I learned about play to earn games few months ago, winter of 2021. It was just after I learned about the launch of the Ethereum based NFT game, Axie infinity. Which was released back in 2020.
Axie Infinity is a non-fungible token-based online video game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis, known for its in-game economy which uses Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies.
source- Wikipedia
At the time I didn't have enough funds to participate in buying the in game tokens and avatars called axies so, i had to join some discord guilds to be enrolled for sponsorship. This means a certain percentage goes to me and the rest goes to the owner of the guild. At the time it was the only option I had and to me it felt like a smart move. I spent weeks in the guild waiting and engaging in senseless conversations along with some blind followers of the guild, well I didn't get the a sponsorship and I eventually left the guild.
Although my cousin did get the sponsored, his struggle to keep up took a toll on him and he eventually gave up. Since then I've come across a number of nft based P2E games like the smartbch's PandaLand, the polygon network Pegaxy, and Splinterlands of the hive Blockchain.
One problem kept persistent in most of the games, especially pandaland and pegaxy. neither of the two had withdrawal limit, which meant whales could make a large scale withdrawal of their profits causing the token to crumble. Pegaxy had to deal with lone wolf guild, the largest sponsors in the entire pegaxy community, this guild could have easily destroyed pegaxy if certain measures weren't taken. millions of in game token were withdrawn every day by members of the guild, the admin of this guild encouraged it's members to have multiple accounts which was clearly against the guideline of pegaxy. eventually accounts worth over 2.8million $VIS ($17k) were banned.
Whales are not the only problem with P2E games. Initially the new concept of play to earn games was very promising and the opportunities people saw in it were endless, but with time the urge and excitement faded away. "It doesn't just feel right spending a lot of money and time on game backed by a volatile currency" this is the idea most investors have right now. During a conversation with a friend of mine, i made mention of splinter lands since I know nothing about the game i decided to seek this knowledge about it.
right now people are making more money from writing about splinter lands than actually playing it.
those were his exact words, although this is a statement I am yet to confirm since I've never played it. But, if this is true then it seems the whole concept of P2E games is dying.
This is what I feel about the play to earn games generally. Although I might be wrong, but I feel the concept of P2E gaming is dead.