Not long ago, a video game called Axie Infinity was the hottest thing in crypto.
I didn’t say meme coin, mind you…
I’m talking about a video game.
Now, I’ll admit I never played Axie Infinity. I’m not much of a gamer.
But at its peak, this blockchain-based game was changing lives in places like the Philippines.
The concept was simple. Players would buy or rent a team of cartoon creatures called Axies, then use them to battle other players in a basic turn-based game.
And each time they won a match or completed a task, they earned a token called SLP.
This token could be traded on crypto exchanges for pesos, dollars or bitcoin. And because SLP was in constant demand to “breed” new Axies, prices stayed high…
At least for a while.
Some players earned the equivalent of $300 to $400 a month playing just a few hours a day.
And in a country where the minimum wage can be less than $10 a day, the game offered a decent way to make a living.
At its peak, Axie had 2.7 million daily users and accounted for billions of dollars in NFT transactions.
And the game’s success also attracted serious crypto VC funding.
The belief was that this model of gaming, called “play‑to‑earn,” would bring the next billion people into Web3.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, it collapsed under its own weight.
As new players joined the game, everyone playing earned less for the same amount of effort.
Then, in 2022, a $625 million hack hit the game’s bridge network, and the whole ecosystem unraveled.
It turns out that “play‑to‑earn” wasn’t the future of gaming.
But it might have been the prototype for something much bigger…
From Playing to Creating
This month, a company called Block3 launched a product that could change the economics of game development forever.
It’s an AI engine called Trinity…
And it does something that would’ve sounded impossible just a few years ago.
Trinity lets you generate a fully playable video game from a simple text prompt.
You don’t need to have any coding or design experience. All you need is an idea.
For example, you could type something like: “Make a 3D open-world explorer where the hero is an astronaut.”
And Trinity does the rest.
Source: Block3
It handles the art, the story and even the underlying game mechanics.
That’s a literal game-changer for how fast developers can go from idea to launch.
Typically, it can take many months to make even a simple mobile game. And the biggest AAA video games can take years to develop.
With Trinity, that time could get slashed down to mere hours.
Why is that such a big deal?
Because the global video game market is expected to exceed $300 billion this year.
Source: Grand View Research
And in this new “prompt-to-play” world, individual creators could capture a nice chunk of that market.
You see, this new system allows you to publish your AI-created game directly onto the blockchain…
Complete with tokenized assets and its own mini-economy.
Which means you don’t just get to play the game.
You can own it.
You can sell in-game items. You can rent access to other players. And if there’s enough demand for your game, you could even stake your earnings into the platform’s future growth.
This is a radical shift from the old “play‑to‑earn” model.
Back then, you made money by grinding through repetitive tasks.
But those games weren’t designed to last. Players were rewarded for repetitive actions, but the gameplay wasn’t particularly fun.
The value of those games was driven almost entirely by speculation.
But this time, the opportunity comes from building something that other people want to play.
And with AI, the barriers to entry have never been lower.
An AI-powered game engine like Trinity gives creators everywhere the ability to generate and monetize original content.
You no longer need a studio or publisher to back you.
Of course, the big gaming studios have access to AI too, and some of the most established names in the industry were already preparing for this outcome.
For example, Ubisoft, the publisher behind popular games Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, just rolled out a pilot where in-game characters are governed by AI agents.
These agents vote on key story decisions and player strategies, even when players aren’t actively online.
It’s a concept Ubisoft is calling “synthetic governance.”
And it could represent the future of gaming.
Imagine online worlds where AI manages the entire economy and tailors the experience to each user…
All without human oversight.
Of course, it’s unclear if players would actually embrace this new model. But if it works, it could redefine how these gaming worlds are built and scaled.
Gamers could soon experience living ecosystems where AI drives the story and crypto secures the infrastructure.
On the downside, AI-generated games could also flood the market with low-quality content.
And there will undoubtedly be questions around who actually owns the content an AI creates.
But there’s a clear difference between this new cycle and the last one.
Here’s My Take
The last crypto gaming boom collapsed because it tried to financialize fun.
But this one is all about crypto meeting creativity.
Block3’s Trinity engine raised more than $500,000 in just 24 hours, and the project’s token, BL3, seems to be gaining momentum.
As of this morning, it has raised nearly one million dollars. Which tells me there’s more than just curiosity here.
Of course, it’s still early days for this new wave of AI-powered crypto games.
But if the last few decades have taught us anything, it’s that disruptive ideas can go mainstream fast.
And we’re about to find out whether “prompt-to-play” is going to be a breakout moment for crypto…
Or if creativity, like fun, is hard to monetize at scale.
Regards,
Ian KingChief Strategist, Banyan Hill Publishing
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