I came across this really in depth article about crypto games and thought people would be interested in reading about it.
It is originally in portuguese, so i will post a google translated (really good translation tbh, was surprised) version in quotes, but please, check it out at the original source so they can get the pageview, it's really hard to get this kind of indepth reporting on games in Brasil!
www.overloadr.com.br
HENRIQUE SAMPAIO
Inspired by the documentary Play to Earn , produced by companies linked to the cryptocurrency sector and NFT , which explores the impact of Axie Infinity on the Philippine economy during the pandemic, Iago believes that his scholarship has a social role.
"As we wanted to embrace this social reason, we made a lot of content teaching the baby, so that a digitally illiterate person could play." To test the model, he passed the first accounts to his aunts and mother, who had never played video games before. "We used them as tests, everything worked out and we started passing out bills to people who were really in need. Some without jobs, others who needed to supplement income due to the pandemic."
Family members still play today. "Farm (mine resources within the game) what we ask for. They play like a job", he says. The mother, who owns a community radio station, lost advertisers during the pandemic due to the closing of stores, which considerably reduced her income. "And Axie helped her supplement the income. My aunts also take it seriously. And I think this is important because we have a relationship of play and fun. But this is tied to Axie and has an investor behind it. When you enter a scholarship, there is someone who put the money they bet on you, so you have to do the minimum, you have to play seven days a week, no matter if it's an hour and a half, two hours a day, you have to have that commitment."
This minimum is determined by the game itself, which makes use of energy-based mechanics similar to free-to-play games. On average a player takes up to 2h to spend all 20 energies he has access to per day. But there are ways to expand that limit, legally or illegally.
The legal way is to buy more axies – that is, injecting large amounts of money into the game. Buying 10 axies for an account extends the energy points to 40. With 20 axies, that's 60 energy points – around 6 hours of play a day, according to Iago.
The illegal way is through multiple accounts, called multiaccount . The company does not allow you to log out of one account and then log into another on the same device for 24 hours. However, if you do this on a second device, it is possible, although not allowed. Although there is a risk of banishment, the practice is common, according to Luís, allowing players to go beyond the daily playing time limits and increase income.
Although two hours are enough to reach the minimum daily goal, in the Discord community in Portuguese at Axie Infinity, people looking for approval in scholarships even report availability of up to 12 hours a day in their "curriculum", especially unemployed young people and that do not study.
"The people who say they have 10:00, 12:00 a day available for the game are more out of desperation to be hired, because they don't need all that time to play," says Iago. "Obviously the effort is nice. And we reward people who have a high performance here at Coy.GG. We have standard accounts that we pass on to the majority and when the player stands out, stands out, we offer him 40 energy and a more competitive account. So we give an opportunity to the guy who is working hard, who wants to earn more, who wants to be more competitive, and I think that this stimulates the community a lot."
To be a " scholar ", a player-worker of Axie Infinity, it is necessary to go through a selection process and an interview, like a common job. "We have a team that is only responsible for the selection process. We open it, make a form, and then there is a pre-selection in this form. Then we call for an interview on Discord , to talk and exchange ideas. But even so, a lot of people are coming in who haven't even managed to get above 800 [in ranking ]. And that creates a lot of work for us, because we have to change players, send the coach to teach, and sometimes it doesn't work because the person is not committed, or because they don't want to or really because the person has difficulty."
But because there are no regulations for this activity, both the players who take over their 400 Axie Infinity accounts and the direct scholarship employees are not formalized. And there are not few: "Currently there are about 17 people in the administrative area alone. We have the staff, who make the decisions, then we have the moderators, the coaches, the partner streamers. There are people dedicated to controlling the daily farm, making spreadsheets, who didn't farm, who farmed little, if there's any difficulty for the person to be referred to the coach."
The difficulty of registering the company has become an obstacle. " [Coy.GG] doesn't have a CNPJ yet, but the accountant is working, because the question of legality of cryptocurrency is very complicated, which CNAE will you choose to set up your company, what is the best way for you to pay the correct tax, no pay nothing more, otherwise they won't charge you the 27.5%" explains Iago, referring to the last national tax bracket for personal income tax.
"Today I pay the company tax as an individual, but the accountant is seeing if we are going to work as a lease of assets or something. He's looking for the best way for us to be able to enter as a company, to have a CNPJ and a name to be able to do all of this. And from what we've been talking about, it doesn't even fit into the CNAE of the eSport team, so it's a very different activity. I'm quite used to it because I come from poker, which doesn't have a CNAE either. Today I have a poker company and, just so you have an idea, its CNAE is a business intermediation. It is complicated. We want to pay taxes, it's bad, it's horrible, but it's even complicated. You contact the Federal Revenue and they don't give you anything. If you're going to do what they really want, you'll pay the 27.5% that I don't think is appropriate in this situation."
"If you don't want to pay tax, you don't, because they don't charge you. But when you start earning money, it will give you work ahead, because how are you going to declare it? So I prefer to start paying tax as an individual. As much as they don't cover it, I've always paid poker tax on Coy.GG winnings, because you know, it's a snowball. If we don't pay now, up front we will have to pay, and sometimes they charge a fine, sometimes it goes wrong. So it's better to stay straight."
"We suffered a nerf , our axies got a little weaker and for people who are joining and have no experience, it became more difficult, so the turnover increased", explains Iago. "Today we must be turning 70 to 120 accounts per month. So, although the number of active accounts is around 400, 70 to 120 of them have a monthly turnover of scholars.
"I hope the players who are leaving have the money to be able to buy their own accounts or to be able to do whatever they want. But I guarantee that 60% of this is because they didn't manage to play, they didn't work, they thought it was easy money and it's not like that. At least the two hours there a day you will have to dedicate, and even dedicate, it's no use opening WhatsApp, watching a movie, playing something else together, because it's a strategy game and if you don't have strategy you won't win. There are so many people who work there under the hot sun, from eight to ten hours and the person has the opportunity to work two hours in the comfort of their own home, lying in bed, and earning a minimum wage, at least, and they don't appreciate it ."
