Ric Moore@_RicMoore
We have a new spin-off game almost ready and I wanted to share my current thoughts on web3 gaming:
The old approach to play-to-earn stopped working quite some time ago. It's inflationary and the emissions from earning are pure sell pressure and the tokens just go down. Pretty much all game tokens launched in 2025 have been a disaster.
The only way to have a sustainable economy is to have players spending more than the total emissions. Risk-to-earn (R2E) solves this problem. It's not a new model, Poker is R2E. I see the opportunity in crypto is to make a new class of R2R games that aren't just the traditional casino games.
R2E games like Poker are winner takes all, our approach is to spread it out, have more winners...
For example, imagine a game where there's 10 players, each pay $1 to enter, the prize pool is $10. There's not 1 prize but many smaller ones (minimum prize $0.01). Players compete to get the prizes, whether by skill or luck or a bit of both.
Some will come out in profit, some will come out at a loss. None should lose everything (unless they're really unlucky).
Taking it one step further...
Imagine the $10 prize pool is split into 1,000 x $0.01 bets, like spins on a slot machine where with these payouts guaranteed:
x1 = 1-in-6 = $0.01
x2 = 1-in-12 = $0.02
x10 = 1-in-60 = $0.10
x100 = 1-in-600 = $1
x1,000 = 1-in-6,000 = $10
x10,000 1-in-60,000 = $100
The top jackpot is guaranteed in 1 of every 60 games, and that doesn't include the prizes from the other 999 'spins' in that game.
1-in-6 games will have the $10 prize included.
If the developer includes a house edge e.g. 5%, the prize pool would become $9.50, and that's how the dev makes money.
- No token is then required.
- Players can play with USDC and win USDC.
- Prize distribution and deterministic payouts can be on-chain.
If you add a token it can be super-charged: bigger prizes, tournaments, referral fees e.g. 5% (or more) of users spend goes to the referrer - a powerful user-acquisition tool.
However, it doesn't escape the same old problem of trader speculation and the inevitable price collapse, but the upside is you can always revert back to stable coins.
The question is do the play-to-earn crowd want to play these types of game? Is it a subset of that audience or a completely different one?
Time will tell. One thing is clear is the old model is broken and something has to change.
