The player exits Axie Infinity.

Hong Ka, 22, an office worker in Ho Chi Minh City, first heard it last summer Axe Infinity – P2E games (games for money) in group chat. After weeks of research, he decided to invest over $1,000 to buy three pets to launch the game. Due to the heat of the project, the price of the pets he bought went up.

Seeing that he could “make a good living” from the game, he decided to quit his job and spend all his life savings on buying virtual animals and hiring players. However, in 2021, the project’s token price will gradually decrease. Ka left the plow team and sold a lot of cattle to regain capital.

The shock came in late March when the game’s Ronin network was hacked and more than $600 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. The crash caused the price of the token to drop. From a high of $160 in November 2021, each AXS is now only around $17. Months after the attack, the project’s currency showed no signs of recovery. Hoang Kha decided to destroy all pets and tokens. “This time last year I spent thousands of dollars on a package, now it’s only a few tens of dollars. Everything changed quickly. I almost collapsed, I lost faith so I decided to delete the app to give up. I dream of playing games for money.

About groups axi Infinity, The number of people leaving the project is also increasing every day. “The wave of game abandonments peaked around May when the price of XS dropped below $20. Users stopped sharing new strategies or achievements but were sad because they didn’t know when they would return. Some people were angry. They were furious with their investments A gaming group with nearly 40,000 members, AX Infinity manager Tu Anh said the latest post on the team asked for advice on what to do with a person who hasn’t been in the game for two months and signs in his wallet have .

Not only in Vietnam, but also in the Philippines – where the player’s market share is 40% Axe Infinity – A downward trend can also be observed.

“Most Filipino players stop playing out of anger and stress. Many say they feel bored and stressed while playing. Others say they lost thousands of dollars investing in the game. Now they need to stop to play to replace their negative feelings.” time he said.

Active player statistics show the number of players per month Axe Infinity It peaked in January – more than 2.7 million. But people keep sinking. In May, the average player count dropped from 2.1 million to 958,000.

Jeff Zirlin, co-founder axi Infinity, Even after the hack, Ronin’s network admitted to seeing a “heavy loss” of players. “It’s been a week Axe Infinity Only about 368,000 players signed up. “After the game reached 2.7 million users, the number steadily declined,” Zirlin said. block works.

Faced with skepticism from the public, the founding team confirmed that the main purpose of the game is entertainment. “We want to focus on growing the player community with original freebies that are not a Ponzi scheme,” a Sky Mavis spokesperson wrote in an email. time.

Experts say that the main reason players leave is that the game economy is bloating, the tokens are falling in value and they are unable to make a profit. After the $600 million hack, player confidence in the developer has plummeted despite his obligation to pay. In addition, the game component of the project is not attractive enough to keep users even if the free version is released.

follow up Time, Many people owe friends and family hundreds or even thousands of dollars to purchase animals that are devalued by the game. Ethan McMahon, an economist at research firm Chinalysis, identified the problems. Axe Infinity It will negatively impact the future of the P2E model.

“A group of people who are big gamers can make money from the game. But for the average user, if the motivation to start gambling is profit, it’s not a safe place to get rich,” McMahon said.

Mr Kate.