At one point in time, Axie Infinity seemed to be the only crypto-focused NFT game that truly allowed its players to earn a substantial amount of money as they played this monster-collecting game.

Created by Vietnamese studio SkyMavis, Axie Infinity became a phenomenon in 2021, with a large majority of its player base hailing from the Philippines. Once a game that was big enough to have investment managers connected to it, things went south once the game was hacked and US$600 million was stolen.

Things are surely not looking up for Axie Infinity currently as a recent report by Time Magazine revealed how its Filipino player base has tumbled as soon as the game began to be less lucrative than initially advertised.


What was once an alternative way for the working class in the Philippines to earn extra income has now become a painful topic for those who have previously invested all their time and money into Axie Infinity.

Allegedly acting as a digital Ponzi scheme, Axie Infinity’s unstable market was not sustainable in the long run, and the only way for the game to continuously make money is by having more and more new players buy into the game.

For those who don’t know, each Axie monster in the game acts as its own collectable non-fungible token, with each monster’s value going up to thousands of US dollars. Even playing the game for the first time requires a significant amount of money.

Not only that, but Axie Infinity’s mindless and repetitive gameplay loop doesn’t inspire much cognitive investment in the long run, especially compared to more dynamic and engaging free-to-play games like Apex Legends or Valorant.

Source: IGN