames Economy
The idea behind the economy is that there is the PRPS coin which can be used to buy deals in the game at a value of 1.3$ (it used to be 13$ but there was a fork where everyone got 10x the coins). When that is locked you can create DUBI (100 PRPS Lock for a year instantly gives 4 DUBI) which can be used at a value of 2.6$. The current values of PRPS and DUBI are 0.14$ and 0.237$ so way below peg meaning there is a massive discount meaning those who got in while it was closer to peg got screwed but those who got in near the lows 0.05$ for PRPS managed to get a great deal.
| Coin | Price 1 Year ago | Price Now | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| PRPS | 0.059$ | 0.140$ | +137% |
| DUBI | 0.116$ | 0.237$ | +104% |
So over a year, assets in the game more than doubled in value while earnings also increased. This however at a fragile liquidity pool so it might go lower if someone ends up selling their bag if no buyers show up. However, the good thing is that the team continues to build products that work with PRPS and DUBI which all gets burned when used. from what I understand 5% of the 'max supply' has been burned by now. The value of the coins mainly reflect the demand and they are focused on building products that people want to use and spend money on. If they succeed, PRPS will trend toward 1$ and if it goes above they can increase the the value they accept for their products lowering the payout in PRPS which is the entire model to make the economy sustainable. It takes 3 to 6 years to earn back the investment and it's not one of those economies that is designed in an unrealistic way where players can get crazy high returns to quickly earn back what they put in.
Mobile Minigames Earnings
I have always played the game with an eye on the earnings so what I mainly do is just export exclusive skins since they generate Crypton (which can be cashed out for PRPS) forever while these exported skins can be sold. So I'm building my account with assets that can potentially be cashed out while collecting the earnings each day which I always use to export the next skin. This is a process that starts out really slow but once you get going it always goes faster and faster.
 |  |  |
|---|
The main passive earnings come from the exported Skins and my plot of land which adds up ti 13261 Crypton, I take 75% of my Crypton Crystal Generation which equals 1884 Crypton while 25% daily goes to the community. The Spellbook right now Generates 66 Crypton. On top of this there are some earnings from my community but I give all of them or even more back by adding weekly challenges to make it for those in my community fun.
The pvp arena battles every 2 weeks gives around 700-950 crypton. All of this right now adds up to 16k+ Crypton each day while my account asset are supposed be worth 23M+ Crypton.
That is 16 Crypton each day which at the current price of 0.14$ equals ~2.24$ Daily Earnings, if it were to happen that the value restores to peg this equals 16$ a day. I however continue to re-invest everything I earn and if it were to happen that the prices are getting closer to peg I would start to slowly cash out. If I would have sold each and every week, my total earnings are 559.30$ (I started tracking from week 4).
I also hold quite some of PRPS as a long-term investment which I lock in monthly batches taking profit each time selling the DUBI that I get. I also fully stopped investing in the game which in total I more or less put 4000$-5000$ into over the years part expensive and more near the bottom.
Mobile Minigames Conclusions
I still enjoy playing/grinding this game and based on the past year, the earnings actually hold up and saw a nice compounding effect while the core coins PRPS & DUBI have both more than doubled in price while still being 85% below peg so plenty of potential upside in case they would further restore in the coming year. So overall thumbs up last year for Mobile Minigames despite everything. If things don't go up or down, I should be close to 1000$ in earnings next year which would be nice for the required total of ~30 Hours playing it will take.
Game 2: Sorare
Sorare General Opinion
Sorare Economy
The economic model Sorare runs on is pretty much completely broken as part of the money that comes in from Auctions is used to give cash prizes for the in-season competitions. Old cards can be used in the classic competitions and can earn new cards from the in-season competition. So the card inflation is pretty big at 1000 Limited / 100 Rares / 10 Super Rares / 1 Unique of each player every season. Players who play in-season need to try to earn back what they paid as quickly as possible since prices are bound to go down. Players in Classic earn these cards as rewards and most of the time dump them on the market always undercutting to a lower price especially when there are no buyers.
At the same time, the potential market for this game (football fans) is massive so it's not unthinkable for there to be a demand spike at some point. Fundamentally however it remains a race to the bottom and only the lucky ones or those who are playing the game really good will be able to make some actual profit.
Sorare Earnings
I started tracking from week 6 and for most of the year re-invested the earnings so I could grow a stronger collection. So in theory when I would have sold all rewards it would have added up to 1096$ (including a Starknet 215$ airdrop which I did sell), but in practice if I would always have sold I wouldn't have the collection to get a big part of the rewards. I am at a point now though where I stopped re-investing and am just selling the rewards I'm earning only on special occasions buying another player.
| Date | Card Values | ETH Value | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19/06/2024 | 1205€ | 207€ | 1412€ |
| 10/07/2024 | 1479€ | 175€ | 1654€ |
| 25/07/2024 | 1826€ | 207€ | 2033€ |
| 31/07/2024 | 1971€ | 225€ | 2196€ |
| 07/08/2024 | 1928€ | 173€ | 2101€ |
| 14/08/2024 | 1780€ | 202€ | 1982€ |
| 21/08/2024 | 1580€ | 208€ | 1788€ |
| 28/08/2024 | 1395€ | 211€ | 1606€ |
| 04/09/2024 | 1299€ | 201€ | 1500€ |
| 11/09/2024 | 1122€ | 223€ | 1345€ |
So while I earned 1096$ in rewards, the decline in asset valued more or less fully counters that. This said, I still made profit over the year I believe as most of the too expensive buys date back from the first year where I played the game.
