The world of gaming is constantly changing and, in fact, has changed to a great extent. With the assistance of revolutionizing technologies like Web 3.0 and Blockchain, it is becoming more and more decentralized.

These disruptions are developing an ecosystem termed Gamefi. It is an improved arrangement that perfectly combines gaming and finance. Hence, users can now obtain real-world benefits from the time and energy they invest into the game.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The players are rewarded with assets that they can trade to avail monetary benefits. Plus, no one can take away these benefits, thanks to blockchain.

There are different models of earning these financial benefits. The two most prominent among them are Play-to-Earn and Move-to-Earn. Here, we will discuss these two popular metaverse gaming models and compare them with each other. Additionally, we will discuss how the new gaming world is emerging with more power at the hands of users.

Play to Earn is a gaming setup with blockchain as an essential component. It utilizes the Distributed Ledger Technology to introduce Defi capabilities into the game. This means that as soon as a gamer achieves a predefined milestone, they are rewarded a gaming asset as part of an inbuild smart contract.

These milestones vary with different games. It can be either the game-time spent, a particular level reached, a new feat accomplished, a new skill gained, etc.

Also, the rewards earned are proportional to the player’s performance in the game. This means that the more they play, the better they get and the more they earn.

But hold on for a second, the most important aspect is yet to come. That is, these rewards are completely eligible to be sold on the in-game marketplace or to be traded on a crypto exchange to earn cryptocurrencies. This fetches real-world money and opens up new financial opportunities.

The underlying ledger technology enables Defi capabilities to reward the player and store the gaming assets along with the owner’s identity. This facilitates the trade in these assets and opens up real-world financial opportunities.

This one is gaining takers quite rapidly. The gaming setup goes by the name Move-to-Earn which means you earn for moving around.

Well, that was quite obvious, one would say moving is a generic term, and most of our actions fall into it. Tell me something I don’t know, like what is the exact move I need to make to earn.

So, to earn rewards, the user needs to choose a healthier lifestyle.

That’s not helping either I guess.

Ok, let’s look closely, you need to indulge in activities like exercising, walking, swimming, fitness challenges, etc., to get rewards points in return.

The activities and rewards may vary from one Move to Earn game to another. However, one constant is that the payment is in the form of native utility tokens.

Also, these games use smartphones or fit bands to track user performance and upload the data onto the move-to-earn app. The app then assesses the data and sees if it qualifies for the reward.

The rewarded tokens can either be used to buy things within the app or be traded on the internal marketplace or external exchange for cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, some apps also offer additional rewards like enhancing the insurance amount or reducing the premium which helps reduce the pressure on exchanges to sell the token and prevents the values of the token from toppling down.

From the user’s point of view, both of these earning methods may appear the same to the user. They need to indulge in an enjoyable activity and earn without toiling hard. However, both of these systems are quite different.

Two main differences are between the reward system and the revenue model, as we can deduce from the above sections.

However, to put it together for clear comparison, we can see that while the P2E model rewards playing a game in the metaverse world, the M2E model rewards the user for movement in the real world.

Secondly, P2E rewards your performance in the game, the better you play the more you are rewarded. On the other hand, M2E rewards the user for their effort, the more they push themselves to stay active the more they are rewarded.

Here, you might also notice that the M2E might not qualify as a true game it is more of an enjoyable activity that users need to indulge in to earn. For example, they can even dance their way to earn, but dancing and gaming are different, don’t you think?

This is where the other difference pops up. While P2E is an outright game, M2E might not be.

The other area where we can see the deviation is that P2E has established itself as a sustainable concept. However, despite gaining huge popularity M2E is still finding ways to hold ground, and only time will tell its true value.

Here is a table to summarize the above differences.

Imagine you are a hardcore online gamer. You deep dive into the game at every chance you get. You have been playing it for quite some time and have progressed through the challenging levels that many find impossible to pass.

Throughout this long journey into the game, you have garnered a huge hoard of treasure that includes the rarest of rare gems. Your player’s skin, accessories, and ammunition are the envy of thousands of other gamers. You are proud of your skills, and achievements as well as being a celebrity in that gaming realm. Living the dream life.

