Gamified cryptocurrency and rewards: Consumer behaviour during uncertain earnings

Abstract The accentuation of cryptocurrency, non‐fungible tokens and gamification of platforms has led to rewards being awarded, in the form of cryptocurrencies, that are formed by the platforms themselves and traded over the marketplace. These play‐to‐earn gamified platforms have witnessed a rise in participation, leading to increased investments by consumers, engagement, threats, and subsequent volatility. This paper tries to decipher consumer behaviour over the nascent gamified platform of a play‐to‐earn game, Axie Infinity, due to its fluctuating and subsequent depreciation of cryptocurrency, that act as rewards. This volatility from the resultant rewards over the platform brings about an uncertainty in the users' engagement, which has been part of our investigation in this study. The data was gathered through semi‐structured interviews of 20 participants picked from the official server of Axie Infinity on the social media platform of Discord. A thematic analysis based on a descriptive phenomenological approach was conducted on this data which generated findings that were centred around the continued use of action and rewards, resolution of participation through accumulation of rewards and optimism. The study contributes by highlighting and substantiating the component of optimism in the theory of reinforcement‐uncertainty, that characterises repetitive uncertain events, specifying it for uncertain rewards over investment risks that have been undertaken by consumers. Based on these findings, this study discusses how optimism is crucial in the continuation of engagement and outlines how it can be used in the facilitation of positive consumer behaviour over a gamified platform.