These are some of the cards that I still own that had the biggest price decline
These are some of the cards that I still own that had the biggest price increase
However, these prices need to be seen with a grain of salt as they are based on the last traded price which might be a lot higher still compared to the actual value at the moment.
Sorare Conclusion
Sorare remains a game I just highly enjoy playing for the actual game. I don't see it as an investment and am already happy that I'm not getting totally crushed as the rewards over the past years did make up for the fact that the market was at a peak when I first got into this game. This said, the economy model is just totally unrealistic and at best there will be another adoption wave temporarily pumping the prices. More likely though it will continue to be a race to the bottom.
Game 3: Splinterlands
Splinterlands General Opinion
When it comes down to Splinterlands, I would say it has the game with the most potential to be really fun and challenging. However, in the past 5 years the only real focus has been on devs (who remain) trying to ensure their paycheck which means the economy needs to be fixed. This always translated in making the game more pay2win while printing more and more assets since there is a core group of whales who will buy them. All of this has gotten the game to a state where it's unplayable and it makes no sense for any new players to come in.
Either you choose to play in Modern and you are sure to lose a lot of money since card prices will collapse the moment they are dumped in Wild where they lose all their value, or you play Wild where you are forced to let a bot play for you paying 2000 DEC for the wild pass + the cost to run the bot which combined kills nearly all the earings even when playing in Champion. I recently make artices addressing the issues of the Card-Price-Gap and a possible Solution. The only real thing that makes Splinterlands still worth it is the blogging earnings you can get.
Splinterlands Economy
The economy makes little to no sense as the main asset prices players need to invest in are bound to collapse in value since cards have little to no use case once they get dumped into wild. There is a crazy oversupply from the rewards and Chaos Legion era which needs to be fixed for things to work.
These 2 charts pretty much say it all as the number of cards has skyrocketed while the total market cap has totally collapsed and they continue to print as if there is no tomorrow.
SPS also is trading at a really low price while DEC also trades 27% below Peg. Basiecally the economy is broken and with the current setup the only real thing that can save it is new players coming in while the game is in a state where no new players with a right mind would ever put money into it.
Splinterlands Earning
These have been my 'earnings' from Splinterlands which include Ranked SPS Earnings, Rentals, Guild SPS Earnings, Soulkeep SPS Earnings, SPS Staking Rewards (which are a big part). Land Earnings, SPT Earingings, DEC Earnings from Burning Gladius Cards, Voucher Earnings. All minus the costs and when I would have sold each week both from my main and alt account.
However, I didn't really sell and continued to re-invest which cut this 898$ of earnings more than in half. All this, while the decline of my card assets and SPS holdings is multiple times bigger compared to the actual earnings making Splinterlands a game that counts as a massive loss both in dollars and time wasted.
Right now my average weekly earnings are just ~5.28$ based on the last 6 weeks while the assets I own combined are worth ~5500$ which equals 5% APY (by no means getting the most out of it as my alt account is on idle only playing the brawls and renting out cards is too much of a hassle)
SPS is down over 50% in a year so the decline there in what I owned a year a go is already more than what I earned with the game not even counting the cards asset value decline. About 9 months ago card collection value combined was closer to 8000$ with far fewer cards as I continued to increase what I owned to max level.
Splinterlands Conclusion
I really have a hard time to say anything good about Splinterlands after last year (and the years before) aside from the fact that it has the potential to be a great game. I also don't really see a solution for things to get better as there is no reason whatsoever for new players to come in. At the same time, I'm not willing to dump sell my assets and get out now after everything is at rock bottom prices. The only way for Splinterlands to survive is if they manage to fix the card-price-gap which I hope they will eventually shift their focus to. At least right now I'm no longer wasting time each day grinding this game for an hour as I just let my archmage bot run and do the work.
Overall Conclusion
By far the most important factor to get actual earnings from Play2Earn games is the requirement for assets prices to hold up. This remains a big gamble and these games tend to be designed in a way where they are bound to go down over time. It however does tend to come with boom and bust cycles. So when getting in after things have collapsed while there is a realistic chance of recovery is how to actually earn something. I like the overall model of Mobile Minigames as they continue to build different products that support the economy long term. For Sorare and Splinterlands however, it does look like a race to the bottom as the price gap between new and old assets is too big for new players to come in.
 |  |  |
|---|