How to Build a Play-to-Earn (P2E) Game
Sergey.O
Play-to-Earn (P2E) games have taken center stage in the rapidly evolving gaming industry, attracting a growing number of players and developers alike. Try to imagine a project that combines opportunities to earn for both owners and players, using blockchain technologies and growing annually at billions of dollars.
Well, this story can only be about P2E games which already today are poised to revolutionize the gaming landscape.
Blockchain experts and other crypto enthusiasts are pretty sure that in the next 5 years, the P2E games market will reach a $2845,1 million cap. And even more. The biggest crypto industry players engage themselves in the P2E gaming market, setting partnerships, launching projects, and doing certain investments and already rapidly growing gaming ecosystems.
For instance, Binance CEO – Changpeng Zhao twitted that Binance concluded a partnership with one of the biggest games developers in the world, hinting that the GameFi industry will definitely take its place in the nearest future.
But what exactly are play-to-earn games? Simply put, they’re games that allow players to earn real-world rewards, such as cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), for their in-game achievements. This unique feature has made play-to-earn games a hit with gamers and investors alike, with some of the most successful titles in the genre generating millions of dollars in revenue.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll dive into the world of P2E game development, exploring their benefits, key features, and essential considerations for developing a successful P2E game.
At Blaize, we’ve been at the forefront of blockchain development, and our expertise in play-to-earn games development makes us the perfect partner for your gaming project. In common meaning, P2E games are frequently called nft games. Let’s get things clearer and embark on this exciting journey together!
What are P2E Game and How Does it Actually Work?
P2E games are an innovative fusion of gaming and blockchain technology, allowing players to earn rewards by participating in various in-game activities. These rewards often come as cryptocurrencies or other digital assets that can be traded, sold, or used within the game ecosystem.
Through blockchain technology, P2E games provide a transparent, secure, and decentralized environment for players to own and manage their in-game assets. P2E games have gained significant popularity in the gaming community by enabling players to monetize their gaming skills and time.
The underlying technology of P2E games involves using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other smart contracts on various blockchain ecosystems considering their features (bandwidth, transaction speed, scalability, etc.). NFTs represent unique digital assets, like in-game items or characters, and smart contracts govern the rules of the game, ensuring fairness and transparency.
How to Create a P2E Game?
Creating a successful P2E game requires a combination of innovative game design, strategic in-game economy, and effective marketing. Briefly, it looks as follows:
- Concept and game mechanics development
- Design and in-game economy and tokenomics
- Choosing blockchain ecosystem
- Choosing the developers team and the development process
- Marketing & community building
- Launch and post-launch support
Main Advantages of Play-to-Earn Games
Opportunity to Earn Money
One of the most significant benefits of P2E games is the potential for players to earn money while enjoying their gaming experience. By completing in-game tasks, participating in battles, or discovering valuable items, players can accumulate digital assets that can be traded, sold, or exchanged for real-world value. This financial incentive has attracted many players, who see P2E games as a way to monetize their skills and time spent gaming.
Creation of a Global Gaming Community
P2E games have fostered the growth of global gaming communities, bringing together players from different parts of the world to collaborate, compete, and trade in-game assets. This has led to the formation of vibrant and diverse ecosystems within P2E games, where players can forge new friendships, learn from each other, and build strong networks.
Enhanced Security for the Gaming Industry
By leveraging blockchain technology, P2E games offer a higher security level than traditional gaming platforms. Blockchain’s decentralized and transparent nature ensures that in-game assets are securely stored and easily verifiable, reducing the risk of fraud and hacking. Furthermore, the use of smart contracts ensures that transactions within the game are carried out fairly and according to predefined rules, providing players with a secure and trustworthy environment.
Democratization of Game Development
P2E games have also democratized the game development process by allowing smaller, independent developers to create successful games that can compete with established gaming giants. This has resulted in a more diverse gaming landscape, with innovative and unique titles developed by passionate teams from all around the globe.
Things to Consider When Developing a Play-to-Earn Game
The P2E game development process includes multiple stages and requires deep expertise combined with great performance to make success. Here’s the list of the most essential points to pay attention to when developing an NFT game project:
Sustainable and Scalable Business Model
A successful P2E game requires a sustainable and scalable business model that can support the game’s growth while maintaining its appeal to players. This includes devising a balanced reward system that encourages player engagement without causing inflation or undermining the game’s economy. Additionally, the game should have a clear roadmap for future updates and expansions to keep the player base engaged and foster long-term growth.
Elaborate Tokenomics Model
Tokenomics, the economic system surrounding a game’s native tokens or cryptocurrencies, is a crucial aspect of P2E game development. A well-designed tokenomics model should incentivize players to participate in the game and contribute to its ecosystem. This may include mechanisms for earning, spending, and staking tokens, as well as governance systems that allow players to have a say in the game’s development and direction.
