Yes! However, as stated in the article, earning currency or items in videogames and reselling them have been around since the earliest days of online gaming. Plus these people are entrepreneurs working for themselves. I'm really not getting the link.
Because it doesn’t provide any value. The game developers created an artificial demand by making a particular aspect of the game so unenjoyable that some people would pay others to do it. They could, instead, just offer people the better experience uniformly and deliver more value to their users.
In this way, the demand and output is entirely artificial.
The author here describes the main difference this new model and older games where similar economies developed is that this is considered a primary feature of the game and people are entering it for the purpose of grinding for cash. I remember many of the other games described such as RuneScape, Second Life, WoW, etc. where people sold in game currency or profiles, but they weren’t advertised as economic opportunities, but as games you play for entertainment. VCs weren’t investing in them for this purpose either.
Something like Axie Infinity just seems _incredibly_ cynical. I sometimes joke that stuff like professional sports are just financial instruments, which only incidentally involve a ball of some sort. Play-to-earn and many crypto schemes seem to self-consciously be minimal veils to rope in people who otherwise wouldn't care about financial products.
