Key Takeaways
Within a couple of yr, NFT games at the moment are on the brink of overtaking PC games in popularity
Compared to standard PC games, solely 10 games are extra widespread than prime NFT editions
$2.5 billion raised by blockchain games in Q1 of 2022, on course for $10 billion this yr in comparison with $4 billion for 2021
While costs of gaming tokens have been in freefall alongside wider market, consumer progress and funding has been stout
With NFTs crumbling because the market continues in full risk-off mode, I made a decision to dive into the statistics behind a sector I consider is one of probably the most intriguing use instances for this novel know-how.
Sure, tons of NFTs are overpriced and could be attributed to bear market hysteria, however I’ve at all times felt that the wedding between gaming and NFTs is a pure one. Players pour a lot time into enjoying sure games, in addition to cash into in-game additions, that defining possession and sustaining a historic file on-chain appears to make sense.
So what do the numbers say about NFT gaming adoption in comparison with typical gaming, and do they paint a extra bullish image than the freefalling token costs?
One yr progress
In phrases of energetic customers, the expansion in the final yr has been meteoric for NFT games. A report from DappRadar calculated the expansion in blockchain gaming as 2000% since Q1 of final yr.
Also in Q1 of this yr, $2.5 billion was raised for blockchain games and different metaverse initiatives. While this got here earlier than the ugly downturn of latest months, it’s nonetheless promising given $4 billion was raised in all of 2021, a interval when the bull market was in full swing. That places gaming and metaverse initiatives on course to lift $10 billion via 2022. So, even a vastly conservative 60% reduce to funding would place it above 2021 ranges.
NFT gaming customers
The funding is stout, however so too are the customers. A take a look at the beneath graph exhibiting the highest 10 NFT games confirms that the sector is beginning to achieve mainstream attraction and seize increasingly more distinctive customers monthly.
To put the above numbers in context, a neat present benchmark for NFT games is that of PC games. The beneath graph exhibits the highest 10 most performed PC games on the Steam platform. While the information for complete customers in a month is tougher to acquire, the beneath graph presents the common quantity of concurrent gamers over the past 30 days (fairly than complete distinctive customers monthly as per the above graph).
Assuming that 5% of energetic gamers are on-line at any given time, the beneath graph then compares how NFT games stack as much as the preferred PC games, with NFT games in blue and standard PC games in orange.
This exhibits that whereas NFT games are but to overhaul PC games, this can be very near occurring. Only the highest 10 PC games are capturing extra customers than the highest NFT recreation, Alien Worlds, and the margin may be very slender, with Alien Worlds solely about 1,000 customers off.
Yet regardless of the bullish progress in numbers, these games are being brandished as fads because of the general pullback in crypto markets. Additionally, the beneath graph for 2 of the largest tokens – Alien Worlds and Axie Infinity – present that the freefall has been stark after explosive run-ups final yr.
But in trying previous the costs of such tokens (a big half of which might have been as a result of hypothesis) and as an alternative digging into consumer progress and the funding being put into these platforms, the longer term nonetheless seems vibrant.
It’s a reminder that regardless of the bearish sentiment in the markets, there’s very actual know-how right here that’s making a distinction and disrupting industries. To be on the brink of the highest 10 PC games already is sort of the achievement, given the nascent nature of the house.
As for whether or not these tokens are good investments at present costs? Well, that’s a difficulty for an additional day.
Sources
https://dappradar.com/blog/dappradar-x-bga-games-report-q1-2022
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1266486/blockchain-games-user-number/