Suitable Blockchain Platform
Selecting the right blockchain platform for your P2E game is essential, as blockchain properties such as transaction speed, security, and scalability will impact various aspects of the game. Popular blockchain platforms for P2E games include Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon, each offering unique advantages and trade-offs. Carefully consider factors such as network fees, transaction throughput, and developer community support when choosing a platform for your game.
Engaging Gameplay and Story
While the play-to-earn aspect is undoubtedly a significant draw for players, a P2E game should offer engaging gameplay and an immersive storyline in the first place to keep players invested in the long term. Striking the right balance between fun gameplay and profitable opportunities is critical to creating a successful P2E game.
Key Features of P2E Games
Fraud Detection and Prevention
To maintain a secure and fair gaming environment, P2E games must incorporate robust fraud prevention mechanisms. This may include monitoring for suspicious activities, implementing anti-bot measures for player accounts, and utilizing blockchain’s inherent security features to protect in-game assets.
Tokenomics
An essential feature of P2E games is a well-designed tokenomics model that governs the game’s native tokens or game currency. This includes token distribution, utility, and mechanisms for earning, spending, and staking tokens within the game. A successful tokenomics model should incentivize players to participate in the game and contribute to its ecosystem while maintaining a healthy in-game economy.
Micro Payments
To facilitate seamless in-game transactions, P2E games should support micro payments, allowing players to make small, frequent transactions without incurring high fees. This enables players to easily trade and sell their in-game assets, enhancing the overall gaming experience and fostering a thriving in-game economy.
In-Game Currency
A crucial component of P2E games is the implementation of an in-game currency that can be earned, traded, and spent within the game ecosystem. This currency should have real-world value, enabling players to monetize their gaming efforts and providing a tangible incentive to participate in the game. In many P2E games, in-game currency takes the form of tokens, bonds or other cryptoassets built on blockchain platforms.
Player-Owned Assets and NFTs
P2E games should incorporate player-owned assets, often represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to empower players with true ownership and control over their in-game items, characters, and other digital assets. NFTs, which are unique and indivisible, enable players to trade, sell, or use their assets within the game ecosystem, fostering a vibrant and dynamic in-game economy.
P2E Game Architecture
Developing a P2E game requires a well-designed architecture that seamlessly integrates gaming components with blockchain technology. P2E game developers usually need to have wide expertise in blockchain as well as programming. Here’s a high-level overview of the key elements that make up a typical P2E game architecture:
dApp (Decentralized Application)
A dApp provides a transparent, secure, and trustless environment for users. In the context of P2E games, dApps enable seamless management of in-game assets, rewards, and transactions, elevating the overall gaming experience. DApps grant users access to smart contracts, used by the games.
Smart Contracts
Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into code. In nft games, smart contracts govern various aspects of the game, such as asset ownership, token distribution, and in-game transactions. In P2E games smart contracts play a key role in games’ mechanics: they provide gaming logic, and ensure transparency, fairness, and security in their operations.
Blockchain Ecosystem
The blockchain ecosystem picked for a separate P2E game grants various features and opportunities for a project. Some chains provide extra scalability and extra rapid transactions, which is crucial for a popular game. Some of the ecosystems are aimed at nft projects and support additional infrastructure for them (like marketplaces, special decentralized storage services, aggregators, etc). Choosing the suitable blockchain depends greatly on a separate project’s game mechanics and goals.
Decentralized Storage
Decentralized storage solutions, such as IPFS or Filecoin, can be used to store game assets, metadata, and other data securely and transparently. This ensures that in-game assets are permanently accessible and not subject to the control of any single entity.
Decentralized Marketplace
A decentralized marketplace allows players to trade, sell, and purchase in-game assets, such as NFTs, tokens, or items, in a peer-to-peer manner. These marketplaces can be built on top of existing decentralized exchange (DEX) protocols or developed as custom solutions for the specific game.
Play-to-Earn Game Development Team
Developing a P2E game requires a diverse set of tools, frameworks, and technologies that cater to both the gaming and blockchain aspects of the project. Furthermore, one of the crucial elements of P2E game development is a team.
Game Designer
An experienced game designer is crucial in crafting a captivating P2E experience. They create the core gameplay mechanics, storylines, and characters, ensuring your game is engaging and aligns with the expectations of the P2E gaming community.
Tokenomics Specialist
A tokenomics developer plays a vital role in designing a balanced and sustainable in-game economy. They carefully plan the distribution, earning potential, and utility of tokens, ensuring that the game’s economy remains appealing and drives long-term player engagement.
Smart Contract Developer
A skilled smart contract developer is essential for integrating blockchain technology into your P2E game. They design and deploy secure smart contracts that manage in-game assets, rewards, and transactions, enabling a transparent and trustworthy gaming experience.
Back-end Developer
A proficient back-end developer builds additional services for your P2E game, ensuring events aggregation and indexing, metadata caching, historical data management, user’s statistics, and leaderboards. Their expertise is vital for maintaining a high-performance gaming environment that can scale with your growing player base.
