"In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo."

"The book cites ample anecdotal evidence that people perceive their own jobs as completely disconnected from any sort of value creation, and makes the case that the ruling class stands to lose from the proletariat having extra free time on their hands."

"Gamers have a word, grinding, to describe repetitive tasks undertaken to gain some desired in-game goal, but are not fun in themselves."

"This seems to sum up players’ experience with Axie Infinity, which is often described as work or a chore."

"it’s hard to find any reviews on Axie Infinity as a game rather than as an income stream or speculative investment, for which there are plenty."

"But it is dissimilar in an important way: the “thing I don’t want to do” is completing tasks contrived by a game designer."

"It’s worth understanding who is ultimately paying for this labour, and why."

"These “economic opportunities” are essentially a wealth transfer from new players to established ones."

"Axie is a little bit of a growth-dependent economy, just like any emerging market nation. It is a little bit dependent on capital inflows. But long term, it’s really important for us to have players that are in the economy spending because they think that the game is really fun or that they see ways to trade, like, money for power or respect."

"There is some logic to the idea that the game could sustain a mix of players, some of whom are net recipients of capital and some of whom are net contributors who are in it for a good time."

"I’m wholly unconvinced that Axie Infinity is headed in that direction, frankly, because it just doesn’t look fun enough that people will pony up upwards of $1,000 to play it for its own sake."

"By blurring the line between “player” and “worker”, the game has effectively built a Ponzi scheme with built-in deniability."

"Since Filipinos are the largest growth market for Axie Infinity, they must also be a major source of money flowing into the system. Instead of being a net provider of jobs and capital, it appears to just be redistributing the same wealth between Filipinos, and collecting a 4.25% cut for the service."

"Axie Infinity’s creator, Sky Mavis, can block individual Axies from the game, thereby making them useless for their primary purpose."

"Not only can Axies be banned, the rules of battle that govern the value of their skills can change."

"“When we created Axie, pretty much everything was on-chain […] and we were following that decentralized ethos. Over time what we realized is that building a product based on these very heavy constraints is almost impossible, especially if you want to reach the masses. […] We had to sacrifice parts of decentralization.”"

"But underneath a coat of web3 paint, users are still subject to Sky Mavis’ whims, and deal with the same “web2” problems, like getting swept up arbitrarily in ban waves and having to appeal to customer service."

"Any sufficiently complex game will come to realize, as Axie Infinity has, that immutable property rights are at odds with the ability to counter abuse."

"Games that maximize property rights (as Axie Infinity wisely hasn’t) are bound to be overrun with cheaters and bots, which in turn will just bring down the value of in-game assets anyway."

"Ultimately, in-game labour is just a re-branding of gameplay designed to be dull enough that rich players will pay to outsource it to poor players."