Volare jumped into the blockchain-gaming market by creating the Volare Game Arcade within Whisper MSG, a blockchain wallet and messenger app with more than a million downloads. The Volare Arcade started with nine games, all of which are Play-to-Rank (P2R). Volare distributes token rewards to daily top ranking winners of those games. JG Lee, a leader of the Volare Project emphasised that “P2R games should and will replace play-to-earn games, because P2E games are more work than play.”
When the wave of blockchain spread to the gaming industry, game developers invented a new genre called Play-to-Earn. The first notable P2E game was Cryptokitties in 2017, where players competed to create and breed unique kittens to sell but gamers grew bored with the repetition of trying to create a unique kitty, and Cryptokitties was quickly forgotten. The craze was succeeded by Axie Infinity, a P2E blockchain game with an added showdown element. Similar to Cryptokitties, gamers also got tired of the repetitive “grinding” to breed Axies.
Most gamers soon realised two immutable principles behind P2E games: First, a P2E gamer can earn money only by selling game items to other gamers. Therefore, if new gamers are not joining, existing gamers can no longer earn money. Second, as soon as a game’s focus goes from fun to money, the game turns into just sheer labor and the players become miners. P2E games left a salutary lesson that gaming to earn money is no longer gaming.
Contrary to P2E games, P2R games allow gamers to focus on the game itself. Also, P2R games add “rewards” on the achievement by gamers which is usually quantified as “Ranking”. The P2R system has already been adopted by many e-sports. Gamers who gladly pay to watch incredible plays by star players of e-sport cheer in excitement and thrill when they get rewarded as the best rankers in P2R games. JG Lee added, “Volare Network will create a P2R game ecosystem that challenges gamers which in turn will motivate developers who are inspired by the gamers.”
