New to Play-to-Earn? Here’s a List of Basic Terms to Help You Dive In
Play-to-earn games are one of our favorite Web 3.0 inventions. They allow millions of people to earn with their hobby, attain additional income, or sometimes it can become the main source of income. Inspired, but don’t know where to start?
Here’s our dictionary of all the basic P2E terms. Save it and keep it close while you dive into the world of P2E games and blockchain projects, and, of course, join us at Equalt.io to learn more.
P2E
Short for ‘play-to-earn’ — the general name for all blockchain-based games that offer players the option to make money via in-game activities and / or mechanics.
Token
A crypto token is a virtual currency or denomination. Usually, tokens are issued by companies attracting investors to realize their project, or, in the case of games, as in-game currency. This is a digital asset players can get in exchange for money or certain tasks. Usually, games have their own tokens — AXS in Axie Infinity, SAND in The Sandbox, ILV for Illuvium — this is what players get rewarded with to use as currency in-game. These tokens typically facilitate the governance (DAOs, and other Governing protocol) of projects as well.
Guild
An organization (sometimes, a DAO) that connects players, managers, and investors in the P2E world. A guild offers players the option to play-to-earn without investing their own money — the guild trains them and takes a commission of 20%-40% of the player’s earnings. This is done through “Scholarships”, where players are loaned the NFT assets, and engage in profit share, or some sort of fee system.
Airdrop
A marketing tool where crypto projects share their tokens throughout communities in a bid to encourage adoption. By joining an Airdrop, you can earn tokens for doing basic tasks or just win some at random.
DAO
DAO stands for ‘Decentralized Autonomous Organization’. DAOs are not governed by one single person or entity — instead, they’re governed by their members. The rules and governance of each DAO are coded in smart contracts on blockchain and cannot be changed unless the members vote on it. More and more new NFT and Metaverse projects are setting up DAO treasuries in where initial funds are collected from NFT sales, and after that holders decide how to use the treasury and choose the future project direction, etc. Decentraland DAO is one of the better known examples.
Scholarship
A training program with financial aid for players, sponsored by guilds. By joining a scholarship program, a player gets access to renting in-game characters, goes through onboarding, and starts playing and earning without investing their own money. In this case, the Guild and ‘scholar’ split the player’ in-game profits.
Free-to-play
Describes NFT-games that are free for the players to start. That means that you won’t need to buy any expensive skins or tokens to start playing the game.
Gas
Gas is the fee you pay to the blockchain network to cover the energy used to process your transactions. The fee goes to the ‘miners’ of the blockchain network you’re using — it compensates for the computing power they provide to process and validate your transactions. For example, high gas fees usually happen if there’s high demand on the network.
Metamask
One of the major digital cryptocurrency wallets, primarily used for the Ethereum blockchain, including games on Ethereum. Users can access their wallets through a browser extension or mobile app, and use it to work with decentralized apps. The wallet works with other blockchains, too, but it’s always safer to double-check if everything will run smoothly with the project you’re interested in.
MMO
Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Games. In the world of play-to-earn games, the most popular ММОs are League of Kingdoms and Elfin Kingdom.
NFA
Short for ‘Not Financial Advice’. This is a disclaimer that means you shouldn’t use the information you’re reading as a direct call to buy a certain token, coin or joining a specific P2E game. In simple words, this is the author’s way of reminding you that you should make your own financial decisions and never blindly follow something you just read online.
Rekt
Rekt is slang for ‘wrecked’. It originated in the online gaming community, spread out further, became a mainstream slang term and even a hashtag. Like the full word ‘wrecked’, it means someone has been totally ruined or destroyed. For instance, in the crypto community, rekt is used for someone who experienced big financial losses after bad investment decisions.
RPG
Short for ‘role-playing game’ — a game where players ‘become’ characters in a fictional setting. Players have to commit to fully acting out these roles within the game’s narrative, sometimes through literal acting, sometimes through structured decision-making based character development. For example, Ember Sword and Star Atlas are popular P2E RPGs.
Ronin Wallet
The official Ethereum sidechain digital wallet for Sky Mavis’ blockchain play-to-earn game, Axie Infinity.
Seed Phrase
A kind of a password in the world of crypto. A seed phrase is a unique combination of words that your wallet generates — this is the main authentication key for your wallet. Anyone who can access your seed phrase will be recognized as the wallet owner by the system, so keep it safe and private! A seed phrase can’t be restored, so don’t lose it either.
SLP
Stands for ‘Smooth Love Potion’ — tokens are earned as rewards by Axie Infinity players in battle or adventure mode. SLP are used to breed new digital pets, known as Axies.
YGG
Short for Yield Guild Games — one of the largest P2E guilds today that offers scholarships for the most popular games: Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, League of Kingdoms, Splinterlands and so on.
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