Games as "work" is a fickle thing. Digital items beforehand (CS:GO skins, MMO items, etc.) garnered real-life value because they represented a certain amount of progress or luck required to attain the item. Third-party markets were a weird, but effective workaround for representing these items with real cash.

The issue as I see it though, is that you need more than artificial scarcity to build an economy. The reason people spent crazy amounts of real-life money on a Black Lotus card or an AWP Dragon Lore was because they loved their respective games. When I look at Axie Infinity, I have to ask; do people actually love this game? As far as I can tell, the majority of people are playing it because they want to make money. Even the "whales" appear to be in it for the cash too, since once you have enough resources in the game you can "sponsor" poorer players and take a cut of their earnings.

The whole thing reeks. I was never that into rare game items as a concept, but this strikes me as outright stupid, NFTs and blockchain aside.