The cryptocurrency gaming industry is worth billions of dollars due to blockchain technology enabling genuine, real-world trading of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). There are even digital economies that pay you for playing!
Play-to-earn games are defined as games that allow players to enjoy them in terms of gameplay, such as conducting battles, breeding their in-game characters, completing quests, or other tasks.
By doing so, they can receive some sort of in-game currency that can, later on, be used to purchase NFTs, or transferred directly to a cryptocurrency wallet and sold or traded for tokens or currencies which can be used for real-world payments.
This is how players get paid by playing these crypto games and is one of the main incentives for players to engage actively within these games. It’s why ‘play-to-earn’ games have risen so much in terms of popularity.
That said, we will be discussing some of the top crypto games trading millions of dollars in value on a daily basis.
If you are quite new to the world of gaming blockchain, we recommend you to take a dive into our previous informative blockchain gaming articles!
- Let the blockchain games begin.
- Game on! A quick guide to gaming tokens.
- Gaming tokens. What are they and how can you get ’em?
1. Plant VS Undead
Plant vs Undead is a game that is quite versatile, and its farm mode keeps you engaged with the opportunity to earn light energy, which leads to PVU tokens.
When you control your in-game Plant vs Undead assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), there’s a way through which you can make money by playing the game. This is what makes it a play-to-earn game.
This is a game where players can manage their farm and produce the in-game currency known as Light Energy (LE).
Currently, these Light Energy tokens can be converted into the cryptocurrency token known as Plant vs Undead Token (PVU). This token can then be traded on various decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
To earn LE, you will need to harvest seeds, perform daily quests, such as watering the plants of other players, and generally anything else surrounding the farm.
At the time of writing, the Plant vs Undead Token (PVU) has a value of US$0.675261, which makes it a solid token to earn and could lead to a solid payday after playing the game for a prolonged period of time.
Additionally, you can sell NFT plants on the marketplace, where common NFT plants will sell for around 10 PVU tokens, and rare ones can go for over 100 PVU tokens.
This means that some players can just plant plants and earn light tokens, which can convert to PVU, while others can focus on the NFT sales on marketplaces. The game runs on the Binance Smart Chain. However, you can also use a MetaMask wallet if it’s connected to the BSC. Check out an how to play plant VS Undead Article for more
2. Gods Unchained
Gods Unchained is a game created by the same team behind the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution known as Immutable X.
This means that the game runs on Ethereum and uses Immutable X;Â where decentralized applications (dApps) can trade peer-to-peer without fees and up to 9,000 transactions can be processed per second (TPS).
Chris Clay, who is a former game director for Magic the Gathering, is currently the game director for Gods Unchained. That said, Gods Unchained is a trading card game where players fight with other players using a deck of cards, core cards and genesis cards.
Core cards are the cards you earn for free while just playing the game. However, there are also card packs that players can buy if they want to skip grinding. These were sold before the game was launched and are no longer in production.
This means that if you want to use them, you need to buy them from another player. All of the cards offered in the game can be bought and sold in the immutable X marketplace.
This marketplace uses Ethereum as a currency, so you need a MetaMask wallet or another supported wallet. Each card has different stats and rarity; the rarer a card is, the more expensive it can be sold.
In fact, on December 6, 2019, a Gods Unchained Mythic card was sold for 210 Ether, which was worth $31,000.
Additionally, you need to register for an account to play the game, and as a new player, you are given a free set of cards to start with.
Gods Unchained has its own cryptocurrency token known as the GODS token, which is an ERC-20 token. You can use GODS tokens to craft NFTs, purchase packs from the Gods Unchained Marketplace, and earn even more rewards through holding the tokens in Immutable X. This token also represents voting power and enables you to participate in governance proposals that influence the game’s future development.
Currently, the GODS token is trading at US$6.69, making it one of the most valuable gaming tokens out there within the world of crypto and making Gods Unchained a game worth playing.
3. Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity was the first Ethereum-based NFT game to hit US$1 billion in sales on August 8, 2021. The game has more than a million active users. This is the most popular non-fungible token (NFT) game right now, created by a Vietnamese company known as Sky Mavis. It is one of the highest-revenue games on the entire blockchains.
Axie Infinity is essentially a Pokemon-inspired game where you can build a team of creatures called Axies, and you can use them to battle players in the Arena mode or fight enemies in the Adventure mode.
Check out our article about Axie Infinity in What is Axie Infinity and why did it pump 50% in a day?
There are two cryptocurrencies in the game, the main one is the Axie Infinity Token (AXS) and the other, the Smooth Love Potion (SLP). You can get AXS by making it into the game’s PVP leaderboard, while SLP is earned by completing adventure mode levels and winning arena matches. Both tokens are required to breed an Axie, and it is a process that can only be done if you already have two Axies.
Each Axie is a non-fungible token (NFT) and has a unique set of body parts that determine its skills as well as its rarity. They can typically be sold from $100 to $1,000, and extremely rare ones have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, such as Axie #1733 (Venom), which sold for 110 ETH on March 23 of 2019 and then was sold for 104.25 ETH on September 25 of 2020.
While Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn game, it still attracts NFT collectors due to the fact that Axies can sell for a lot of money, and it is the second-largest marketplace according to DappRadar, right behind OpenSea.
