Play to airdrop has become a standard playbook for gaming projects to launch a game to gain traction to launch the token. However, most of the game tokens that “successfully” get listed on the exchange is going down only.
Why? Let’s see how typical P2A fails.
Pre-TGE
- Studios secure funds from VC & Protocol grants to develop the game.
- Host a Play to Airdrop campaign, which is basically selling tokens through a game.
- Tokens are used to “reward” users
- Games extract value from users by encouraging them to purchase game items and farm tokens.
- Focusing on vanity metrics (e.g., number of followers, number of transactions) to attract exchanges and look “hyped” → Not saying this isn’t required, but it unnecessarily increases the cost where runways are extracted to partnership and marketing agencies
It seems to be working as long as they can be successfully listed on CEX where new liquidity can help players to exit or open staking with promised long-term value to lock up the supply.
However, this euphoria won’t last long.