Although it is not so common, according to Iago, for scholars who abandon the life of miners in Axie Infinity to buy their independence and invest in their own accounts, this was the path followed by the brothers João and Luís. scholars earlier this year, just before the popularity boom, they took advantage of the SLP's short upswing and managed to make a good nest egg.
"The arrangement was that Lu and I were going to gather some money so we could buy an account for the two of us to share", says João. "Then add another money and buy another one. So each one kept an account and we left the scholarship . If we hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been able to save money and buy another axie."
"The performance isn't great but…", says Luís, with his brother completing the sentence in sequence: "It's three times more than playing for a scholarship ".
Despite the investment of energy, time and money in the blockchain gaming universe, they are far from being cryptocurrency evangelists. John is the most suspicious. "It has everything to go wrong. I always took a step back. If the account I bought wasn't worth what I think I can still get back with it and the money I'm going to make, I wouldn't have continued. Because we don't know how long this will last." Luís, in addition to keeping his account at Axie Infinity and acting as a coach on a friend's scholarship , started looking for other NFT-based games that could "explode" like Axie Infinity — but that would require less time and effort.
"What we see happening in these games has been happening for decades, but out of the blockchain hype", says Thiago Falcão, professor at the Federal University of Paraíba, doctor in communication and contemporary culture and game researcher.
"And it happens in an obscure way that it's not in people's interests to draw attention to it. There are two places where these mechanics of precarious work and commodification of intellectual property take place. The first is in the work of writer Julian Dibbell , which is this thing about mining gold in MMOs in general. So there were a lot of people working on it." Thiago remember that even the former adviser to Donald Trump and ally of Jair Bolsonaro , Steve Bannon , invested in a gold mining company in the World of Warcraft, which employed Chinese workers to perform repetitive tasks in the game and generate items, which would then be sold to wealthy players, especially in the US.
"The other side is in the secondary market of Magic: The Gathering ", the famous collectible card game. According to Thiago, it is a medium shaped by financial speculation and manipulation. "There's a guy in the US who is a mega investor named Rudy who has a YouTube channel called Alpha Investments . This guy is a multimillionaire and his main asset is Magic cards. He creates speeches about the cards, for example, don't buy such a collection, and then three years later he appears with hundreds of boxes from the collection because things will appreciate. So he plays a lot in it. He has made several statements saying that he only invests in Magic because he knows that the things he does in the game market would not be allowed in the stock market. He would already be arrested. So it's that kind of thing."
According to Thiago, speculation around Magic cards is also well known by players in Brazil. "These guys have stores. These stores have collections of letters worth between R$500,000 and R$1 million. And these guys don't pay tax, don't declare anything. That's a value that's just what these guys are trying to do with cryptogames today. It's a value the community has given to this collectible dimension of the game."
Speculation is common within Axie Infinity. An example given by Luís is the land, which is being sold at very high prices. At the end of November, one of these pieces of land was sold for the equivalent of US$ 2.4 million (around R$ 13.5 million) , even though, at the moment, it is not used for anything within the game. "There is this expectation that when the update comes out that will implement this element in the game. They kind of created a map made out of these terrains, and on that map it has features. It has nature, desert, rivers, a road. So if you have land near the water and you have fish-like axies, you'll probably do better. All this speculation that makes people buy things. In this sense, the game will sustain itself, with new updates, new functions."
João adds: "The company takes advantage of this. The faster they release a final version of the game, the less they can speculate on it. It will be an eternal search for a new update so that the value of the SLP goes up and people continue to earn more."
For Ivan Mussa, who also teaches at the Federal University of Paraíba and studies the relationship between games, work, politics and digital culture, there is a hypothesis among researchers that the nature of the game is changing as a result of a neoliberalization of its practice. "The game is being gamified", he theorizes. According to him, the concept of gamification – which uses psychological tricks and game mechanics in shopping, consumption, training and application use experiences – is increasingly present in the games themselves. "They have some of these tricks like the conquests, the daily tasks, things that try to fish you for the satiety to want to complete everything. My impression is that this is becoming more widespread and becoming something of a rule in video games."
"My favorite example is Ubisoft games, where you have experiences designed for the player to perform repetitive tasks. You already know what you will find, how many treasures, how many mysteries, how many characters, quests etc. Everything is counted and quantified as if it were an Excel checklist sheet you are filling out there." One of the NFT items that is part of Ubisoft's recently announced blockchain experiment requires the player to play 600 hours of Ghost Recon Breakpoint to be acquired , which should weigh on its value when the item is resold.
For Ivan, repetition can bring games closer to alienating work, in which the worker does not have a complete view of the processes, being limited to repeating mechanical tasks – as in Charlie Chaplin's scene in Modern Times . "Digital work is a new way of working, such as training artificial intelligences, clickwork . The Amazon has its own division that, the mechanical turk, you stand there doing repetitive tasks. And if you think about it, it's not that different than going into an MMO and killing the same type of creature 150 times to farm an item or grind to level up."
"It's different from a craftsman's work where the guy thinks of a chair, a sculpture, and he goes through all the processes, he is aware of all the phases of that process: from design, choosing the wood, the tools. He is there as a process commander. While in alienated work, the human being is no longer a worker, he is a tool. It could be a robot. He goes there to repeat the same task he is trained to do and turns this repetitive work which is not bad because it repeats, it is bad because you are oblivious to all the other processes. You become a tool in the hand of someone who is controlling the workflow."
This does not mean that every repetitive game is some kind of alienating work. "In Minecraft you can be there digging, mining repetitively, but at some point you're going to take those resources and you're going to try to build a house. You are faced with a problem that is more interesting, that requires another kind of thinking."
