15 Best Play To Earn Games in 2023

The gaming industry is growing faster than ever before and is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. This boom is attributed to the influx of new players due to the pandemic and the increased demand for practical and play to earn games, especially on mobile platforms. However, most traditional games require an investment from the player, being either fully/partially paid or having paid additional content. The Play-to-Earn (P2E) model is different in that, on the contrary, it allows players to earn. For this purpose, blockchain and NFT technologies are used in the development of such crypto games.

I will tell you about the best blockchain based games on the P2E model, which became popular in 2022 and were supported by other well-known projects such as Binance, OpenSea, Decentraland and Bybit.

What are Play to earn games?

Most games have trading floors where users can buy and trade items - weapons, armour, decoration items, potions etc. In traditional games, all such items are simply drawn pictures, the player does not actually own any of it. There is also no transparency or ability to influence the game mechanics.

Blockchain has introduced decentralised fair virtual markets, where players have a real say and game developers no longer have full power over gameplay. Key differences from traditional gaming models:

The ability to buy and sell NFT items on any blockchain markets (Binance NFT, OpenSea), not just within the game for which they are intended. This gives a sense of real ownership and complete control.
Potential for creativity and earnings. NFTs can be created by the participants themselves and then sold at a fair market price to other participants.
Open, distributed and transparent ecosystems. User account = their wallet connected to the game, all transactions are transferred directly from or to the wallet without intermediaries.
So, there are two key features that make P2E games unique: the integration of cryptocurrencies used for payments within the platform and the use of NFT. Just like in the real economy, it is possible to make money in the game markets, as well as receive financial rewards for active game actions. The potential in the industry is enormous, obviously, and things are just getting off the ground now.

Best Play-to-Earn Games in 2022

Silks

Silks has created their own virtual world to bring the horse racing experience to life. It combines the horse's training history, race records, breed, bloodlines and other data to create a digital twin of sorts - a one-of-a-kind horse that you train and compete with against other virtual horses in your league.

This means that you can take ownership of virtual horses in the shape of non-fungible tokens that are linked to real-world thoroughbred racehorses. Every time a real-life horse triumphs in a race, $STT, this is translated into STT tokens that make up your personal stable. Silks’ native crypto token will be awarded to you, the owner. There are a number of racetracks and you may pit your horse against others.

As we have discussed, the horses will be represented via NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and this allows for the creation of a secondary market. You can use STT tokens on properties and more in the Silks ecosystem. Other ways for gamers to earn money are by staking Bitcoin, rearing, and selling horses.

FINALLY, the Silk roadmap outlines intentions for a public sale of Silks in the second quarter of 2022. The first auction will be for Silks horses, followed by virtual land and stables that will be available for sale in the third quarter. Silks players will be able to generate racing and breeding incentives through metaverse registration and on-ramping in the fourth quarter of 2022. These incentives will be available to players who are registered and verified with Silks, which will make it easier for them to enter the game with an established avatar.

Decentraland

Important features:

Axie Infinity

Important features:

Alien Worlds

Important features:

Genopets

The Genopets is your virtual NFT pet that develops, can be upgraded and customized as you level up in the game. A Genopet is given to the player at a minimum level for free.

There are various ways to level up your pet. If you choose Free-to-play, it will take you quite some time to level up your pet.

If you want your Genopets to level up faster, there are also paid options.

The first option is in-game. You will need to purchase a Habitat, the place where your pet will live. Genopet also evolves with XP, the experience points you get for physical activity. His evolution is guided and accelerated by purified crystals.

Cleared crystals are NFTs, which you get by using the GENE control token and the in-game KI token. There are a total of five types of crystals, each of which gives your pet certain abilities.

Important features:

Mines of Dalarnia

Mines of Dalarnia is an adventure game consisting of levels, each containing different terrains. Players can craft, sell and buy in-game consumables, mine minerals and improve character skills.

Important features:

CropBytes

Cropbytes is a popular game from 2018. It is one of the few blockchain based games running as an iOS and Android app. It has contributed noticeably to the popularity of cryptocurrencies among regular gamers. The game focuses mainly on the fun factor, is a farm simulation. Players work with digital assets such as animals, plants, buildings - they can sell and buy them. The assets increase in value as the game progresses.

Important features:

My Neighbor Alice

In My Neighbor Alice, players set up their virtual farm, grow crops, sell them, and rent out their land if they wish. In addition, there are animals with crafting abilities in the metadiverse. For example, if a player has cotton, they can use animals to help craft thread, then fabric, etc. You can then sell your goods at a profit. The game also offers a number of tasks that can be done for a reward..

