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Play-to-earn had a rough reputation after the 2022 crash of most move-to-earn and GameFi projects, and a lot of them never came back. StepN and Splinterlands are two of the ones that survived, but they're built on completely different mechanics, and "still around" doesn't mean "still worth the same thing" for both.
StepN: Move-to-Earn, Rebuilt Around Sustainability
StepN rewards real-world walking and running, tracked through the app and converted into GST/GMT tokens, spendable in-app or tradeable depending on the token. The project went through a major economic overhaul after its 2022 token collapse, shifting away from the unsustainable new-user-funds-old-user model that sank most move-to-earn apps that launched around the same time. It still requires an NFT sneaker to participate meaningfully, so a voucher here is generally the on-ramp toward that initial cost rather than a direct cash-out mechanism. Sneaker tiers affect how much you can earn per session, and energy limits cap how much walking or running actually counts each day, so the model rewards consistency over trying to grind a single long session.
Splinterlands: Trading Card Game With Real Stakes
Splinterlands is a genuinely different model — a blockchain-based trading card game where card packs, battles, and tournament rewards carry real economic value, closer in spirit to a digital TCG with a tradeable secondary market than a fitness app. It's been running since 2018, which by crypto-gaming standards makes it one of the more established titles in the space, with a card economy that's had years to find its actual equilibrium rather than launching on hype. Ranked battles reward both skill and deck composition, and packs bought with credit can be opened, played, or resold on the marketplace depending on how you want to engage with the economy.
Why These Two Specifically Survived
A lot of what launched alongside StepN and Splinterlands in 2021 and 2022 didn't make it past the broader crypto downturn — token prices collapsed, active users left, and most projects never rebuilt an economy that could support itself long-term. Both of these did, for different reasons: StepN rebuilt its tokenomics rather than shutting down, and Splinterlands never depended on constant new-user inflow the way pure move-to-earn apps did, since card value comes from gameplay and scarcity rather than recruitment.
Different Risk, Different Effort
These aren't really substitutes for each other. StepN ties rewards to physical activity and requires an ongoing time commitment (and the NFT sneaker overhead) before it pays off at all. Splinterlands is closer to traditional gaming, where card strategy and market timing matter more than daily consistency. Both still carry the volatility inherent to any crypto-linked in-game economy — token and card values move with the broader market, not just with how much you play.
Buying In
Treat credit for either as funding a hobby with real upside and real downside, not as a guaranteed return. Start with a smaller amount, understand how the specific in-game economy works before committing more, and don't confuse instant crypto-payment delivery with the token or card values themselves being stable.
Both are in Web3 & NFT Platforms, priced in BTC, ETH, or USDT, delivered by email as soon as your payment confirms on-chain.