Always love my pre-internet games, playing for fun, no updates, no in-game purchases.

When you see ads constantly advertising play to earn games that means the companies making these games are generating advertising revenue and are making way more money off of you than you could make on their games.

Thank you for reporting on this. News companies rarely talk about exploitation, something that's poisonous to societies.

It is simply a modern (NFT-ized, if you will) ponzi scheme. The only "winners" are those who jumped on the boat early on, and of course the devs. SLP is valued at $0.43 USD at the time of this writing and I personally know some people who are sitting on thousands of SLP waiting and hoping for the day the value goes "to the moon" again. How is the value gonna skyrocket again if anybody who has seen interest in this model (especially the whales) has already bought into it? Just like any ponzi/pyramid scheme, those at the bottom aka the "late investors" will all lose their hard earned money :(

Play to earn crypto games are another word for multi level marketing.

Vice should do a mini documentary about crazy predatory monetization of Diablo Immortal.

"This is the future!" The future is sad then

I'm from the 🇵🇭 and I know people who actually play this game and see it as an "investment." Some have tried recruiting me by telling me - if I'm going to play mobile games anyway, I might as well earn from it. I've never really bothered to learn how this game was played cos it seemed like a scam (the more you play, the more you win? Come on!). Glad I watched this - I now have a better understanding of it.

Amazing story. So many facets of new technology and their impacts coming out from this reporting of a game. There is still so much to be explained but I think VICE did a great job summarizing the contents.

To be honest, Micro transactions in videogames have been there forever if you imagine all the MMO's. I sold a twisted bow in OSRS for about 450euros. Even a tad longer ago they had a place in this game named the " Duel arena " where basically people gambled with these gold points. Many many children mostly became victims of online gambling addictions and even used their parents credit card to obtain gold in the game. Gaming initially is about game mechanics and becomming more skillful over time. Nowadays you can just buy " Skills " or you're actually the biggest loser in online video gaming.

It’s very sad to see that gambling is extremely prevalent in many online spaces, especially in flashy colorful games that are aimed towards children, which definitely contributes to a need for instant gratification in younger generations.

What a coincidence all the money was robbed when things were headed south.

Thank you for your story on my country guyana and it's level of curruption.please do more to wake the people up.the racial divide is horrible here.

I miss when you got beat up with a bat over gambling, now gambling is coming home and seeing your 8 year old spent $200 gambling for a hat for there virtual character

NFT= quick way to be finessed

Somebody said: If you aren't paying for a product, you're the product. I think it was about Facebook

The journalists explained how the business model works, which is not different to conventional video games and more precisely, MMOs. But let me expand deeper on it: - In order to play the game, you need axies. All axies are NFTs that you must buy from other players or mint them. + Not different to buying a game from the store, you can re-play it as much as you want or sell it when you get bored. + Once you have a group of 3 axies, you can start playing the game and start ranking up in the leaderboard. - Same as any popular FPS w ranked games, you must win games to get a higher rank and earn rewards. Thats the only way to earn them, so in reality its not a "guaranteed profit" as its claimed. If you dont win then you dont get paid, as simple as that. + Fornite/Apex and some other FPS games have weekly cash prizes, and same as here, you need to rank higher to earn them. + Same as Hearthstone, you need the current META to have a chance to reach the highest ranks, which drives more demand for meta Axies. - All this rewards were paid in 2 tokens, SLP for winning battles and AXS for getting a high ranking in the leaderboard. AXS is the governance token of the game and basically the same as owning a share of the whole ecosystem, SLP is a burned token used to mint new Axies (Now it has more uses). The amount of new minted tokens earned by winners/high ranking players wasnt enough to surpass the inflow of money coming from the marketplace. Today is multiples higher than current inflation, even after the big crash of crypto in general (You can review this numbers on-chain, or just compare the sale volume from marketplace w inflation). In fact, most of this tokens were burned in-game to mint new axies and prepare better for the next seasons, the new inflow of axies would encorage breeders to reduce the price of common axies, basically lowering the entry for new players. Most of the time, breeding resulted in a loss, so it wasnt a guaranteed profit in any way. That didnt discouraged breeders to stop trying to mint rare/meta axies (explained above) for a new season, which means a higher demand for SLP, requiring re-curring capital (purchases) from the same players. What most people including the journalists are failing to explain, is simple market behaviour and a hot trend with high expectations will always result in a higher premium for the newcommers. Once the cryptomarket crash started, it collapsed the prices of many of these axies which resulted in losses for the player base but it wasnt the P2E model that crashed the market. Any market in the world have economic cycles, even virtual ones like world of warcraft, runescape or axie infinity. TLDR: P2E allow players and investors to reap the benefits of the success of the game. Instead of only the latter. Nothing more, it doesnt promise to replace your job or future career that would depend solely on your skills as a player (e-sports) and how popular the game becomes Ah, and the money earned by the Philipines to upgrade their homes didnt came from a P2E model, it was mostly the market hyping the trend and increasing the value of their assets