Important features:

The Sandbox

The Sandbox platform resembles the games Minecraft and Roblox, but on blockchain and with its own currency. Players are able to create their own game objects and trade them. The developer has released a full-fledged editor suitable for creating models and animations. As a result, a meta universe is gradually formed, including many game territories and items.

Important features:

Mobile P2E Games: Android and IOS

Reward Hunters

Reward Hunters is a blockchain-based NFT game that has quickly become one of the most popular play to earn games on the market. The game provides a wide range of features, including a battle royale mode and an open world setting. Reward Hunters can be played on both Android and iOS devices.

You can participate in a 1 vs. 1 battle or play an eight-person game in which the last player standing is the winner. However, there is one condition for playing Reward Hunters: You have to purchase its native token RHT as it makes you eligible for Binance Coin (BNB) rewards.

Skyweaver

Yet another exciting P2E game is coming soon. Skyweaver is a browser-based cross-platform card game where you can own, trade, and gift your cards. The gameplay itself has a lot of potential and it is becoming widely popular among gamers. With the game being browser-based, it means that you will be able to play it wherever you want - PC, Mac, or any device with an internet connection. Skyweaver is a free-to-play digital card game that is suitable for both novice and experienced players. With its deeply strategic gameplay, player-owned marketplace, and tradable NFT cards, it's a highly addictive game with limitless replayability.

Skyweaver is a completely free-to-play card game that doesn't require any costs to unlock cards at 500+. You can choose between two different modes, including "discovery" and "constructed" when you start playing.

Farmers World

In the game, Farmers World, farming and harvesting crops is paramount. Tools and resources like land are available to buy or lease. This game was built on WAX, which allows for an immersive experience. Smart contracts are used as transactions and the decentralized nature of WAX means that players can interact with a rural setting.
It’s quite popular, in fact, it has over 150 000 active players according to the website. To play Farmers World you need to own a specific NFT. You can develop your farm by building cow sheds and chicken hoops. This will give you more food options, such as milk and eggs. As you wait for your harvest to complete, you can battle other farmers in order to earn rewards. You can also work with others in order to go on quests that will give you a variety of rewards, but only if the quest is completed within a limited time frame.

Monsta Infinite

Monsta Infinite is an example of P2E games that deserve all the attention they can get. There may be many more similar programs out there, yet this one has the potential to rank among the most popular.

If a player wants to participate in "monster battles" in Monsta Infinite, they must get 3 monsters from the market. Each monster has the same parts – they each have 6 card skills and 2 attack cards/defense cards.

War Of Crypta

Yet another mindlessly fun P2E game. War of Crypta is a game where you can participate in a war on the planet called Crypta. In this game, you can make a team of heroes and play against another player. You can have up to four heroes at once on your team.

The game's battle system is based on rank levels. You are matched with opponents that are close to your level so you will be engaged and challenged. War of Crypta's battle system has a twist: your hero is limited by stamina to execute moves. This means you'll have to beat the opponent in one turn instead of playing turn-based.

Binemon

If you're a gamer, you'll know what Pokemons are. Binemon, a crypto game inspired by Pokemon, is launching soon. This game will combine elements such as collectibles, gacha and RPG in a way that's similar to other popular play to earn games.

In Binemon, you can create your army of pets to battle. You can earn Ambrosia, which is one of the three currencies used in Binemon through battles and purchasing items from the shops. You can also acquire Mons, but this is possible only with Draken, a currency that you need

Devikins

Another emerging P2E game that is quickly becoming popular with gamers is Devikins. In the Devikins world, you can collect and breed different characters to make your roster more robust and versatile. Devikins is a turn-based RPG game that features a JRPG combat system. You can become the greatest dragon slayer of your generation. Furthermore, players can buy and sell characters on the built-in marketplace using Devikins coin (DVK). As an added bonus, the game also features a fully customizable battle system as well as a complex skill tree with multiple paths to choose from.

Crazy Kings

Crazy Kings is a typical tower defense game. You have to build towers in order to defend yourself from various attacks. The popularity of the game is growing and (at least in my opinion) there are two reasons for that: firstly, it has very simple controls and secondly, the content is updated frequently. The first one is quite simple – the game's interface is wonderfully nice and well-organised and you'll love it right away. 

You can also earn TOWER coins. Crazy Kings features an in-game contest called the Colosseum where players can win TOWER tokens by competing. This is another step in their growth, which is aimed at rebuilding a free-to-play game into a p2e game, and has been shown to have led to an increase in revenue.

