To be honest, I originally thought GameFi was long gone. Last year, various gold mining schemes collapsed completely, players ran away, project teams absconded, and NFTs hit rock bottom. At that time, I felt that GameFi might be dormant for a few years. But in the past two months, the blockchain has started to move again, and I have begun to notice a new rhythm: the task economy. This wave is not heated up by 'gold mining', but rather by gradually building up through 'task completion'.
Many people do not realize that this is actually the second evolution of GameFi. The first relied on huge profits to attract users—bringing in people, gold mining, moving bricks, cashing out—maintaining the ecosystem's heat through liquidity. Now, the new generation of projects, such as YGG Play, QuestN, and Galxe, have started to shift towards a 'participation-driven' logic: guiding interactions through tasks, making players not just speculators, but participants in the ecosystem.
I recently tested YGG's Launchpad, and the experience was smoother than expected. Tokens were directly credited upon task completion, and the details were clean and neat. Projects like this are clearly intentionally 'de-ponying', wanting to keep those who are truly willing to play. QuestN is similar; although it is still a task platform, the interaction layer is getting deeper, asking for completion of in-game actions, binding identities, writing feedback, all of which are establishing a long-term relationship. Previously, GameFi relied on 'high yields' to attract people; now it relies on 'interaction trajectories'.
This is actually a very interesting signal: GameFi is transitioning from being money-driven to being behavior-driven.
Players used to chase yield tables; now more and more projects are creating 'contribution proofs'. The more you play, the deeper the interaction, and the more active the community, the more rewards you can earn. It sounds idealistic, but this is exactly the logic that should exist on-chain—behavior is value.
I have also noticed many new teams abandoning the term 'gold farming'; they prefer to say 'Play & Earn' or 'Proof of Play'. You are no longer renting NFTs to help others mine, but earning token rewards through your own time, skills, and social behaviors. In other words, this is no longer game finance, but a gamified social incentive economy.
Of course, the task economy is not omnipotent. Many platforms are still in the testing phase, and the quality of tasks varies; project parties may not necessarily sustain budget investments. But the direction is correct. Because the 'gold farming' model has long been unplayable—you cannot rely on new players entering to feed old players; this structure is doomed to collapse. Only by allowing the behaviors of participants themselves to create value can the ecosystem be healthy. And the task economy is just repairing this.
It brings the layer of 'incentives' in Web3 back on track, no longer gambling, but participation. The task platform serves as a new framework for GameFi, where DAOs, project parties, and players can establish stable relationships around it. YGG Play, QuestN, and even some on-chain guilds are moving in this direction, which actually indicates a problem: they are all preparing the infrastructure for the new cycle.
In the past few years, I've seen too many projects come up shouting 'disruptive', only to collapse in half a year. On the contrary, those projects that silently grind the task system and create incentive loops are the ones that can truly survive in a bear market. GameFi doesn't lack a future; it's that those relying on quick money have to die once first, and the rest are the ones that can truly build an ecosystem.
YGG is an example; they completely turned the 'gold farming economy' of guilds into a 'task economy', where players go from being tools to participants. Many people do not realize how big this transformation is—before, you helped the guild make money, now you are contributing ecological value yourself, which is more free and more real.
I have always felt that the true charm of Web3 lies not in making money, but in every action you take leaves a trace on the chain. And the task economy is precisely the first step in quantifying and incentivizing these behaviors. Perhaps in a year or two, when we look back, we will find that GameFi has not died, but merely changed its way of playing.
This transformation from 'gold farming' to 'tasks' has just begun.
#YGGPlay #QuestN #GameFi #Web3Gaming $YGG @Yield Guild Games