lmao that black dude with glasses is clearly a man of culture "yeah i played the game but it sucked so"

I am amazed that no one has built a bot to play the game for them. Lol

Regulation won't catch up for centuries.

A comment said "A dude with a woman's voice... distracting." LMAO

#Munecat covered this very well in one of her "deep dive" vids. I recommend watching

The sheep will be sheared… and already have. The money wasn’t stolen. It was harvested.

Dayum! Accurate reporting to the core about play to earn and NFT's! These techies wants us to live in fantasy world!

If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.

I blame the candy-crush microtransactions on mobile gaming as precursors to the whole nft kink. The in-between being console gaming transactions still rampant to this day on major labels.

This is just hard to fathom, as a true avid video game player born of the Nintendo generation where video games are in My DNA 🧐... I've seen the downturn of the Apex from video game arcade centers once the introduction of home entertainment systems became mainstream for consumer assumption, then as the console Wars took foothold into the everyday life, the next gen platforms started to introduce slowly but surely the pre-ordering the buckle and DLC purchases, which then led into the microtransactions, and the Pandora's box of online bait and switch, hoodwinking, pay to play, video games that we have now. With businesses, whose bottom line is just to make money point blank: finding ways to suck the life force dry from somebody's wallet or bank account is now up to the marketing and advertising committee with all the bait and switch type ads, or trying to find ways of getting real world currency from individuals; and now with this it seems like real world fake currency as well 🤔.... I really can't say that I'm appalled, but I feel bad for those individuals who are getting bamboozled into this when they're just looking to play a game... And there are free to play to earn in the game, for just upgrading your stats or RPG elements just in the game I don't know anything about trying to make money back from doing stuff or anything like that.... This is my first time hearing about it after seeing this educational video on the reporting of how the true singularity of Pandora's box has been opened 🧐

How does this differ from any other online game with a marketplace? Besides ownership being based on blockchain and not centralized, which is pointless, because as mentioned it is worthless outside the game. If anything most games prohibits real money transactions, because it unbalances the games and incentivizes cheaters.

The value of the product requires new people to enter to keep profits rolling. So... Same as the current system of the stock market. Sometimes it's hard to listen to you guys call crypto the greater fool theory and not our current military system. The US dollar is only worth something because someone agrees with you. At least with bitcoin and some other crypto we can see what's going on behind the curtain.

That's so bad. Here in Australia there's a company called Balthazar NFT gaming pushing these games. It's pretty bad - they prey on those people that don't fully understand. Ponzi asf

Life is looking more and more like a dystopian movie.

No Lie I lost 3000$ in this stupid game I stopped playing 8 months ago

It’s extremely shocking that Runescape and it’s GP was not a option for research vice, been around longer and is still actively traded in the billions.

