Electronic Arts Co-Founder Jeff Burton Joins P2Earn Web3 Gaming Guild

Is play-to-earn gaming dead? Maybe not, if P2Earn’s latest addition is any indication.

Video game industry veteran Jeff Burton, co-founder of gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA), has joined Canadian blockchain gaming company P2Earn as Chairman of its Board of Advisors.

P2Earn is a publicly-listed Web3 gaming guild that plans to offer gamers an online platform, equipment, and access to video game NFTs in exchange for a percentage of their winnings. The platform is set to launch on Ethereum scaling network Polygon by the end of Q2 2023, according to a recent tweet.

“I am delighted to join the advisory board of P2Earn, as play-to-earn gaming prepares to go mainstream,” Burton said in a statement. “I have long believed that the concept of players earning a share of the profits through gameplay was the future of all gaming.”

Burton also believes in the potential of such “guild” models, which are similar to traditional gaming and esports industry organizations or “orgs.” He also suggested that play-to-earn gaming could enable “social mobility” and create a new economy unto itself. 

Burton has been professionally interested in crypto since at least 2017. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was previously on the Board of Advisors for BitDegree, which offers crypto courses.

He is currently also the Chairman of the Board of Advisors for Lithuania-based crypto game Engines of Fury, which is currently in beta and calls itself a “MOBA RPG”—that is, a mix between the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre and role-playing games (RPGs)—in which players can raid dungeons and fight monsters.

P2Earn CEO Alex Lineton said in a statement that the guild plans to add more game industry veterans to its board, as well.

“We are excited that Jeff has joined the company as we prepare for our full public launch of the P2Earn gaming guild,” Lineton said in a statement. “Jeff's experience and network are not only legendary in the industry, but also proving invaluable to us as we begin to enter the next phase of growth.”

Play-to-earn gaming—in which players earn crypto token rewards for playing, usually with purchased or borrowed NFTs—caught fire in 2021 thanks to the rise of monster-battling game, Axie Infinity. In just a few months at the peak, Axie stacked up billions of dollars' worth of NFT sales.

But as that game's economy collapsed in early 2022 and the broader crypto market declined, the play-to-earn model fell out of favor as players criticized the simplistic gameplay and emphasis on financial reward over fun gameplay. P2Earn, at least, is betting that it will have a second life ahead.