"Playing games can be perceived as something more dignified or less costly than washing someone else's bathroom and then the question is: but under what conditions?", asks Thiago. "Because certain markets pay, let's say, adequately for this type of service. If you think about the number of people who will wash dishes in London or the USA. It's cool? No. It's underemployment. But the living conditions, HDI, and purchasing power, they are greater. This is a fact. Relation to the minimum wage. While talking to any Uber driver, they will say that they have to work 16 hours a day, every day, without a break, to earn R$3,000 a month."
For Thiago, the informal system of scholarships in blockchain games gives rise to abuse. "Historically, unobserved working conditions tend to become conditions of exploitation", he explains.
"Look at this scholarship idea. It assumes a guy who has a lot of money and who is going to speculate. This is real estate speculation on the blockchain. The guy says: I'm going to get these R$30,000 of mine that I'm not doing anything with, they're stopped, I won't miss them at all. Because we are talking about this type of reasoning. It's the guy who says: well, I can toast 30 dicks at the club this weekend or I can invest it here. Then the guy goes there, puts those 30 thousand inside and says 'if you can, fine, if not, fine'. He literally alienates the job from the guys he hires to work for him. He goes there and says 'Here, I'm giving you the working conditions, what you earn is yours.'"
"And then I'll come back with the Magic parallel. As long as there is no regulation in certain dimensions, things will tend towards whoever is stronger. This is a corollary of society. So the question, for me, is not whether it's good or bad. It's just that, if there isn't a very tacit and visible kind of agreement, I strongly doubt that it's profitable for those who are playing. This will be nice for those who command the platform, for those who have money to speculate, for these positions of power."
Thiago cites the strike made by Brazilian streamers on Twitch , in response to a platform decision that caused their incomes to plummet, and the virulent way in which the gaming community reacted to the protest. "We did a survey on the network, a collection of tweets, and what we found is that the streamer defends the position of work while the very guys who consume the streamer, his followers, say, 'Wow, do you want time off to play video games ? Are you thinking that playing video games is work, crazy person?' It's from there down. So the hypothesis I'm working on is: no game work is going to be considered worthy. None. Because none is like that today."
"Brazil is a very traditional and conservative society. The government is there to show this. We are traditional and conservative. So if you look historically at any job in the field of play, in a broad sense, it's disrespected. Ah, are you going to become a musician? Disrespected. Say you're going to be an artist? Disrespected. Are you going to play football? Disrespected. Unless you get rich. No, it's because you got rich, not because of what you're doing."
In response to researcher Thiago Falcão's statement about scholarships, Iago, the owner of Coy.GG, said: "There is no guy who has a lot of money and no guy who is speculating. Not inside Coy.GG. There are no millionaires nor anyone who can tear up R$ 30 thousand. It was a studied project and the money invested would be missed if it went wrong. But then comes the question of every investment that can go wrong. If he is linking the scholarship market to the cryptocurrency market, which is much maligned in the media (and rightly so, because with every lack of information it is more susceptible to scams), he is completely wrong. This is a new business model, but it is a business model. We have a whole teaching methodology, monitoring, private classes and everything else. We follow it from the first contact to the last, it's not even close to what he claims."
"I would like to add and reinforce: we are a serious business model, we are not looking for investors and we are not selling any courses. We give the opportunity to those who want to play and are unable to buy what they need to get started in the game, with the aim of helping people to manage to have their own accounts and give opportunities to someone else. Anyone who doesn't want to buy their account will always be welcome in ours. Nothing is imposed, we don't impose anything, people come to us and people accept our model. Not everyone has R$5,000 or R$10,000 to play a little game. A lot of people are starving and we are helping."
Axie Infinity is the tip of an iceberg that, with each passing day, emerges a little, bringing to light not only a wave of blockchain games and a universe of virtual economies but also, at best, a series of doubts regarding to the future. Unlike other past trends in the video game industry, such as the free-to-play game model that came into being with the popularization of smartphones, play-to-earn games raise serious questions pertaining to the world of work, still little studied and understood in the scope of digital games, especially in Brazil – not to mention the already known environmental impact. "There is no funding for video game research [in Brazil]," explains Thiago. "Meanwhile you have not just Jair Renan Bolsonaro but the right as a whole, looking at video games, buying video games, using video games,
It is originally in portuguese, so i will post a google translated (really good translation tbh, was surprised) version in quotes, but please, check it out at the original source so they can get the pageview, it's really hard to get this kind of indepth reporting on games in Brasil!
Jogos em blockchain “play-to-earn” criam cenário propício para trabalho informal e precarizado — Overloadr
A rotina de trabalho incessante em jogos play-to-earn e como a especulação financeira está explorando o campo dos videogames
www.overloadr.com.br
Play-to-earn blockchain games create a favorable scenario for informal and precarious work
HENRIQUE SAMPAIOIn 2021, the gaming world became the stage of a war. On the one hand corporations, startups and cryptocurrency enthusiasts claiming the play-to-earn model of blockchain games , profitable to players, as a revolution and the future of video games. On the other, players and developers who accuse the movement of a global pyramid scheme, serving speculative interests and tax evasion, and denounce the blockchain's environmental impact. The Ubisoft became the first traditional publishing games to enter the universe of NFTs , with its announcement of Ubisoft Quartz, on December 6, which will make use of blockchain Tezos, less energy consumer. But even with the promise of a less environmentally aggressive technology, two days later, the 96% dislike rate in the YouTube ad video made news , evidencing the public's negative reaction. Although the video was taken off the air, the launch of the project proceeded normally.
Amidst this conflict, stories emerge of people making (and losing) money from blockchain-based games, as well as a host of doubts about labor issues in a new field that is far from well understood, let alone regulated.
The brothers João Lucas Teixeira, 24, a theater student and audiovisual editor, and Luís Guilherme Teixeira, 21, a forest engineering student, both residents of the small town of Bom Sucesso, in the interior of Minas Gerais, lived a story shared by thousands of Brazilians during the pandemic: they found an unexpected source of income in the Vietnamese game Axie Infinity .
