Bang Jun-hyuk, Chairman of Netmarble, is announcing new business strategies at the 5th NTP (Netmarble Together with Press), a Netmarble vision and new game development presentation held on the morning of the 27th at G-Tower in Guro-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]
[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] "If you mine with two characters 24 hours a day, you can generate a minimum monthly income of 750,000 KRW."
A YouTuber is explaining the earnings from Wemade's 'Mir4 Global,' a so-called money-making game released as a 'P2E' (Play-to-Earn). He claimed that through this game, a minimum monthly income of 750,000 KRW is guaranteed, and if paid items are used, the monthly income can reach up to 1,500,000 KRW. The video surpassed 10,000 views in a short time, and comments continued asking how to increase earnings.
There is a global craze for P2E. The domestic gaming industry has already released games or announced dozens of game releases to capture the P2E market. Especially, most P2E games utilize Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), increasing their popularity. Although cashing out game items using NFTs is illegal in Korea, cases of people sustaining their livelihoods through P2E games in some countries have become known, and many are accessing P2E games through illegal methods.
However, contrary to popular belief, only a very small number of users actually generate income from P2E games. We have summarized the realities and myths of P2E games.
How many P2E game users are there?
According to a report by blockchain application data platform DappRadar on the 7th, the number of active wallets, which refers to the total number of wallets used for virtual asset transactions last year, was 2.7 million, a 592% increase compared to the previous year. Of these, more than 1.4 million were connected to blockchain games.
Considering the continuous release of P2E games, it is expected that the number of users could exceed 2 million this year. In March alone, domestic game companies plan to release more than seven P2E games. Currently, about 920 P2E games are being serviced worldwide, with new games launching daily.
Can you really make money?
The biggest interest in P2E games is whether you can actually earn money while playing. The structure of P2E games is simple. Taking Wemade's game 'Mir4 Global' as an example, certain items or characters obtained in the game can be converted into Mir4’s Draco tokens, which can then be exchanged for the cryptocurrency WEMIX.
The problem lies in the time and investment cost required to generate actual income. The core item that can be exchanged for tokens in Mir4, ‘Black Iron,’ has a fixed total mining amount. Also, to mine Black Iron, a character must reach a certain level, which generally takes about five days. Meeting this condition is not the end. To increase Black Iron mining volume, continuous growth and item purchases are necessary, and players must constantly fend off interference from other users trying to disrupt mining.
If two characters mining Black Iron are operated on one PC 24 hours without any interruption, a monthly income of 750,000 KRW is possible. Ultimately, it is difficult for regular users playing 2 to 3 hours a day to generate substantial income.
Is item trading through NFTs safe?
Most current P2E games do not structurally differ from past item cash trading through specific platforms. However, applying NFTs shows a decisive difference. In the past, when trading characters, users had to transfer their entire account, but now characters are tokenized as NFTs, allowing only the character to be traded. Since NFTs are used, the original owner of the item or character cannot be forcibly taken back, preventing so-called 'scams' or 'rug pulls.'
Especially, the use of cryptocurrency in NFT transactions is a critical difference. Unlike cash, cryptocurrencies fluctuate greatly depending on market volatility, causing actual value to differ from in-game rarity or other factors. To maintain a stable market price, game companies must adjust the drop rates of in-game items exchangeable for NFTs or artificially buy and sell NFTs or cryptocurrencies issued by the company. Such interventions are inevitable. During this process, the market value of NFTs can surge or plummet, and the very existence of the game may be decided.
Meanwhile, as global interest in P2E games grows day by day, the domestic gaming industry is accelerating the release of P2E games. NHN has integrated its subsidiaries around NHN Bigfoot and declared its leap as a specialized P2E game developer. NHN Bigfoot plans to reorganize its business units to dominate the P2E genre in the global game market. The so-called ‘3N’ (Netmarble, NCSoft, Nexon), considered leading domestic game companies, have also entered the P2E game market. Wemade aims to service 100 games using the WEMIX token as the base currency on the WEMIX platform by the end of this year.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