For people to understand how this works, you make money off the backs of liquidity providers. "Play to earn" is super unsustainable business model and will literally never work. Pay to play is the only possible model out there that is possible. Why? Play to earn means there needs to be a profit superseding the player beggining to earn money. Unless on average each player purchases in-game novelties like skins greater than the amount "paid out" (again, the pay is a token that is traded so its backed by liquidity providers and pumpers), then there is literally no way for any play to earn game to exist past onboarding. It can only possibly work as a way to onboard and if the game is good enough to play for free, then it can work. Its a business model that doesn't work. Simple as that. I'll take any replies to defy this but I tried doing the math and i cant make it make a profit without taking advantage of liquidity providers or in-game novelties. Good games dont need NFT's, thats the truth. It will take a good game that wants to implement web3 for NFTs in games to work. Epic has partnered with Gala so it may work but TBS

Been a fan of vice for years, definitely great journalism! Really interesting and something I probably wouldn’t normally watch.

Keep up the great work Vice!

I'm from the u.k. and found some sites, apparently most are fake with incentives of large amounts that never get paid. There was 4x that are real but they only pay you via a voucher card worth $1 for every hour completed. In countries where the pay is $2 per shift I can see why theyd want to play this app. But the game will eventually ware you out; its mindless.

I suggest you watching Old School Runescape game, that selling game currency for IRL money have been there forever that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars, even to some venezuelans and other countries with bad economy that play different accounts at one time to maximize their efficiency!

I’m surprised Vice did not do a report on RuneScape and how people literally play all day to earn an income.

Did I miss something, or did Vice produce a 5 minute video about these "play to earn" apps and now they just released a 25 minute video about "the making of" the 5 minute play to earn apps video?

What's the point of playing when you just make it work. The only thing this is good for is taking advantage of countries with insane inflation or poverty by using them as metrics for your "game"

Cashemon is the next axie

Kim Jon Ung stole all of their cryptocurrency. LMAO

The host asked some really good questions & he did a really good job!

There's an inside joke, that the guy who makes one of his points at 12:27 reminded me of: "Oh, I gotchu, bro! I'll pay you back, season-after-next season..." If you get it, you get it.

I had 2 survey pay apps, noticed my RAM usage shot up about 600mb even when not using the apps, uninstalled back down 600mb. Just saying.

During the harshness of this bear market is where the seeds that will grow taller are planted. I do not intend to incite anyone to buy something they do not like, but if I come to propose something that really has an abysmal potential. Dracoomaster is a strategic roguelike deck-building game. PVE / PVP, Breeding, Enhancing... It seems to correct most of the economic structure problems that Axie infinity had... it adds burning systems, such as cannibalism, card upgrades and dragons (necessary to be able to climb in higher ranks of pvp and pve respectively) I'm not here to buy anything or give my referral number, I'm just here to share a project that out of all the garbage on the market is the one with the best structure and product on the table. Yes, I would like you to review the project a little and tell me what positive and negative things you see in it... the potential you think it can have etc etc... Thank you very much for your time.

BTW the axie coin is down 99.99% now... glad I stay away from these stupid trends.

It’s a part of the block chain! everything‘s accounted for nothing bad can happen. 600million gone: welp

Whoa. GI Jane came out of retirement.

Hello vice news why you guys doesn't cover story about Myanmar?

vice has really upped their quality as of recent, real excellent journalism!

Anyone who thinks that game companies want to give their customers money instead of the other way around is unfit to walk around without a helmet.

Where can I watch the original doc in this video?

It's just concentrating wealth into a few hands ...

It seems like stuff like this can only work. In 3rd world countries where their currency is low on the global market but good for the people who actually benefited from it

We filipinos need to start putting more value into educating ourselves, then protest for better actual jobs in our country and demand our leaders (from managers to govt) start assuring we can make livable wages. Putting trust in foreign employment and/or stupid game schemes like NFT’s will never get us out of 3rd world status. We were once a people of courage and strength and personal development. Now we’ve become submissive servants to leaders and foreign countries. I’m sick of the “being polite” attitude we have here and need to start standing up for ourselves.