MOBOX

MOBOX is a platform that offers multiple games, including farmer OMO, token master, and trade action. The ultimate goal of MOBOX is to provide a platform for people to explore the world with their imaginations and creativity.

The MOBOX team is constantly working on developing new play to earn games for the users. They are also looking for ways to make MOBOX more accessible to people around the world, so that everyone can enjoy it.

P2E Games without Investments

Walken

Walken is a M2E game in which you can earn tokens for battles with other players. The game will be built around an NFT character they call CATthlete, working on this character the team was inspired by Tamagotchi. At the moment the game is in open beta testing.

Walken Gameplay

After downloading the application and registering, each player gets a free CAThlete (game character), you can also buy a character on the market or open a box and get a random character.

Character Upgrade and Earnings

To level up a character, you need GEMs (in-game currency) and WLKN tokens (the main token in the ecosystem, which will be traded on exchanges):

1. GEMs can be obtained only for walking, you do not need to walk with the app, it is enough to give access to Apple HealthKit on iOS and Android Health on Andriod, the steps will be automatically converted into GEMs, 1k steps = 1 GEM.

2. you get WLKN tokens for battles:

Additional accessories for pumping

In addition to the characters themselves, there are also clothes in the game:

• Hat
• T-shirt
• Shorts
• Sneakers
• Accessory
• Artefact

It can be bought for tokens on the market or you can buy a box and try your luck.

In turn, the clothes give additional points for characteristics, they, like the character, are divided into:

Each item has a different amount of Stamina, Strength and Speed bonus points. They need to be matched depending on the character's characteristics.

The Sandbox

Blockchain: Ethereum

The Sandbox is a decentralized NFT game on the Ethereum blockchain, in which users create digital items in the form of NFT and develop their own game worlds based on them. The gameplay is based on the popular game Minecraft, so The Sandbox is a game metaworld where you can move from one world to another.

The Sandbox was created by the developers of the startup Pixowl Inc. in 2011. In 2013, the development of The Sandbox game for mobile devices began, it can be considered the ancestor of the modern version. In 2018, The Sandbox was bought by Animoca Brands to launch the NFT version of buhs. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong, with staff from around the world working remotely.

The project is supported by companies such as Adidas, Atari, SoftBank, and famous musicians such as SnoopDogg and Avenged Sevenfold.

The Sandbox is currently one of the most popular and dynamically developing NFT games. Soon, the game is expected to be released on other platforms, such as macOS.

At the time of the ICO in August 2020, the price of the SAND token was £0.008; in December 2021, SAND is capitalized at £3,592,760,353 with a price per token of £3.93.

Gods Unchained

Blockchain: Ethereum, Immutable X.
A fantasy-themed tactical trading card game reminiscent of such giants as Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone. The game has beautiful graphics and dynamic gameplay. All cards and characters in the game are NFTs.

Sorare

Blockchain: Ethereum.

A football-themed collectable card game with NFT cards of popular real-life football players. The starting 5 cards are free, and that's already enough to take part in virtual tournaments. The developers have entered into a partnership with a number of well-known football clubs to produce NFT cards of real football players.

Crazy Kings

Blockchain: Ethereum.

A game that combines the popular genres of tower defence and collectable card games. The game already has more than 600 levels and is still evolving. Unfortunately, it's currently only available on iOS. Despite that, the game has had more than 1 million downloads worldwide.

Thetan Arena

Blockchain: Binance Smart Chain.

An eSports game with MOBA and Battle Royale modes. The game was created with a focus on the Asian audience and has over 23 million players.

The Six Dragons

Blockchain: Enjin

A fantasy-themed open-world RPG reminiscent of Skyrim. It's a very ambitious project with a 256 km² map of the game world, featuring 1 billion randomly generated dungeons. The player can gather useful resources, create unique items and trade with other players.

Town Star

Blockchain: Ethereum

A competitive farming game in a town-building simulation genre. The player's goal is to build a profitable city by producing and selling goods. The most successful players are rewarded with tokens.

Lost Relics

Blockchain: Enjin

An action-adventure RPG resembling Diablo. The player ventures into dungeons full of traps and monsters to retrieve NFTs in the form of relics and other in-game items. The game was released in 2019 but is still evolving, with regular events and encounters.

What Are Popular P2E Coins?

There are four major players dominating the Play-to-Earn Games genre, occupying a large portion of the market share. Look at the chart below, and you can see that Decentraland (MANA), The Sandbox (SAND), Axie Infinity (AXS) and GALA all have market caps that are many times higher than their closest competitors.