The introduction to the game came from a family friend of Luís' girlfriend, who made the initial investment in an Axie Infinity account – which involves buying at least three NFT characters (axies) in a market, each costing between US$90 (about R$500) and US$900 (about R$5,000), values determined by the players themselves.
At the invitation of his friend, Luís was responsible for hitting the game's daily goals, receiving a weekly percentage of earnings in SLP , a token based on the Ethereum cryptocurrency generated in Axie Infinity in adventure mode or in PvP arena , which can be converted into cash.
"Then João started, on my recommendation. Then his girlfriend. Then my girlfriend. My friends. And so everyone started to get a scholarship ", says Luís. His brother, João, adds: "I play with a friend of mine who also took the bill, which is like an update of the pyramid scheme".
In this type of relationship already normalized and recognized by the play-to-earn game developers themselves, scholarship owns multiple accounts (each with at least three characters, in the case of Axie Infinity), distributing them temporarily to players who they don't have the financial conditions to make this entry into the game or they want to learn how to play before making an initial investment. Thus, the scholarship owner , who has the necessary capital to invest in new accounts, is responsible for hiring players, who will get their hands dirty and generate resources within the game. A part of the income goes to the player, and the other to the scholarship .
The proportion depends on the agreement established between the parties, but currently, in a division considered fair, 60% stays with the "boss", and 40% with the "worker". It is an informal contract, with nothing but the word itself to assure the worker that the employer will pay him properly. Although the player has access to the account temporarily, the wallet remains with the boss. "They take their share and give you their commission", explains Luís. "And you don't have much to do. If the guy wants to take your account, change your password, withdraw your SLPs, not pay you and disappear, he can do that, there's nothing to stop him — although there are reliable scholarships ."
"You get the bill and you have to play every day, 7 days a week, maintaining an average SLP. An average of daily income", explains João. This average varies according to the internal economy of the game, as well as the price of the SLP.
João states that, in mid-July, it was possible to obtain 220 SLP per day. "At the time we entered [in March] the SLP was worth around R$ 0.70, more or less. A few weeks later, there was this boom in players and the currency hit R$ 2. For about three weeks the currency was above R$ 1. At that time we made good money". Without counting the cryptocurrency and withdrawal rates, which are with exchange companies like Binance, the amount would be around R$ 10 thousand in a month: R$ 7 thousand for the boss, R$ 3 thousand for the worker, in a 70/30 division, as was practiced in this period of high SLP.
The value, however, did not hold – something common in the volatile and speculative world of cryptocurrencies. The game's constant changes, through updates and seasons, implemented by the developers, which aim to balance the internal economy (or meet the undeclared interests of the companies behind the game) " nerf " certain types of characters and " snort " others. These changes profoundly affect players' work and earnings, causing overnight characters and items to lose or gain value.
In early December, the SLP price dropped to around R$0.20. Its achievement is now also tied to an overall player ranking, determined by PvP wins or losses , which has given the game a more competitive look. The player only earns SLP if they are at a certain level in the overall ranking. Also, this ranking is reset every new season, which happens every 40 days or more.
"The weaker accounts, which rank below 800, can no longer make SLP in the adventure. Then there was a wave of accounts that were cut off momentarily. If they manage to go back to above 800, they will have some income again", explains João. And there are other aggravating factors: the daily SLP limit that can be obtained in adventure mode ( PvE, where you play against the computer) has dropped to 75 (it was 150) and the rest needs to be fetched in Arena mode, against other players. "Only that in the Arena you need to have a good ranking to have income in SLP, and if you have axies with bad cards you can't move up in the ranking." That is, if an update "nerfs" your characters (which happened to most players in November, in the 19th season of the game, according to the brothers), it is possible that you no longer have the minimum conditions to start earning SLP.
And, if you're an account owner, good luck trying to sell your devalued characters at a price that allows you to buy one that's more compatible with the changes established by the last game update.
João says that a friend who is graduating and who lost her scholarship tried to turn to Axie Infinity as a source of income, after the changes. "It took two hours of work every day, 30 days a month, with no time off, to earn R$450. It got very complicated. It pays more to stop playing and look for a regular job."
And in this ecosystem, the worker-player is subject not only to the demands of scholarship , being pressured to meet daily goals and stay within minimum standards of competitiveness due to rankings, but also to the changing and unpredictable rules of the game itself. Keeping the proper proportions, he is not so different from the Uber driver who rents a car to work on the platform and, subject to the algorithm and the economic crisis, needs to hit daily goals to achieve a profit margin. And all on the basis of informality.
"It becomes a commitment", says Luís. "We travel as a family, my cousin also plays. When you approach 9 pm, the deadline for you to meet your goals, there are five people at the table playing the same thing." The brother adds: "And when you are on a scholarship , there is no possibility for you to take a weekend to rest, go somewhere in the countryside. If you don't have internet for two days you lose count. That's what we're told."
For the player-worker on a scholarship , there is no slack or relay. "The account is individual and you have to hit a target individually, which is already set for you to make 150 SLP per day", explains Luís. "If you stop playing on the weekend, your average for the rest of the week will be compromised ."
The brothers say that meeting daily goals without the possibility of taking a day off has been a source of anguish. "I'm training people on a scholarship and there are people who get very stressed because they can't reach their goals", says Luís. "People are getting very tired and stressed. I got tendonitis in both hands, thumb, elbow, shoulder. We play every day. Eventually your body starts charging you."
Although it's a strategic game involving character battle cards, Axie Infinity is based on a lot of repetition – which doesn't mean that the matches don't require a good deal of attention. "The player puts his cards, ends the move, then you put your cards, the axies fight. Then the same thing. So it's extremely repetitive and exhausting. It's not fun", says Luís. "You can find it fun for at most a week."
