PlayStation 5: Many Gamers Have Been Exploited by Scammers
At the beginning of its launch (3/2021), PlayStation 5 created a huge frenzy in the gaming community both internationally and domestically. For Vietnamese gamers, owning this console is extremely difficult due to its scarcity. Even during the next pre-order phase in Vietnam, the PS5 quickly fell into a state of “sell-out”.
Here, many scammers took advantage of gamers’ passion to profit. With the global shortage of stock, many fraudsters have launched tricks to attract gamers looking to own a PS5 at a bargain price, only to scam them out of their money. Many gamers around the world have reported this scam situation.
In addition, it’s not only scammers taking advantage of the situation, but also some fortunate gamers who own two new consoles and resell them at exorbitant prices. Most are sold at prices three times or even many times higher than the original price of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
A piece of good news for fans of this console is that recently, Mr. Totoki Hiroki announced in a meeting that the company has secured enough chips to meet the sales target for the PS5, after months of shortages.
Sony’s sales target for the end of the fiscal year 2021 (ending on March 31, 2022) is to sell 14.8 million PS5 units. Thus, Vietnamese gamers can confidently purchase the PS5 without worrying about stock shortages.
Axie Infinity: Gamers Panic Selling Due to Changes from the Publisher
Axie Infinity is the hottest name in the gaming world and the technology community in Vietnam. With a market capitalization of over 2.8 billion USD, this is the most valuable NFT game of all time.
The reason Axie Infinity is valued so highly is that the AXS token (a type of currency used in the game) has been skyrocketing in price recently. In the craze named Axie Infinity, many Vietnamese gamers have researched and heavily invested in this game in hopes of quickly recouping their capital and easily making a profit.
However, in recent days, the game development team announced on Twitter that they would reduce rewards (SLP token) for the PVE mechanism. Additionally, rewards for PVP will be increased.
Moreover, news about SLP on trading markets has also caused many Axie Infinity gamers to be restless. More concerning is that the downward trend of this cryptocurrency shows no signs of stopping. If this situation continues or worsens with a sudden drop in Bitcoin’s price, the capitalization of SLP could vanish very quickly. At that point, no matter how hard gamers try to grind, it will be difficult to recoup their initial investment costs.
Consequently, a sudden sell-off situation has emerged among many players. Thus, gamers who invested modestly (with weak teams, unable to compete in PVP) will struggle as they lose nearly half of their income.
Not to mention, this game is about to release a special version called Axie: Origin. This is essentially the “Free-to-Play” version of Axie Infinity. Players will not need to invest but can still earn a small amount of SLP (reward tokens), launching three versions on the App Store, Google Play, and Steam. Thus, instead of spending thousands of dollars to build an initial team (as in Axie Infinity), players can now just download the game and start playing immediately.
Therefore, it can be seen that in the face of this new trend, the advice for gamers is to be cautious and thoroughly research before “betting” with their wallets.