First, let's address the obvious: the entire market has seen a significant bounce from its lows. The screengrab below shows Bitcoin’s performance over the last month, compared to GALA’s performance.

Looking at the graphs, it seems Bitcoin and GALA move in a close correlation. Where Bitcoin has corrected by 52% over the past few months, GALA has dropped a whopping 82%. Bitcoin, which is the first cryptocurrency, then saw a 38% bounce before sinking back down to its starting price. GALA, on the other hand, saw a 162% increase in its price before quickly leveling out. This is known as beta in finance jargon

Beta is the volatility of an asset compared to the index. Bitcoin is usually seen as the index when looking at crypto markets. Assets with a higher beta value (>1) generally can fluctuate in both directions, but always in the same direction as Bitcoin's price.

So, a large portion of the sector’s outperformance can be simply attributed to the fact that it is merely a higher beta Bitcoin proxy

Although not an entirely accurate representation of what caused this upturn, the beta alone is not the true reason for the recent highs in P2E coins. As mentioned earlier in this article, there have been many changes within sectors over time and it would be prudent to examine those as well. During the bull market, we've seen every coin in the market enjoy large gains. But some coins were better than others -- they performed better and jumped at a proportionally higher rate than the rest of the market.

These assets are usually related to each other in some way, such as the recent NFT hype, DeFi summer 2020 and FOAN trend. Every time these sectors do well, this article pops up. The buying frenzy usually starts at this point. For example, if you identify the basket early on that is outperforming its peers, you can then make some good money

P2E Tokens Exchanges

Exchanges with P2E tokens:

• Binance
• Bybit
• KuCoin
• Gate.io
• MEXC
• Huobi
• PancakeSwap
• Uniswap

You can get digital assets by playing the play to earn games to which they relate, for various in-game activities and selling NFTs on in-game marketplaces.

It is also possible to get game tokens by taking part in a token sale: say, at the time of writing there is a sale of Genopets (GENE) on the Bybit Launchpad platform. And Mines of Dalarnia (DAR) tokens are available for farming via Binance Launchpool.

Advantages and disadvantages

What’s the Future for P2E Games?

Play to earn games is still in the early stages, which is why many experts believe it will become the "future of gaming." It not only gives you an opportunity to play your favorite games while making money, but also offers a satisfying gaming experience. If the model took off, a whole new era for gaming would come about. You would get paid to play games rather than paying money for them.

The future of this business model remains unclear with questions about the long-term viability and whether or not pay-to-earn will ruin the gaming experience over time still unanswered.

In any case, play-to-earn gaming is another movement you should keep your eye on – new projects are popping up left & right! I'm curious to see what P2E brings next.

FAQ

Answers to the most buzzing questions are down below.

How are blockchain games with a Play-to-Earn (P2E) model different?

They allow users to earn digital tokens, or NFTs, which can then be sold and generate income.

How to play P2E games?

You will need a web-3 wallet that can connect to the blockchain. The most commonly used is the Metamask browser wallet, but it depends on which blockchain the game runs on. Further, all transactions in the game will be made directly from or to the wallet.

Do I need an investments to play P2E?

Yes, in most cases you will need to invest a small amount to buy your starting resources. Therefore you should only choose well-known and proven projects to minimize the chance of losing money.

Which blockchain do the games run on?

Initially, Ethereum was the most popular option, but due to its slowness and cost, developers now often stop at other networks: Binance Smart Chain, Tron, Solana, etc.

What role do NFTs play?

Usually in play to earn games of this type, various items, pets or territories are NFT tokens. These can be created, bought and sold, and marketplaces are integrated into platforms for this purpose. You may also use third-party marketplaces, as each NFT  is technically owned by its creator/buyer and is not bound to a particular marketplace.

How much money can I earn playing crypto games?

It depends on the game itself and its capabilities as well as the state of the market. At a better time on Axie Infinity, people were earning the national average wage per month. When the frenzy subsided somewhat, incomes got lower as well.

Conclusion

The principle behind most Play-to-Earn, or blockchain-based games, is quite simple - it's based on using blockchain as a distributed ledger technology to convert game assets into NFT. In this way, the virtual items become unique, with a confirmed right of authenticity. In addition, such game projects are equipped with a full-fledged internal digital economy. It can be expanded to an entire metaconset. Blockchain provides opportunities for all stakeholders: commercialisation for projects and additional revenue options for players.

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