Since the global success of Wemade’s Mir 4 in the second half of last year, the Korean gaming industry has been buzzing with talk of a Play-to-Earn, or P2E, era. Major companies raced to adopt blockchain technology and P2E systems, seeing them as the next frontier for growth. However, a series of economic shocks, including stock market fluctuations, rising interest rates, and volatile currency exchanges, coupled with high-profile crypto collapses like the Luna crisis, FTX bankruptcy, and the delisting of WEMIX, have created serious skepticism around blockchain in gaming.
Unlike traditional gaming risks, these challenges—particularly the dramatic swings in crypto asset values—were largely new territory for game companies, leaving many unprepared. Even so, during this so-called crypto winter, major players such as Netmarble, Com2uS Group, and Wemade continue to push forward with blockchain ecosystems and are launching new NFT-based titles, signaling their belief in the long-term potential of virtual assets.
The biggest challenges for P2E and blockchain-based games became clear this year. A critical issue is that most players are attracted to games not for their gameplay but for the potential earnings from in-game tokens. Player evaluations often focus more on the value of associated virtual assets than the game itself.
This phenomenon is especially pronounced in regions like the Philippines, where P2E has become a form of employment. In Western markets, however, P2E games struggle to attract players because the potential rewards do not match local living costs. Even established titles that shift to P2E models face backlash from their communities. Players often see these games not as entertainment but as labor, which has limited P2E growth outside Southeast Asia.
The delisting of WEMIX has added to industry concerns. Games that issued their own tokens or NFTs and listed them on exchanges now face increased scrutiny. In contrast, companies like NCSoft and Nexon have taken a cautious approach, integrating blockchain gradually without launching coins or listing NFTs on exchanges. Instead, they are maintaining strong game economies while tokenizing in-game items as NFTs, ensuring their value and giving players more secure ownership.
At Korea Blockchain Week 2022, Nexon highlighted this strategy when discussing the MapleStory universe. The company explained that blockchain could support game sustainability by creating ongoing cash flow, with NFTs playing a key role in enhancing in-game economies rather than purely facilitating speculation.
Most P2E games currently operate by issuing in-game tokens that players can trade for items or convert into cash. This system is highly vulnerable to external economic forces and market fluctuations.
The P2E cycle often starts with the game distributing large amounts of tokens to attract early players. While this drives initial engagement, it can also cause in-game inflation if the player base primarily joins for earnings rather than gameplay. When players invest heavily in tokens to gain mining advantages, dominate guilds, or acquire key items, the game shifts from Play-to-Earn to Pay-to-Earn. Even a well-balanced in-game ecosystem cannot fully protect against external shocks to token value.
To address these issues, companies like WEMIX and TreasureDAO have experimented with game platform systems. These platforms consolidate multiple games and tokens, periodically buying and releasing tokens to stabilize value. However, maintaining token value in this way has proven extremely challenging. WEMIX struggled with market factors, while TreasureDAO faced internal platform issues and security breaches. Both platforms ultimately saw their token values fall by roughly 90 percent from peak levels.
Despite these setbacks, there are glimmers of hope. TreasureDAO recently saw its $MAGIC token rebound by 300 percent in just three weeks following the launch of the new game The Beacon. The game attracted over 9,000 players in its beta week and received high praise for its gameplay. Players purchased approximately $2 million worth of NFTs, boosting the token’s value and leading to its listing on Coinbase and Binance. This example reinforces a critical lesson for P2E games: success depends on quality gameplay and engaging players for fun, not solely for profit.
For game companies that have not yet implemented P2E systems, the question is how to safely adopt blockchain while gaining player trust. Nexon and NCSoft offer instructive examples. Both companies refrained from immediate P2E adoption during the last industry boom and avoided issuing coins or listing NFTs on exchanges. Instead, they plan to tokenize in-game items or characters as NFTs, providing real value and decentralizing ownership without turning gameplay into labor.
For games like Lineage, where items have already been traded for cash through other means, NFT integration may resemble P2E, but the broader industry sees Nexon and NCSoft’s strategy as a way to preserve gameplay integrity while offering a sustainable in-game economy.
NFTs are often associated with digital versions of physical products, such as Nike’s .SWOOSH or Gucci’s SUPER GUCCI. For game developers, however, NFTs offer something more meaningful: they give players true ownership of their in-game assets.
Previously, rare items or customized characters existed only within the game. Once a game was shut down, those assets vanished. Blockchain changes that. Now players can own in-game items permanently, with their value secured on the blockchain, creating a bridge between the digital world and reality. These assets exist beyond the game itself, giving players control and ownership that was previously impossible.