For João, the biggest impact has been on studies. "I've never had as much difficulty reading college text as I have today. It's mentally exhausting." So much so that he has taken the issue to therapy. "You earn R$400 to spend R$100 with a psychologist every week. My issue with the psychologist in recent weeks was my anxiety to buy my own account and not have to hit the goal every day at 9 pm."
Amidst this conflict, stories emerge of people making (and losing) money from blockchain-based games, as well as a host of doubts about labor issues in a new field that is far from well understood, let alone regulated.
The brothers João Lucas Teixeira, 24, a theater student and audiovisual editor, and Luís Guilherme Teixeira, 21, a forest engineering student, both residents of the small town of Bom Sucesso, in the interior of Minas Gerais, lived a story shared by thousands of Brazilians during the pandemic: they found an unexpected source of income in the Vietnamese game Axie Infinity .
The introduction to the game came from a family friend of Luís' girlfriend, who made the initial investment in an Axie Infinity account – which involves buying at least three NFT characters (axies) in a market, each costing between US$90 (about R$500) and US$900 (about R$5,000), values determined by the players themselves.
At the invitation of his friend, Luís was responsible for hitting the game's daily goals, receiving a weekly percentage of earnings in SLP , a token based on the Ethereum cryptocurrency generated in Axie Infinity in adventure mode or in PvP arena , which can be converted into cash.
"Then João started, on my recommendation. Then his girlfriend. Then my girlfriend. My friends. And so everyone started to get a scholarship ", says Luís. His brother, João, adds: "I play with a friend of mine who also took the bill, which is like an update of the pyramid scheme".
In this type of relationship already normalized and recognized by the play-to-earn game developers themselves, scholarship owns multiple accounts (each with at least three characters, in the case of Axie Infinity), distributing them temporarily to players who they don't have the financial conditions to make this entry into the game or they want to learn how to play before making an initial investment. Thus, the scholarship owner , who has the necessary capital to invest in new accounts, is responsible for hiring players, who will get their hands dirty and generate resources within the game. A part of the income goes to the player, and the other to the scholarship .
The proportion depends on the agreement established between the parties, but currently, in a division considered fair, 60% stays with the "boss", and 40% with the "worker". It is an informal contract, with nothing but the word itself to assure the worker that the employer will pay him properly. Although the player has access to the account temporarily, the wallet remains with the boss. "They take their share and give you their commission", explains Luís. "And you don't have much to do. If the guy wants to take your account, change your password, withdraw your SLPs, not pay you and disappear, he can do that, there's nothing to stop him — although there are reliable scholarships ."
"You get the bill and you have to play every day, 7 days a week, maintaining an average SLP. An average of daily income", explains João. This average varies according to the internal economy of the game, as well as the price of the SLP.
João states that, in mid-July, it was possible to obtain 220 SLP per day. "At the time we entered [in March] the SLP was worth around R$ 0.70, more or less. A few weeks later, there was this boom in players and the currency hit R$ 2. For about three weeks the currency was above R$ 1. At that time we made good money". Without counting the cryptocurrency and withdrawal rates, which are with exchange companies like Binance, the amount would be around R$ 10 thousand in a month: R$ 7 thousand for the boss, R$ 3 thousand for the worker, in a 70/30 division, as was practiced in this period of high SLP.
The value, however, did not hold – something common in the volatile and speculative world of cryptocurrencies. The game's constant changes, through updates and seasons, implemented by the developers, which aim to balance the internal economy (or meet the undeclared interests of the companies behind the game) " nerf " certain types of characters and " snort " others. These changes profoundly affect players' work and earnings, causing overnight characters and items to lose or gain value.
In early December, the SLP price dropped to around R$0.20. Its achievement is now also tied to an overall player ranking, determined by PvP wins or losses , which has given the game a more competitive look. The player only earns SLP if they are at a certain level in the overall ranking. Also, this ranking is reset every new season, which happens every 40 days or more.
"The weaker accounts, which rank below 800, can no longer make SLP in the adventure. Then there was a wave of accounts that were cut off momentarily. If they manage to go back to above 800, they will have some income again", explains João. And there are other aggravating factors: the daily SLP limit that can be obtained in adventure mode ( PvE, where you play against the computer) has dropped to 75 (it was 150) and the rest needs to be fetched in Arena mode, against other players. "Only that in the Arena you need to have a good ranking to have income in SLP, and if you have axies with bad cards you can't move up in the ranking." That is, if an update "nerfs" your characters (which happened to most players in November, in the 19th season of the game, according to the brothers), it is possible that you no longer have the minimum conditions to start earning SLP.
And, if you're an account owner, good luck trying to sell your devalued characters at a price that allows you to buy one that's more compatible with the changes established by the last game update.
João says that a friend who is graduating and who lost her scholarship tried to turn to Axie Infinity as a source of income, after the changes. "It took two hours of work every day, 30 days a month, with no time off, to earn R$450. It got very complicated. It pays more to stop playing and look for a regular job."
And in this ecosystem, the worker-player is subject not only to the demands of scholarship , being pressured to meet daily goals and stay within minimum standards of competitiveness due to rankings, but also to the changing and unpredictable rules of the game itself. Keeping the proper proportions, he is not so different from the Uber driver who rents a car to work on the platform and, subject to the algorithm and the economic crisis, needs to hit daily goals to achieve a profit margin. And all on the basis of informality.
"It becomes a commitment", says Luís. "We travel as a family, my cousin also plays. When you approach 9 pm, the deadline for you to meet your goals, there are five people at the table playing the same thing." The brother adds: "And when you are on a scholarship , there is no possibility for you to take a weekend to rest, go somewhere in the countryside. If you don't have internet for two days you lose count. That's what we're told."
For the player-worker on a scholarship , there is no slack or relay. "The account is individual and you have to hit a target individually, which is already set for you to make 150 SLP per day", explains Luís. "If you stop playing on the weekend, your average for the rest of the week will be compromised ."
