Opinion: Tobin Kuo, Seraph Founder and CEO
Play-to-Earn (P2E) had its moment — it “had” it — and that’s the problem. That time has passed. The thrill was the payout, not the play or the outcome, and it was more like working shifts with a user interface than a game.
To be fair, the experiment was not in vain. They proved that wallets can become controllers, assets can be portable, and communities can collectively own the world they love. But it cannot and should not be denied that subsidies distort all design choices in a direction that perverts the dynamics. Everything was extracted. It was hiring, expansion, cashing in, and repeat.
With the audience dwindling like a faucet, there’s no reason to keep playing. So for now, without a gentle farewell or condolence, let’s end P2E. Slowing down shouldn’t be feared or hated. It’s just a natural process of exploration and now you have to consider it as a filter. This forces teams to build games that someone will play even if the native tokens go to zero.
Game finance (GameFi) needs to take three simple steps: clean up traditional thinking and mechanics, learn from the past, expand the play element, shrink revenue, and give the genre a chance to thrive.
painful truth
P2E pushed GameFi to pursue token yields instead of the real purpose of play: fun. The end result is an economy collapsing under design choices that elicit fun at every turn. It’s a painful reality that more incentives are paid for than the gameplay offered so far.
As retention collapsed, the flow of new funds slowed, tokens surged, and projects folded under the weight. Numbers don’t lie. Funding for blockchain games in the second quarter of this year was down 93% year over year, while daily unique active wallets were down double digits.
Related: Burn your tokens and keep your loot: Next up is a play-to-own game
It became clear how shallow engagement had been when over 300 Web3 games became inactive and the rewards no longer covered the burden. It was a painful and bitter pill to swallow, but it brought clarity.
Games that had nothing to offer other than emissions are obsolete or moribund, and now developers are left with P2E rubble to rebuild from scratch. It’s time to ship a system that actually entertains people.
The regulations open the door for even more reality checking, which is a healthy step for the GameFi scene. A bright line has been drawn on the epidemic of money-first, fun-secondary game loops, with P2E games that simply act as extraction machines being treated like gambling.
Consider the Indian law that prohibits money-based online gaming. Every time consumer harm or gambling is blurred out, a “profit-first” system comes under scrutiny that cannot be hidden. That doesn’t mean the end of on-chain gaming. It just forces the game to be purpose-built (instead of milking it by turning it into a gambling engine).
Teams building P2E games have to deal with the Tyrannosaurus in the room. No more overbuilding or overhyping. No longer do you have to trade the fun of the game for inflationary tokens or fake “play.” Now it’s time for the actual play. Let’s build a building.
Ownership without extraction
This correction is already outlined in the second quarter data. Funds are drying up and maintenance measures are fooling no one. Games built on spreadsheets and emissions schedules have never been built on true long-term considerations.
The way forward is not extraction but expression. It’s about seasonal resets recycling value in fresh ways, creating a world where items feel earned through real effort, skill, and persistence, rather than being purchased through shortcuts.
Healthy systems respect scarcity as a design principle. Moments, accomplishments, and artifacts are important precisely because they cannot be replicated infinitely. The idea that players primarily want another source of income has to go. First of all, games are not financial products. They are spaces of creativity, competition, and community.
It’s time to do away with playing to earn without regrets and realize that it is not destiny, but a detour. Real momentum for the industry will come from returning to the values that have always underpinned great games: joy, mastery, and meaningful play.
Our determination to build the next generation of great games comes not from token mechanics or speculative loops, but from honoring the player-first mentality that has always driven this medium forward.
Posted by: Tobin Kuo, Seraph Founder and CEO.
This article is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be, and should not be taken as, legal or investment advice. The views, ideas, and opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.