On October 8, something remarkable seemed to happen in the world of Web3 gaming. Off The Grid (OTG), a AAA-caliber game built on the Avalanche blockchain, made its debut with an impressive fanfare reverberating not only through CT (CryptoTwitter), but also through Epic Games Store Top Lists. Over 6 million addresses were registered on the game’s testnet within days and by October 11, daily active users peaked at 900,000 - a figure that would be enviable for any game, blockchain-based or not. For a sector often met with skepticism from the traditional gaming world, OTG’s launch felt like a validation of Web3’s promise: a new frontier for gaming where decentralization and player ownership might finally find their place in the mainstream.
But beneath the bright numbers and even brighter headlines lies a more complex reality. The numbers are indeed impressive, but they are just a tip of the iceberg as for anyone who has followed the rocky trajectory of Web3 gaming over the past few years, it’s hard not to feel a sense of déjà vu. Off The Grid’s initial success has all the hallmarks of past Web3 projects that skyrocketed, only to reverse their trend and fall just as quickly. The question now is whether OTG represents a real breakthrough or whether it’s merely the latest chapter in a long story of fleeting success.
The Power (and Perils) of Influencer Marketing
To understand Off The Grid’s rapid rise, it’s essential to look at the forces that fueled the entire trend. At the heart of OTG’s success is a marketing strategy that looks surprisingly familiar if we take a closer look. While the game may run on blockchain technology, its path to popularity was paved with a distinctly Web2 approach: influencer marketing. In the days leading up to and following its release, OTG appeared in the streams of some of the most recognizable names in gaming: Ninja, TimTheTatman, and Shroud, to name a few. Their combined reach, boosted by an alleged $1 million-per-day marketing spend, helped spread news about the game’s launch into the consciousness of millions of viewers. By October 10, over 150,000 people were watching Off The Grid on Twitch, actively seeing their favorite influences in action.
It’s a strategy that’s worked before, not just in gaming but in countless industries. If enough people see something, especially from sources they trust, they’re far more likely to want to try it out themselves. The immediate success of OTG in the form of millions of users and prime-time placement on streaming platforms, was, in many ways, a testament to the effectiveness of this tried-and-true marketing tactic.
But it’s also a strategy with limits. As with any influencer-driven campaign, the engagement is often as fleeting as the influencers themselves. The moment they move on to the next game or product, the flood of attention begins to recede. The challenge for OTG, then, is whether it can convert this surge of initial interest into sustained player engagement once the influencers have moved on. If history is any guide, that will be no easy task.
The Boom-and-Bust Cycle of Web3 Games
The story of Web3 gaming is one that is filled with extremes. Games like Off The Grid often experience dramatic spikes in popularity, only to see equally dramatic declines once the initial excitement wears off. The most notable example of this pattern is a well known Axie Infinity, the poster child of the Play-to-Earn (P2E) model that briefly dominated the Web3 gaming conversation. When Axie burst onto the scene in 2021, it appeared to offer a tantalizing new possibility: a game where players could earn real-world money simply by playing the game with cute little fellows, and for a time, it really worked. Players in places like the Philippines made headlines for earning more through Axie than they could in traditional jobs, but beneath the surface, cracks were forming.
As the game’s token economy grew, it became increasingly unsustainable. Tokens that once held significant value began to devalue as the market became saturated and overinflated. The once-bustling community started to shrink as players realized that the financial rewards weren’t what they once were. By 2022, Axie had fallen from grace - its player base shrinking, its economy in tatters, and its promise of a new way to play and earn looking more like a distant dream than a new reality.
StepN, a Move-to-Earn (M2E) game, offers another cautionary tale. Like Axie, it was built around a novel idea: players could earn tokens simply by walking or running in real world. The game initially attracted a large user base eager to turn their daily exercise into a new income stream, but, like Axie, StepN couldn’t sustain its token-driven model partially due to heavy inflation and favoring players with thick wallets. The end soon came as when the incentives dwindled, so did the players.
In both cases, the games succeeded not because of the quality of their gameplay, but because of the financial rewards they offered, and when those rewards stopped being as lucrative, players moved on. It’s a fate that Off The Grid and new Web3 games must avoid if it hopes to build something lasting.
The Flaw in Short-Term Incentives
The pattern here is clear: Web3 games that rely too heavily on financial incentives—whether through heavily inflated token rewards, unfair treatment of players based on the thickness of their wallets or overreliance on influencer marketing - often struggle to build lasting communities. The allure of quick financial gain can attract players in droves, but it rarely fosters the kind of deep, long-term engagement that successful games need in order to survive and thrive.
In many ways, this reliance on short-term incentives is a holdover from the speculative culture of the crypto market itself. Just as investors in crypto often chase the latest trend, moving from one token to the next in search of quick profits, players in Web3 games often follow a similar path - chasing the next game that offers the best rewards. But when those rewards dry up, the players - just like speculators, quickly move on, leaving the game’s community hollowed out and unsustainable.
Sustainable Engagement - Compete-to-Earn
If Web3 gaming is to break free from this cycle, it needs a different kind of incentive model - one that doesn’t rely on short-term rewards or speculative engagement. This is exactly why we need models like Compete-to-Earn that offer a new approach to incentivizing players. Instead of focusing on token rewards or grinding for financial gain, Compete-to-Earn emphasizes skill-based competition in a zero-sum environment where players aren’t just playing to earn tokens; they’re playing to win the meaningful prize.
In a Compete-to-Earn system, players wager real money before matches, with the winner taking home the pot. It’s a model that echoes classic games of skill like chess or poker, where the reward isn’t just financial but gives the emotional thrill as well. The thrill of competition, the satisfaction of outplaying an opponent, and the tangible reward for victory all create an experience that is fundamentally different from token-based systems and is the foundation of long-term player engagement.
By shifting the focus from earning through grinding to winning through competition, Compete-to-Earn offers a model that could provide the long-term engagement that Web3 gaming has struggled - and in many cases still struggles, to achieve. It’s a model that values the intrinsic enjoyment of playing over the extrinsic motivation of financial gain.
The Long Game to Succeed
For Off The Grid to truly succeed, it will need to embrace this shift as influencer-driven hype can only take a game so far. To build a lasting community, OTG must offer players something more - a reason to stay, even after the marketing campaigns have ended and the influencers have moved on.
The key to that may lie in creating deeper, more meaningful incentives for engagement. Games that succeed in the long term - whether Web2 or Web3, do so because they foster a sense of community, competition, and mastery. They offer players something more than just financial rewards - they offer a sense of achievement and belonging.
Join the Revolution
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