The brothers say that meeting daily goals without the possibility of taking a day off has been a source of anguish. "I'm training people on a scholarship and there are people who get very stressed because they can't reach their goals", says Luís. "People are getting very tired and stressed. I got tendonitis in both hands, thumb, elbow, shoulder. We play every day. Eventually your body starts charging you."
Although it's a strategic game involving character battle cards, Axie Infinity is based on a lot of repetition – which doesn't mean that the matches don't require a good deal of attention. "The player puts his cards, ends the move, then you put your cards, the axies fight. Then the same thing. So it's extremely repetitive and exhausting. It's not fun", says Luís. "You can find it fun for at most a week."
For João, the biggest impact has been on studies. "I've never had as much difficulty reading college text as I have today. It's mentally exhausting." So much so that he has taken the issue to therapy. "You earn R$400 to spend R$100 with a psychologist every week. My issue with the psychologist in recent weeks was my anxiety to buy my own account and not have to hit the goal every day at 9 pm."
Difficulty in formalizing
Iago Moreira Souza, a resident of Nepomuceno, Minas Gerais, founded Coy.GG in March. Luís and João were two of more than 1,500 people who have gone through the 400 accounts that scholarship currently maintains. Most are men between 23 and 35 years old, according to Iago. Women, only 15%. Iago considers Coy.GG the greatest scholarship in Brazil and, perhaps, in Latin America. "I came from the poker business, I have online poker clubs, I used to be a professional player, I have a poker team too, I really like to invest. I saw an investment opportunity in which I would be able to help people and also earn a profit", he says.Inspired by the documentary Play to Earn , produced by companies linked to the cryptocurrency sector and NFT , which explores the impact of Axie Infinity on the Philippine economy during the pandemic, Iago believes that his scholarship has a social role.
"As we wanted to embrace this social reason, we made a lot of content teaching the baby, so that a digitally illiterate person could play." To test the model, he passed the first accounts to his aunts and mother, who had never played video games before. "We used them as tests, everything worked out and we started passing out bills to people who were really in need. Some without jobs, others who needed to supplement income due to the pandemic."
Family members still play today. "Farm (mine resources within the game) what we ask for. They play like a job", he says. The mother, who owns a community radio station, lost advertisers during the pandemic due to the closing of stores, which considerably reduced her income. "And Axie helped her supplement the income. My aunts also take it seriously. And I think this is important because we have a relationship of play and fun. But this is tied to Axie and has an investor behind it. When you enter a scholarship, there is someone who put the money they bet on you, so you have to do the minimum, you have to play seven days a week, no matter if it's an hour and a half, two hours a day, you have to have that commitment."
This minimum is determined by the game itself, which makes use of energy-based mechanics similar to free-to-play games. On average a player takes up to 2h to spend all 20 energies he has access to per day. But there are ways to expand that limit, legally or illegally.
The legal way is to buy more axies – that is, injecting large amounts of money into the game. Buying 10 axies for an account extends the energy points to 40. With 20 axies, that's 60 energy points – around 6 hours of play a day, according to Iago.
The illegal way is through multiple accounts, called multiaccount . The company does not allow you to log out of one account and then log into another on the same device for 24 hours. However, if you do this on a second device, it is possible, although not allowed. Although there is a risk of banishment, the practice is common, according to Luís, allowing players to go beyond the daily playing time limits and increase income.
Although two hours are enough to reach the minimum daily goal, in the Discord community in Portuguese at Axie Infinity, people looking for approval in scholarships even report availability of up to 12 hours a day in their "curriculum", especially unemployed young people and that do not study.
"The people who say they have 10:00, 12:00 a day available for the game are more out of desperation to be hired, because they don't need all that time to play," says Iago. "Obviously the effort is nice. And we reward people who have a high performance here at Coy.GG. We have standard accounts that we pass on to the majority and when the player stands out, stands out, we offer him 40 energy and a more competitive account. So we give an opportunity to the guy who is working hard, who wants to earn more, who wants to be more competitive, and I think that this stimulates the community a lot."
To be a " scholar ", a player-worker of Axie Infinity, it is necessary to go through a selection process and an interview, like a common job. "We have a team that is only responsible for the selection process. We open it, make a form, and then there is a pre-selection in this form. Then we call for an interview on Discord , to talk and exchange ideas. But even so, a lot of people are coming in who haven't even managed to get above 800 [in ranking ]. And that creates a lot of work for us, because we have to change players, send the coach to teach, and sometimes it doesn't work because the person is not committed, or because they don't want to or really because the person has difficulty."
But because there are no regulations for this activity, both the players who take over their 400 Axie Infinity accounts and the direct scholarship employees are not formalized. And there are not few: "Currently there are about 17 people in the administrative area alone. We have the staff, who make the decisions, then we have the moderators, the coaches, the partner streamers. There are people dedicated to controlling the daily farm, making spreadsheets, who didn't farm, who farmed little, if there's any difficulty for the person to be referred to the coach."
The difficulty of registering the company has become an obstacle. " [Coy.GG] doesn't have a CNPJ yet, but the accountant is working, because the question of legality of cryptocurrency is very complicated, which CNAE will you choose to set up your company, what is the best way for you to pay the correct tax, no pay nothing more, otherwise they won't charge you the 27.5%" explains Iago, referring to the last national tax bracket for personal income tax.
"Today I pay the company tax as an individual, but the accountant is seeing if we are going to work as a lease of assets or something. He's looking for the best way for us to be able to enter as a company, to have a CNPJ and a name to be able to do all of this. And from what we've been talking about, it doesn't even fit into the CNAE of the eSport team, so it's a very different activity. I'm quite used to it because I come from poker, which doesn't have a CNAE either. Today I have a poker company and, just so you have an idea, its CNAE is a business intermediation. It is complicated. We want to pay taxes, it's bad, it's horrible, but it's even complicated. You contact the Federal Revenue and they don't give you anything. If you're going to do what they really want, you'll pay the 27.5% that I don't think is appropriate in this situation."
