Move-To-Earn project development: Opportunities and Perspectives
Decentralized technologies are increasingly being introduced into various areas of economic and social activity. Today we can observe how two huge markets are mutually beneficial – cryptocurrency and gaming. Previously, these two industries existed in parallel. But today they work in symbiosis to produce innovative projects that until recently were unimaginable.
Move-to-Earn is a newer concept that involves the possibility of virtual earnings for the actions that the user performs in the real world. To do this, he needs to “link” his account with a mobile device.
To date, there are Move-to-Earn projects in which you can receive rewards for various activities, for example, walking, running, doing physical exercises, and so on. But, apparently, in the future this list will expand.
As for the profit-making technologies themselves, they consist in the extraction of intra-system currencies and NFT tokens, as well as their staking.
We need to keep in mind that calling all Move-To-Earn projects “games” is not entirely correct,since they may also include programs or applications that do not have a gaming component, and some developers initially position their projects as health and fitness apps. They set themselves the goal of inspiring people to a healthy lifestyle, and provoke interest in Web 3.0 technologies.
The Move-to-Earn sector cannot yet boast of a huge variety of successful projects. But several high-quality innovative solutions have already received recognition from the community:
STEPN
Perhaps, it is the most popular Move-to-Earn app to date. The essence of the game is that the player buys virtual sneakers in the form of NFT, after which he is rewarded for jogging in real life.
Biken
This game works similarly to STEPN, but instead of running shoes, it uses bikes.
Dustland
The game has a fairly original idea. The action takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the player can create their own character. Then, he needs to play sports listening to post-apocalyptic audio stories. As a reward for physical activity in the real world, the virtual character gradually improves.
Genopets
The project has already launched its own metaverse and NFT trading marketplace. To start earning, the user must buy a virtual animal. It is gradually “pumped” depending on the daily physical and mental activity of the player.
Thus, the essence of Move-to-Earn is that any person can purchase a virtual entity in the form of an NFT, which “lives” in his smartphone and yields a profit for simple actions in the real world.
Move-to-Earn: Today And In The Future
Before talking about the future prospects for the development of Move-to-Earn, we need to look at the current situation without rose-colored glasses. And if we try to objectively evaluate the sector’s current condition, we can notice several negative points.
Firstly, in order to start making money on such games, you need to invest. Depending on the project, the minimum amount of the initial contribution can range from several tens to several thousand dollars.
Secondly, the users are forced to invest the profits they get into the game again in order to be able to earn further. Moreover, repeated investments can sometimes exceed the profit received earlier.
And thirdly, there is a high probability that this “to earn” prefix can play a cruel joke on both developers and players. The fact is that the vast majority of users play these games only in order to make a profit. Among them there are only an insignificant fraction of a percentage of those who play just for fun.
From this we can conclude that the target audience for Move-to-Earn projects is much smaller than it might seem at first glance. After all, not everyone wants to pay money to play a boring game.
Many experienced gamers criticize the creators of NFT games, for example:
- Developers are accused of trying to capitalize on the NFT hype.
- They call for resources to be invested in creating quality games, instead of endlessly looking for new ways to monetize.
- Companies are criticized for trying to sell what they were not asked for, what no one wants and what no one will be happy about.
With all this, now no investor can be sure that he will make a profit. In the entire gaming industry, one can recall only a few dozen projects that have maintained their popularity for at least 5 years. And investments in NFT games are sometimes quite large. For some virtual objects, the cost of a million dollars is not the limit. Therefore, the question that should primarily concern the investor is whether he will have time to return his money before the hype passes.
Move-to-Earn Prospects
In the cryptocurrency industry, games occupy a fairly large market share. But even in the situation of current hype, a rather limited circle of people is interested in NFT, and even less in the metaverses. This suggests that Move-to-Earn technologies have room to develop.
Although today it is difficult to evaluate metaverses in terms of investment attractiveness, many experts suppose them to be the future of the digital world. At the same time, they note that the value of assets that already exist in virtual worlds and that will be created in the future directly depends on how many users believe in their potential.
In principle, it could be argued that after the hype around NFT games fades, projects in the field of Move-to-Earn will cease to exist. If not for one interesting fact: the world’s largest corporations have decided to come to this market and want to implement the concepts of metaverses as a new stage in the development of the Internet, and even of all mankind.
Almost simultaneously, different companies began to create digital universes, as well as special devices that are needed to provide access to the world of virtual and augmented reality. Already at this stage, we can talk about something much more than the ability to simply create avatars in games and social networks.
According to enthusiasts, the metaverses of the future (which are being created now) should offer a completely new level of integration of the real world with the virtual:
- give the opportunity to transfer any objects to the digital environment;
- ensure decentralized management;
- create the concept of a bilateral economic model.
It is due to this model that Move-to-Earn projects can get a new round of development within the metaverses and beyond. And with the introduction of VR, AR, and Haptic Tech, they can transform from low-quality games into expansive workspaces. This should also include marketplaces where you can create, sell and buy virtual assets.
Even in existing imperfect metaverses, $500 million worth of real estate was sold in 2021. And in 2022, experts predict an increase in this figure to $1 billion. In the future, the economy of the metaverses will grow exponentially, and over time will surpass the real world economy in its volume.
The most interesting thing is that the virtual economy will be controlled by the blockchain, and not by some “big guys”. Of course, most large corporations are likely to succumb to government regulators, and will create their projects under their supervision.
But there will almost certainly be those who will create a completely uncontrollable metaverse with their own global economy. After all, this is exactly what fans of cryptocurrencies have been dreaming of since the very first day of the appearance of Bitcoin.
Conclusion
Today, investors are increasingly paying attention to innovative technologies and newfangled trends. Many organizations are working on the development of full-fledged metaverses, among which Meta (Facebook), Epic Games, Microsoft and Baidu are considered the most famous. Apparently, it is they who will create projects that will capture the whole world in the future.
Whether existing games will be able to compete with them is still unclear. On the one hand, many of them have already implemented their own virtual economy. On the other hand, in the future, the metaverses promise to be a “new world” for every person on the planet.
The first steps have been taken in this direction. Perhaps currently existing blockchain games will go into oblivion, leaving their investors with nothing. But if developers can create a really high-quality project, then it will not only compete with traditional online games, but will also be able to start the development of a completely new industry that will advantageously combine decentralized technologies and better developments from the gaming world.
Boosty Labs is Europe’s largest world-class company specializing in outsourcing the development of blockchain technologies, system integration, automation of technological and business processes of enterprises, and IT consulting. Since 2017, Boosty Labs has been creating and improving projects in the fields of finance, fintech, real estate, blockchain and cloud storage. One of the company’s areas of specialization is the development of Move-To-Earn projects. In a world of rapidly evolving technology, Boosty Labs tackles the toughest technical challenges and provides the best customized solutions and premium service.