But, one fateful day, the developers of the game decided to release an update that changes everything. You have lost fifty percent of your hard-earned bounty. Your game characters’ skin and ammunition got locked, and your accessories have just vanished from the face of the earth.

Your kingdom in the game topples down to rubble in front of your eye leaving you devastated. From living a dream, you are now surviving a nightmare.

This is one of the many scenarios that depict the horrors of a centralized setup. The sole controlling authority can steer the game in any direction and introduce changes of any sort disregarding gamers’ stake in it.

Such exclusive unquestionable control is fueling the calls for revolutionizing gaming. Gamers are demanding more control over their gaming assets and deciding what to do with them.

One such revolutionizing concept is Gamefi, which allows players to earn rewards and have complete control over their earnings. Play to Earn (P2E), Move to Earn (M2E) and other earning methods are part of the Gemfi ecosystem. In the next segment, we will discuss the concept of Gamefi.

Interesting fact: The incident left him badly hurt and initiated the domino effect that lead to the birth of Ethereum, a decentralized, open-source blockchain with its native currency. Today, Ethereum is the second largest blockchain network in the world and is the bedrock of many decentralized gaming setups. Before moving to the concept, I think you should know an interesting fact. The above-mentioned story is loosely based on the real-life incident of Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum. He talked about the incident in his biography about.me that he lost his precious game asset, or say, the assets got ‘nerfed’ due to a game update.

The word Gamefi is a portmanteau of two words — game and finance. As you can guess, this genre combines gaming with finance, and no it is not gambling.

These are blockchain-based games built over the decentralized framework of Web 3.0. They offer rewards and incentives in return for a specific player’s act. A smart contract embedded into the underlying blockchain ensures that as soon as the player meets the condition, they receive the designated rewards.

Depending upon the game, the rewarding act can be anything from progressing in the game or doing specific real-world activities like jumping, dancing, walking, or working out.

As a result of these acts, players have a chance to win Crypto tokens, new avatars, in-game accessories, character skins, weapons, spells, potions, etc. in a Gamefi setup. It can be anything on the earth.

However, the thing is, the reward matters less as compared to the value it holds in the real world.

Gamefi allows users to earn these rewards and these assets possess liquidity as well. They can be traded in their respective exchanges, just like real-world assets.

This is like living a gamer’s fantasy, earning money while playing the game.

I mean, what else can you ask for in a competitive world?

Just play your favorite game, day in and day out, and see your bank balance inflate. No entrepreneurial risks, no business stakes, no pesky bosses, no toxic corporate politics, nothing, just pure fun.

Further, the underlying technologies like blockchain and Web 3.0 allow players to transact in the gaming assets in the safest manner possible.

While Web 3.0 takes care of decentralization by storing it on multiple servers worldwide, blockchain keeps an immutable track of the ownership of these assets. So, digital assets are available to the whole world with solid ownership proof. This ownership can be transferred whenever the legal owner chooses to do so.

Traditional games confined gamers to a closed-end model. First of all, the players have to pay to play the game. Then, they needed to spend hours after hours in search of in-game rewards and unlock bounties, grinding themselves in the repetitive tasks to progress through the game levels.

In the end, players were not allowed to own the assets they earned, let alone sell them. They were dependent on the gaming company, which could take away their rewards anytime.

Hence, the advent of a decentralized and democratized incarnation of gaming was inevitable. You can see it as the evolutionary successor to traditional games that empowers the players and brings back value to their hard work.

For this, it uses methods like Play to earn and Move to earn. Additionally, more earning/rewarding gaming methods are hitting the market, like Create to Earn and Sleep to Earn.

Gamefi ecosystem is not just about rewarding the user but tends to sustain a whole virtual economy of its own. The embedded crypto tokens are regulated through clear and well-defined rules of tokenomics, i.e., the supply and demand of their currency.

At, Queppelin, we have a team of Metaverse experts that can convert your Metaverse Gaming idea into reality, as we’ve done for so many of our clients. Get in touch with us at [[email protected]] to discuss this further.

Play-to-Earn vs Move-to-Earn: Earn while Gaming in Metaverse was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.