"If you don't want to pay tax, you don't, because they don't charge you. But when you start earning money, it will give you work ahead, because how are you going to declare it? So I prefer to start paying tax as an individual. As much as they don't cover it, I've always paid poker tax on Coy.GG winnings, because you know, it's a snowball. If we don't pay now, up front we will have to pay, and sometimes they charge a fine, sometimes it goes wrong. So it's better to stay straight."
sudden changes
Due to the game's season 19 update, which caused a drop in player performance and increased difficulty due to the competitive focus, many players chose to leave Axie Infinity."We suffered a nerf , our axies got a little weaker and for people who are joining and have no experience, it became more difficult, so the turnover increased", explains Iago. "Today we must be turning 70 to 120 accounts per month. So, although the number of active accounts is around 400, 70 to 120 of them have a monthly turnover of scholars.
"I hope the players who are leaving have the money to be able to buy their own accounts or to be able to do whatever they want. But I guarantee that 60% of this is because they didn't manage to play, they didn't work, they thought it was easy money and it's not like that. At least the two hours there a day you will have to dedicate, and even dedicate, it's no use opening WhatsApp, watching a movie, playing something else together, because it's a strategy game and if you don't have strategy you won't win. There are so many people who work there under the hot sun, from eight to ten hours and the person has the opportunity to work two hours in the comfort of their own home, lying in bed, and earning a minimum wage, at least, and they don't appreciate it ."
Although it is not so common, according to Iago, for scholars who abandon the life of miners in Axie Infinity to buy their independence and invest in their own accounts, this was the path followed by the brothers João and Luís. scholars earlier this year, just before the popularity boom, they took advantage of the SLP's short upswing and managed to make a good nest egg.
"The arrangement was that Lu and I were going to gather some money so we could buy an account for the two of us to share", says João. "Then add another money and buy another one. So each one kept an account and we left the scholarship . If we hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been able to save money and buy another axie."
"The performance isn't great but…", says Luís, with his brother completing the sentence in sequence: "It's three times more than playing for a scholarship ".
Despite the investment of energy, time and money in the blockchain gaming universe, they are far from being cryptocurrency evangelists. John is the most suspicious. "It has everything to go wrong. I always took a step back. If the account I bought wasn't worth what I think I can still get back with it and the money I'm going to make, I wouldn't have continued. Because we don't know how long this will last." Luís, in addition to keeping his account at Axie Infinity and acting as a coach on a friend's scholarship , started looking for other NFT-based games that could "explode" like Axie Infinity — but that would require less time and effort.
Speculation and precarious work
The discussion about the relationship between game and work is older than video games themselves, and appears in some seminal works in the study of games, as in Homo Ludens, by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, originally published in 1938. However, with video games and now, with blockchain games, that relationship has been getting closer."What we see happening in these games has been happening for decades, but out of the blockchain hype", says Thiago Falcão, professor at the Federal University of Paraíba, doctor in communication and contemporary culture and game researcher.
"And it happens in an obscure way that it's not in people's interests to draw attention to it. There are two places where these mechanics of precarious work and commodification of intellectual property take place. The first is in the work of writer Julian Dibbell , which is this thing about mining gold in MMOs in general. So there were a lot of people working on it." Thiago remember that even the former adviser to Donald Trump and ally of Jair Bolsonaro , Steve Bannon , invested in a gold mining company in the World of Warcraft, which employed Chinese workers to perform repetitive tasks in the game and generate items, which would then be sold to wealthy players, especially in the US.
"The other side is in the secondary market of Magic: The Gathering ", the famous collectible card game. According to Thiago, it is a medium shaped by financial speculation and manipulation. "There's a guy in the US who is a mega investor named Rudy who has a YouTube channel called Alpha Investments . This guy is a multimillionaire and his main asset is Magic cards. He creates speeches about the cards, for example, don't buy such a collection, and then three years later he appears with hundreds of boxes from the collection because things will appreciate. So he plays a lot in it. He has made several statements saying that he only invests in Magic because he knows that the things he does in the game market would not be allowed in the stock market. He would already be arrested. So it's that kind of thing."
According to Thiago, speculation around Magic cards is also well known by players in Brazil. "These guys have stores. These stores have collections of letters worth between R$500,000 and R$1 million. And these guys don't pay tax, don't declare anything. That's a value that's just what these guys are trying to do with cryptogames today. It's a value the community has given to this collectible dimension of the game."
Speculation is common within Axie Infinity. An example given by Luís is the land, which is being sold at very high prices. At the end of November, one of these pieces of land was sold for the equivalent of US$ 2.4 million (around R$ 13.5 million) , even though, at the moment, it is not used for anything within the game. "There is this expectation that when the update comes out that will implement this element in the game. They kind of created a map made out of these terrains, and on that map it has features. It has nature, desert, rivers, a road. So if you have land near the water and you have fish-like axies, you'll probably do better. All this speculation that makes people buy things. In this sense, the game will sustain itself, with new updates, new functions."
João adds: "The company takes advantage of this. The faster they release a final version of the game, the less they can speculate on it. It will be an eternal search for a new update so that the value of the SLP goes up and people continue to earn more."
For Ivan Mussa, who also teaches at the Federal University of Paraíba and studies the relationship between games, work, politics and digital culture, there is a hypothesis among researchers that the nature of the game is changing as a result of a neoliberalization of its practice. "The game is being gamified", he theorizes. According to him, the concept of gamification – which uses psychological tricks and game mechanics in shopping, consumption, training and application use experiences – is increasingly present in the games themselves. "They have some of these tricks like the conquests, the daily tasks, things that try to fish you for the satiety to want to complete everything. My impression is that this is becoming more widespread and becoming something of a rule in video games."
