In 2021, Axie Infinity reached an impressive level of almost 2.7 million daily users, making it a pioneer of the new era of Play-to-Earn (P2E) gaming on Web3. However, its economy was not sustainable, with the price of the Axie token dropping 99% of its all-time high achieved in February 2022, and the daily active user base dropping by 90%, leaving the majority of the players with merely sunk costs. This crash echoed throughout the entire Web3 gaming sector. Projects in the GameFi space that had started development as early as 2017 watched their tokens plummet and their user base collapse to the tens of thousands. The backlash of this initial P2E wave was too harsh to handle, revealing fundamental faults of design and economic organization.

Promises such as “be your own boss,” “make money and have fun,” and “play in decentralized virtual worlds” were very appealing. The truth was steep entry costs, boring games, and unviable economies, but for the majority of players, this was not the case. Games like Decentraland and The Sandbox, which are worth billions of dollars, have less than 1,000 daily blockchain-active users.

What went wrong and what comes next? Chainers is a Web3 multiverse that was released in 2023 and has received an entirely different response. It does not follow the hype-based, speculation-focused approach of its predecessors, instead redesigning P2E into the Play-and-Create format featuring fun, creativity, and sustainability as its key priorities. This strategic move appears to have fallen much better with the audience since it has already acquired over 350,000 users in the first year, and has now surpassed 500,000 users in total.

What “Broke” Web3 Gaming

The early Web3 games were marketed as a tool to empower players. What they actually provided, though, was in many cases a combination of grind-based gameplay, inflationary token economy, and prohibitively high entry barriers. 

Broken Economies, Fragile Incentives

Most of the P2E projects had been constructed with speculative rewards. SLP (Smooth Love Potion), a token of Axie Infinity, lost almost all its value, pushing it close to zero, because of uncontrolled inflation. With the evaporation of the profit motive, the players disappeared. The same dynamics were observed in the ecosystem: 80% of GameFi investors discovered a drop in profits within half a year; 62% lost over half of their income. 

These models were based on the continuous introduction of new players to maintain value. The games too stopped with the stagnation in growth. The so-called Ponzinomics,, could not last.

Retention Problems and Player Churn

Such games as The Sandbox and My Neighbor Alice were in the limelight due to token sales and land auctions, yet they could not maintain their user base. There was no real game in it, and users logged out forever. The number of on-chain active users in Decentraland sunk to just 38 on a single day in 2022, sparking an outcry in the Web3 community despite the massive market caps. 

Fun Elements Took the Backseat

What is the root of the problem? Play-to-earn was more about earning than entertainment. Gameplay was often superficial, featuring click-to-earn mechanics, repetitive combat, or empty virtual spaces. Even the most hardcore Web3 supporters started to recognize that these games did not feel like actual games.

In 2023, a survey conducted by ChainPlay revealed that 81% of players are no longer interested in profitability when selecting GameFi titles, instead focusing on having fun. The problem with Web3 gaming was not only the blockchain and everything that comes with it, but mostly bad game design, as it showed that there had been little learned in decades of Web2 innovation.

Inside the Chainers’ Revolution

Chainers was created on a basic principle in which players will remain when the game is enjoyable, not when they are making money. Chainers was started by a group of gamer-developers who were tired of token-first metaverses and wanted to create a creative-first, sustainable gaming universe with its own inherent value.

Creative Economy over Speculative Tokenomics

Chainers is promoting daily involvement and creativity rather than speculative token farming. There is no paywall, and no investment is required to earn free NFT drops by logging in every day. These are NFT outfits, props, and crafting materials that power an active in-game economy.

They can be used throughout the gameplay in farming, in shooting, building, and in designing your personal location. Duplicates can be traded, which helps balance and develop the inventory without clogging the in-game economy. This system will make sure that rewards will not lose their value and that gameplay will remain interesting. In contrast to previous projects, the release of upcoming tokens is not rapid but rather utility-dependent, which does not create an inflationary impact.

Free, Accessible, and Fun from Day One

New players will get a Starter NFT pack, which will enable them to enter the Chainers’ universe immediately. Once there, they can explore the lightweight farming sim, a single-player shooter, and the upcoming city-building adventure.

