Of course, it often takes money to make money. Many of these games, while offering real avenues for value creation, also have some form of “buy-in” price, an initial payment for either an in-game NFT item or tokens, crucial to the play-to-earn mechanism. Unfortunately, not all newcomers have deep pockets to get involved, leading to a similar situation as the “pay-to-win” model. Consider Axie Infinity. The Pokémon-style game has players battling their “Axies” for a chance to win actual rewards. To begin, however, users need at least three of these virtual creatures. Unfortunately, they aren’t cheap, as each one costs a current minimum of $70 on the Axie marketplace, resulting in a grand total of $210 for newcomers to get started. That is cost prohibitive for many who would like to get involved.