"My favorite example is Ubisoft games, where you have experiences designed for the player to perform repetitive tasks. You already know what you will find, how many treasures, how many mysteries, how many characters, quests etc. Everything is counted and quantified as if it were an Excel checklist sheet you are filling out there." One of the NFT items that is part of Ubisoft's recently announced blockchain experiment requires the player to play 600 hours of Ghost Recon Breakpoint to be acquired , which should weigh on its value when the item is resold.
For Ivan, repetition can bring games closer to alienating work, in which the worker does not have a complete view of the processes, being limited to repeating mechanical tasks – as in Charlie Chaplin's scene in Modern Times . "Digital work is a new way of working, such as training artificial intelligences, clickwork . The Amazon has its own division that, the mechanical turk, you stand there doing repetitive tasks. And if you think about it, it's not that different than going into an MMO and killing the same type of creature 150 times to farm an item or grind to level up."
"It's different from a craftsman's work where the guy thinks of a chair, a sculpture, and he goes through all the processes, he is aware of all the phases of that process: from design, choosing the wood, the tools. He is there as a process commander. While in alienated work, the human being is no longer a worker, he is a tool. It could be a robot. He goes there to repeat the same task he is trained to do and turns this repetitive work which is not bad because it repeats, it is bad because you are oblivious to all the other processes. You become a tool in the hand of someone who is controlling the workflow."
This does not mean that every repetitive game is some kind of alienating work. "In Minecraft you can be there digging, mining repetitively, but at some point you're going to take those resources and you're going to try to build a house. You are faced with a problem that is more interesting, that requires another kind of thinking."
"Playing games can be perceived as something more dignified or less costly than washing someone else's bathroom and then the question is: but under what conditions?", asks Thiago. "Because certain markets pay, let's say, adequately for this type of service. If you think about the number of people who will wash dishes in London or the USA. It's cool? No. It's underemployment. But the living conditions, HDI, and purchasing power, they are greater. This is a fact. Relation to the minimum wage. While talking to any Uber driver, they will say that they have to work 16 hours a day, every day, without a break, to earn R$3,000 a month."
For Thiago, the informal system of scholarships in blockchain games gives rise to abuse. "Historically, unobserved working conditions tend to become conditions of exploitation", he explains.
"Look at this scholarship idea. It assumes a guy who has a lot of money and who is going to speculate. This is real estate speculation on the blockchain. The guy says: I'm going to get these R$30,000 of mine that I'm not doing anything with, they're stopped, I won't miss them at all. Because we are talking about this type of reasoning. It's the guy who says: well, I can toast 30 dicks at the club this weekend or I can invest it here. Then the guy goes there, puts those 30 thousand inside and says 'if you can, fine, if not, fine'. He literally alienates the job from the guys he hires to work for him. He goes there and says 'Here, I'm giving you the working conditions, what you earn is yours.'"
"And then I'll come back with the Magic parallel. As long as there is no regulation in certain dimensions, things will tend towards whoever is stronger. This is a corollary of society. So the question, for me, is not whether it's good or bad. It's just that, if there isn't a very tacit and visible kind of agreement, I strongly doubt that it's profitable for those who are playing. This will be nice for those who command the platform, for those who have money to speculate, for these positions of power."
Thiago cites the strike made by Brazilian streamers on Twitch , in response to a platform decision that caused their incomes to plummet, and the virulent way in which the gaming community reacted to the protest. "We did a survey on the network, a collection of tweets, and what we found is that the streamer defends the position of work while the very guys who consume the streamer, his followers, say, 'Wow, do you want time off to play video games ? Are you thinking that playing video games is work, crazy person?' It's from there down. So the hypothesis I'm working on is: no game work is going to be considered worthy. None. Because none is like that today."
"Brazil is a very traditional and conservative society. The government is there to show this. We are traditional and conservative. So if you look historically at any job in the field of play, in a broad sense, it's disrespected. Ah, are you going to become a musician? Disrespected. Say you're going to be an artist? Disrespected. Are you going to play football? Disrespected. Unless you get rich. No, it's because you got rich, not because of what you're doing."
In response to researcher Thiago Falcão's statement about scholarships, Iago, the owner of Coy.GG, said: "There is no guy who has a lot of money and no guy who is speculating. Not inside Coy.GG. There are no millionaires nor anyone who can tear up R$ 30 thousand. It was a studied project and the money invested would be missed if it went wrong. But then comes the question of every investment that can go wrong. If he is linking the scholarship market to the cryptocurrency market, which is much maligned in the media (and rightly so, because with every lack of information it is more susceptible to scams), he is completely wrong. This is a new business model, but it is a business model. We have a whole teaching methodology, monitoring, private classes and everything else. We follow it from the first contact to the last, it's not even close to what he claims."
"I would like to add and reinforce: we are a serious business model, we are not looking for investors and we are not selling any courses. We give the opportunity to those who want to play and are unable to buy what they need to get started in the game, with the aim of helping people to manage to have their own accounts and give opportunities to someone else. Anyone who doesn't want to buy their account will always be welcome in ours. Nothing is imposed, we don't impose anything, people come to us and people accept our model. Not everyone has R$5,000 or R$10,000 to play a little game. A lot of people are starving and we are helping."
Axie Infinity is the tip of an iceberg that, with each passing day, emerges a little, bringing to light not only a wave of blockchain games and a universe of virtual economies but also, at best, a series of doubts regarding to the future. Unlike other past trends in the video game industry, such as the free-to-play game model that came into being with the popularization of smartphones, play-to-earn games raise serious questions pertaining to the world of work, still little studied and understood in the scope of digital games, especially in Brazil – not to mention the already known environmental impact. "There is no funding for video game research [in Brazil]," explains Thiago. "Meanwhile you have not just Jair Renan Bolsonaro but the right as a whole, looking at video games, buying video games, using video games,
