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Comment by diveanon | Hacker News Reader

Play-to-earn is a really exciting area of development with a lot of cool ideas coming out of it.

Many games are being developed now that are fully funded by fans and generating a lot of income for players.

I know HN will shit on this, but for the more open minded among you I really encourage you to take a look at this space if you are planning to develop a game in the near future.

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This Axie game is clearly marketed toward children, and requires hundreds of dollars up front or a loan to get started.

This isn't exciting, this is deplorable. These are terrible people doing terrible things.

> I know HN will shit on this

Right idea, wrong reflex. I'd sooner vomit.

> open minded

Don't be so open minded that your brain falls out.

Typically people spend money to play games. How can any game generate net income for players? It's not Wimbledon where fans pay to watch.

I think any income must come from a stream of new players, meaning it's a Ponzi scheme.

There are about 200-300 people who play fantasy sports full-time as a career on FanDuel and DraftKings. Probably another 20,000-30,000 use it as a legitimate stream of secondary income.

Legitimate games of skill, when regulated, will always be able to support this.

Based on the twitch leaks, the secondary income is probably, on average, insulting to call an income at all. You could make more money wearing dirty clothes and begging on the street.

Fantasy sports is explicitly betting, where any winnings are acknowledged to come from the losses of other players. On average, players will lose because of the house rake, but skillful players may beat the odds.

Axie Infinity seems to be something else, where everyone can "win" just by playing the game. For example, daily quests provide SLP coin which is minted from thin air; there's no skill or risk involved here. The only way this can be sustained is with a flux of new players.

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