This multi-game structure provides diversity and eliminates exhaustion. The resources that are gained in one game can be used in another and promote exploration and cross-mode gameplay.

A Day in the Chainers’ Universe

Chainers is already deployed on Polygon Edge, which enables fast, gas-free blockchain transactions. New players are provided with a starter pack with NFTs and can start playing instantly. Players are incentivized to log in every day, earning a rotating set of in-game assets, including NFT items and more valuable ones, such as seeds and animals, to create the habit of logging in every day immediately.

The players can choose to do farming, TBA, and PvE battles or customize their voxel-style avatar. Earned items can be sold or traded, allowing the inventory to grow steadily, even among casual users. The complexity of the gameplay is built upon a simple first experience, as players unlock further features, including crafting, building a home, and managing territory, as they level up.

Gameplay Modes:

• Chainers Farm: Grow NFT plants, collect the harvest, and earn in-game tokens or crypto. Easy to access, non-pressurized, and intended to be used on a daily basis. 
• Chainers Arena (soon): A PvP shooter currently under development. A beta version may be tested in the near future, with competitive features and potential rewards for top players. 
• Home Island (soon): Create and upgrade your own location, with the potential to expand into an entire city or even a planet. Customize it with NFT furniture and art to unlock in-game bonuses and rewards.
• Customization: More than 1,000 NFT outfit items; they are free to design, wear, or trade. 
• Social Community & Guilds: Join a thriving player base with thousands of active members engaging daily on Discord. Participate in events, join guilds, and collaborate with other players to grow your influence and territory in the Chainers universe.

Community Feedback

Chainers are often praised by the players because of their pleasant core loop and reward consistency. One user of Trustpilot says:

Source: Trustpilot

Chainers’ Ripple Effect on Web3 Gaming

Chainers is a Web3 game unlike any other. It is driving the market, and other people are noticing:

• DappRadar described Chainers as being in a good position to storm the metaverse. 
• CryptoPolitan has included it as one of the top examples of transition to sustainable P2E. 

Influencing Competitor Strategy 

Although flagship Web3 games such as Axie Infinity and The Sandbox are yet to fully embrace free-to-play, they have begun to explore greater accessibility and community-based events. Axie launched a free-to-try variant, Axie Infinity: Origins, and The Sandbox still has open Alpha Seasons and rewards Game Jams. 

Such changes indicate a wider understanding within the industry that the ability to lower the barrier to entry and create content that players want to consume is the secret to ensuring player retention over time. Being a completely free-to-play platform since its inception, Chainers is an illustration of this new trend, which implies that the days of spending hundreds of dollars on buying an NFT are over. 

Web2 vs. Web3 Done Right

Most of the earlier P2E games took inspiration more from DeFi than from high-quality game design. Chainers has a different philosophy, however, combining the power of intuitive, mobile-first game mechanics with the power of asset ownership and decentralization. As opposed to being introduced by speculation or complexity, the experience is more familiar to mainstream players, which makes Web3 adoption less threatening and increases player retention by huge margins.

According to a 2023 Tap Research survey, crypto-enabled gamers were becoming more attracted to artistic expression and social interaction as opposed to monetary gain only. Chainers reinforces this by placing a heavy emphasis on user-created content, socialization via guilds, and fun aspects.

Chainers is a more egalitarian, sustainable, and future-proof way to approach Web3 gaming by uniting long-term possibilities with the established UX principles of Web2.

A Living Metaverse, Built to Last

Chainers is not a dream seller. It is making a culture of everyday use, a light-hearted society, an economy owned by the users, all with gamifying features, but without making them gamble or buy to win.

Chainers, in a world full of empty promises, is unique in the sense that it focuses on fun, creativity, and accessibility. Daily NFTs with no cost. Linked gameplay. No hype cycles of tokens—simply regular content and value that actually matters to the player.

Find out more about Chainers at Chainers.io. 

Metaverse does not have to be complex, costly, and barren. It can be enjoyable, widely accessible, and promising. Chainers is demonstrating that- day in and day out.