Front-end Developer
A talented front-end developer creates the visual and interactive elements of your P2E game, ensuring an immersive and enjoyable gaming experience. They optimize the game for various platforms, making it accessible to a wide range of players.
UX\UI Designer
A creative UX/UI designer focuses on the game’s usability and aesthetics, crafting intuitive interfaces and engaging visual designs. Their expertise is essential in creating a seamless and visually appealing experience that retains players and enhances their satisfaction with your P2E game.
Blaize
At Blaize, we provide a comprehensive team of experts, encompassing game designers, tokenomics developers, smart contract developers, back-end developers, front-end developers, and UX/UI designers. Our holistic approach ensures your P2E game project benefits from the collective expertise of our specialists, guaranteeing a successful and engaging gaming experience that stands out in the competitive P2E market. Partner with Blaize to bring your P2E vision to life.
Blaize Is Ready to Become Your Reliable P2E Game Development Partner
As a seasoned blockchain and IT development company, Blaize is fully equipped to help you bring your P2E game vision to life and answer the question of how to create a P2E game. With a deep understanding of both the gaming and blockchain industries, Blaize offers a comprehensive set of services that can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of your project:
Expertise in Game and Blockchain Development
Blaize’s team of experienced developers, designers, and blockchain experts have the knowledge and skills to handle every aspect of your P2E game development, from game mechanics and asset creation to smart contract development and tokenomics.
Proven Track Record
Blaize has a successful history of developing and deploying P2E games and other blockchain-related projects. Our portfolio of completed projects showcases our ability to deliver high-quality, engaging, and secure gaming experiences.
End-to-End Development Services
Blaize provides a full suite of P2E game development services, including conceptualization, design, development, testing, deployment, and post-launch support. Our end-to-end approach ensures that every aspect of your project is expertly managed, saving you time and resources.
Transparent and Flexible Collaboration
At Blaize, we prioritize transparent communication and flexible collaboration. We work closely with our clients throughout the development process, providing regular updates and adapting to changing requirements to ensure the final product meets your expectations.
Competitive Pricing
By partnering with Blaize, you gain access to a team of experienced professionals at competitive rates. We offer cost-effective solutions that can help you develop your P2E game without breaking the bank.
To learn more about our past projects and how we can help you create a P2E game, check out our cases.
Conclusion
In this article, we have explored the exciting world of P2E games, detailing their benefits, key features, development considerations, and cost breakdown. With their potential to revolutionize the gaming industry and create new opportunities for gamers and developers alike, P2E games are poised to become an increasingly important part of the gaming landscape.
Furthermore, nowadays, P2E games tend to conquer mobile devices as a base for their future expansion. A lot of iOs and Android developers consider nft games market as one with the best potential to grow.
From a financial point of view, P2E game may result in a prospective investment for both players and owners of the project. Only a custom P2E game development can assist in taking first place in marketplace ranks.
As a trusted partner in play-to-earn game development, Blaize is well-equipped to help you navigate this emerging market and create a successful, engaging, and profitable gaming experience. Our expert team is ready to provide in-depth consultation and support on every aspect of your project, ensuring that your P2E game stands out from the competition.
Don’t hesitate to contact our team to discuss your P2E game idea and learn more about how we can help you bring it to life.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to choose a developer to create a play-to-earn game?
When selecting a developer for your P2E game, consider their experience in both game and blockchain development, their portfolio of completed projects, their communication and collaboration style, and their pricing structure. Blaize is an experienced and reliable choice for P2E game development, offering a comprehensive set of services at competitive rates.
Are play-to-earn crypto games legit?
Yes, play-to-earn crypto games are legitimate, and many players have earned real-world value by participating in these games. However, it’s essential to research each game thoroughly and ensure it has a transparent development team and a solid tokenomics model before investing time and resources.
What is the most profitable play-to-earn game?
The profitability of a P2E game can vary depending on factors like the game’s popularity, tokenomics, and the player’s ability to excel in the game. Some well-known examples of profitable P2E games include Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and Decentraland.
How do P2E games make money?
P2E games generate revenue through a combination of in-game purchases, transaction fees, and sometimes advertising. The developers may also hold a portion of the game’s native tokens, which can appreciate in value as the game gains popularity and user adoption.
How much does it cost to develop a P2E game?
The cost of developing a P2E game can vary greatly depending on the scope, complexity, and specific requirements of the project. However, the total cost can be significantly reduced by partnering with an experienced outsourcing team like Blaize, which offers a wide range of expertise and resources at competitive rates.
Can Blaize help me build a P2E game from scratch?
Yes, Blaize can help you build a P2E game from scratch. Our team of experienced game and blockchain developers can guide you through every stage of the process, from concept development and design to smart contract implementation, tokenomics, and post-launch support.
Post author
Sergey Onyshchenko
Co-founder & CEO of Blaize
Expert on decentralized finance, governance, policies and blockchain technologies.