As much as they say nfts, bitcoin, crypto don't have real value they used terms and words we use to describe regular money. The dollar is only worth something if you believe and it is the government's job to make you believe so it has value. So what are complaining about again?

Talk about Splinterlands instead. That is a better example of play to earn.

SLP: Smooth Love Potion 😆

lol I dj regularly at this bar, i was having a smoke outside and i noticed one of the bartenders also playing Axie. I told him "isn't that a dead game?" he said "yeah but its a waste if I don't play". They legitimately see it as a side hustle and no matter what amount that could be made, its still money to them.

southpark nailed it so good: 'aaaaaand its gone'

After being heavily invested in crypto the past 2 years, I can honestly say about 98% of crypto projects are scams. Do your own research, people. Don't just watch some KZfaqr and go all in based on their advice.

battle dawn? in india???

Play a game because you want to. If you want to turn your hobby of gaming into your career as a content creator, then you better get good at it. But to solely make money off literally playing a game on your on free will & time, you can surely be sus of it. Aside from creators getting paid to play a game isn't necessarily about the game but about the image you put out on sponsors. If you're getting paid to play, then you're probably a game tester.

How come you guys didn't invite Christopher Natsuume? You keep loosely quoting him.

This is a weird format why didn’t you just make the piece instead of having her interview the people like this?

Vice news does some of the best journalism out here!

the only thing not checking out my profile does is stop your curiosity.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION!!! KEEP THE GOOD WORK!!!

No dude, that's not how it works, your time is just paid due to interacting with their game as an incentive, but earning billions? nah!!~ It's like getting paid while watching an ad, but it's more fun.

+1 for being familiar with the similar games in the genre: Magic the gathering and Pokemon

1:28 caught me off-Guard

AMC & GME 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

oh man... Gaming has gotten so ridiculous its sad

Where can I find the original piece this video was talking about

What is the point of this host format. Let the guys who did the story report on it. Weird

Why would they be hoarding their SLP, most people seem to have sold rather than hold, given the charts :). The guilt of people sitting on bags of SLP seems a bit overemphasized to me, i think many just got dollars for it along the way

As a person who is knowledgeable in investment, I already knew this was a Ponzi Scheme. That being said, I tried to warn many people not to invest in this and they laughed at me. Look who is crying now? 😂🤣

You would want to investigate old school runescape not axie for this premise.

Best news network literally,main stream media socks but this is realll news

What is the conclusion?

Great job Vice :)

Cyber by VICE also did a really good podcast on this. Definitely recommend!

We got hacked because people complained about fees so we moved to ronin blockchain cuz people in Philippines wanted cheaper fees my ethereum axis are now useless thanks.

@17:55, they basically start talking about the "pump and dump" scheme.

GodsUnchained is the best play n' earn game. Its been a while since I've watched Vice.

Wth is this format? Why are they sitting around in the round table panel to discuss a reporting piece like a retroactive reflection? I just don’t get why they do this and don’t just report and explain their work, as if there’s any point to have an outside person running the conversation

is the game available in the US?

Thank you for this. I thought my job sucked but damn. I'd rather make minimum wage in a toxic work environment than "get paid to play" cell phone games. Those folks are hella weird.

So its mmo market place the game?

I was an axie scholar so I played it for free, even today I still have the in-game currency(weth). I never took out a cent on this game, and people are still spending...

You're gambling away your time and time is life. Idk about y'all but I'm not rich and immortal.

half of these games are hard imo, it took me a month to beat one game

So it this episode out or what?

The FDIC argument at 17 min ish is a bit intellectually dishonest. FDIC only has the insurance to cover around 1% of all deposit so in case of something major everybody would loose their money still (99%)

I really hate that big AAA video game companies like Square Enix are trying to integrate NFTs into their games. This is garbage. NFTs as we know them are garbage. Until you can essentially live within the metaverse its all bullshit.

Didn't know moon knight was working at Vice

When you have to try and convince that your "money" is legit. Your more of snakeoil salesman. Ill pass on this. No thank you

Krishna & Samir from Colin & Samir have the same voice.