At the time of writing, it had over 187,000 traders with US$124.58 million in trading volume in the last 30 days. In terms of its all-time stats, the Axie Marketplace has over 975,000 traders and US$2,88 billion in trading volume. At the time of writing, the Axie Infinity Token (AXS) is valued at US$136.65.
To start playing Axie infinity, you will need to buy three Axies within the marketplace. However, it is worth getting into due to the fact that the game does indeed pay a lot in numerous ways.
Axie Infinity is available on Zipmex exchange. Click to start trading now!
Smooth Love Potion (SLP)
SLP is a token that could be obtained as a prize after winning any PVE Adventure or PVP Arena. Within the game, it is an essential monetary for breeding Axies with a price range of 100 – 2,100 SP or selling them later on at a set price on the market. It is critical to note that SLP will be burned once a new Axie is born in order to prevent game inflation.
Read more about Smooth Love Potion and how it works in You can’t buy love. But you can buy Smooth Love Potion.
4. Gala Games: Town Stars
Gala Games is a blockchain-powered gaming platform with a wide variety of crypto games categories. The GALA coin is presented as a reward and a utility token for players’ in-game transactions within the ecosystems.
In a Gala Games’ NFT marketplace, not only can tokens be traded, but in-game items can also be sold and collected by numerous cryptocurrencies at a set price, depending on their rareness.
Although items are collected within the games, Gala Games purposely uses blockchain to give players’ sole ownership of games’ items as NFTs and ERC-20 Token on Ethereum blockchain.
In other words, every in-game item and inherit status collected by players will be verifiable assets on blockchain even when their accounts are suspended from the platforms, unlike other games where Game Master and Admin are the highest authors of games’ items.
If you are interested in Town Star, check out the article “What is Town Star game and How can you earn from it?’
The good news is that integrating Gala Games with other crypto games in the future would enable players to transfer NFTs from games to games.
At the time of writing in the middle of 2021, there are 5 distinctive Play To Earn crypto games under Gala Games; Mirandus, Spider Tank, Town Star, Fortified, and Echoes of Empires.
However, things will be more exciting in 2022 ​for Gala Games’ fans once 3 new games, The Walking Dead: Empires, Legacy, and Last Expedition are introduced in Galaverse in December 2021
5. Illuvium
Illuvium is a 3D RPG Open World game on Ethereum Blockchain with auto-battle gameplay. Like old-school RPG gameplays, The primary task of players is to win the battles, complete quests, and upgrade ranks, while rewards will be ILV Tokens which are digital assets.
NFT Illuvial is a creature with different skills in which players could collect and upgrade them to win the battles. In the Illuvium marketplace, both NFT Illuvials and in-game items can be traded using real-world money like other NFT games.
The spotlight of Illuvium is getting brighter after its integration with Immutable X, the protocols of Layer 2 solutions for NFTs with zero fee charges. This makes Illuviums be able to offer its community Peer-to-Peer trading with no GAS fee, unlike other Ethereum blockchain-based gaming platforms.
Illuvium is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2022, allowing gamers to enjoy gameplay and trading across many DeFi platforms.
6. Decentraland
Decentraland is a 3D virtual reality crypto game powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Players can explore lands, create unique avatars and contents upon their preferences with incredible experiences.
Check out What is Decentraland? and Why is it interesting? article for more details
In addition, players can use the MANA coin as an in-game token to sell and buy items and enjoy pleasurable social activities.
Moving closer to Metaverse, Decentraland features gameplay on VR experiences to fulfill life beyond reality with ultra-quality graphics. Players are offered the freedom of trading along with NFT Marketplace.
7. The Sandbox
Not only Decentraland is colonizing the world of metaverse blockchain, but The Sandbox is also a rising star for 3D virtual reality crypto games with a similar gameplay concept.
Players can use a utility token ‘SAND’ to transact in the marketplace and trade digital lands. The gimmick of Sandbox is indeed the limited supply of 166,464 lands, which drives up demand and costs an arm and a leg to obtain.
Speaking of the graphics and interface, The Sandbox’s players will choose their own ways of monetizing content while reminiscing a classic experience of Minecraft where scenery and items are in block forms. The best ways to Play to Earn in The Sandbox are to trade lands and objects and complete in-game tasks.
8. Age of Rust
If you are looking for a Play-to-Earn crypto game with interactive story-based content, Age of Rust is highly recommended!
Imagine you awaken in a disastrous world in the 44th century where AI and machines seize power; you will explore the mysterious world and complete puzzles to collect tokens.
Age of Rust is a post-apocalyptic RPG game built under the ENJIN Protocol. The game is based on Ethereum-blockchain, and the initial purpose of the game is to drive people’s interest in the world of blockchain.
Players are destined to a treasure hunt over 24 BTC hidden by the game creator, and those Bitcoins are now valued at more than 1,000,000 USD and 370,000 ENJ coins, which is a utility token in ENJIN Protocol’s universe.
Conclusion
Play-to-earn games are the hottest trend right now within the cryptocurrency space, and with the various implementations of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), players are given more control over their in-game assets than ever before.
Players are also given the opportunity to earn tokens by playing the games directly or by creating and then selling in-game NFTs on specific marketplaces. These are the top games that will pay the most and are worth pouring your time into if you want something interesting to play.