As a gamer who has been playing video games most of my life across consoles, PC and mobile, decentralized gaming applications (dApps) built on blockchain technology introduce profoundly new paradigms. These early pioneering game creators are rebuilding the fundamental incentives and economics of game experiences – while gearing up to disrupt the $200 billion gaming industry as we know it today.
On traditional platforms, players invest countless hours levelling up characters, unlocking achievements and collecting rare loot or skins that remain locked within each game‘s ecosystem. Our experiences, accomplishments and digital assets rarely carry over across titles or platforms.
Blockchain now enables true digital ownership with broader utility and value. In-game assets minted as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can retain value in secondary markets or integrate across games via metaverse environments still under construction. Playtime also converts into tokenized rewards with transferable value – seeding play to earn (P2E) phenomenon where skilled gamers can profit from their efforts.
Below I‘ll analyze key evolution points across some leading examples of blockchain P2E games and gaming NFT platforms during these embryonic days for Web 3.0 gaming.
Surging Market Interest Across Blockchain Gaming
DappRadar tracks usage of decentralized applications by category, providing insight into adoption curves across blockchain niches.
Gaming dApps have demonstrate exponential user growth since 2020. Daily active wallets recently surpassed 800,000 – figures that took the DeFi category years longer to achieve.
With legacy gaming giants like Ubisoft, Square Enix and Sega now actively investigating Web 3.0 integrations, the dam seems ready to break as this next paradigm shift unfolds…
Just 12 months ago, NFT trading volumes floated around $10 million daily. The category has since grown over 1200% with $130 million now swapping hands daily by July 2022 across various collections, metaverses and gaming NFT ecosystems.
Venture funding towards crypto and blockchain gaming initiatives has similarly erupted – attracting over $4 billion in VC investment already this year. For context – that figure for all of 2020 was a mere $0.5 billion.
As pioneers blaze trails across this new frontier at breakneck speed, let‘s explore some game changing, early breakout titles more closely…
The Rise of Play to Earn Blockchain Games
Play to earn (P2E) games build on blockchain progressions enabling true digital ownership, scarcity and peer to peer exchange of in-game assets. They channel these capabilities towards creating new "circular economies" with self-sustaining incentives.
Well designed P2E games leverage intrinsic human motivations around mastery, progression, competition, and creativity – incentivizing desired user behaviors with rewards carrying external exchange value. Players invest effort progressing their characters, levelling up abilities, acquiring rare gear and peer matching in competitions. These activities now translate into redeemable tokens or NFT assets tradable in secondary markets.
Top players can essentially "go pro" – earning full-time incomes from their efforts, while more casual gamers play freely while retaining ownership of all progress and rewards generated along the way.
Yield Guild Games
Yield Guild Games (YGG) operates as a decentralized autonomous organization focused on accelerating play to earn adoption across wider gaming communities. They achieve this by purchasing yield generating NFT assets like rare character avatars or valuable in-game items.
These assets get "leased" to their community of 30,000+ gaming guild members in exchange for a cut of playtime yield. Guild members with proven skill receive free access to perform in P2E titles without upfront capital requirements. Profits split with the community treasury.
So far over $500 Million worth of combined NFT assets have been purchased by the guild – with aims to become the AAA gaming guild as adoption grows more mainstream. Community members have collectively earned over $85 million to date. Exciting upstart like YGG demonstrate how P2E reinvents gaming economies to empower players first.
Splinterlands
With over 300,000 daily active users as of June 2022, Splinterlands has emerged as one of the most popular blockchain games by leveraging the nostalgic collectible appeal of baseball cards and battling them head to head with other players.
Backed by $10 Million in funding from leading VCs, Splinterlands lets you collect limited edition digital cards representing various fantasy themed monsters and heroes. Powerful cards with useful battle abilities become valuable and tradeable – much like traded sports cards. You can buy starter packs to get going instantly with dozens of playable cards.
The strategic collectible card game battles have now facilitated over 50 million matches among a steadily growing user base. The fact remains that Splinterlands accomplished this before any marketing spend or onboarding optimizations. As more casual gamers try out blockchain games in coming years, Splinterlands is poised to convert crowds given its accessible and strategic game flow.
My Crypto Heroes
As one of the earliest blockchain roleplaying games (RPG), My Crypto Heroes from Japanese game developer double jump.tokyo built compelling Hero character advancement in parallel with free marketplace trading around collectible aspects.
Players can recruit Hero characters with unique attributes and classes to then level up through various multiplayer battle modes – each providing token rewards upon victory. Defeating enemies allow you to craft new equipment pieces and artifacts increasing your Heroes battle proficiency, while level milestones unlock special abilities further differentiating build strategies.
With true ownership of in-game assets, players can buy and sell entire accounts or individual Heroes / Items for profit directly on blockchain marketplaces baked into the dApp game interface itself. Lifetime trading volumes have recently surpassed $500 million worth of ETH and the project‘s native MPG tokens.
The Emergence of Blockchain Esports
Beyond casual blockchain games, competitive skill-based titles are also gaining momentum as the next evolution point enroute to full professionalization. With built-in wallets simplifying earnings payouts post-match, tokenized rewards supporting open qualifiers, and verifiably scarce digital assets – blockchain now provides the key ingredients for unlocking mainstream esports 2.0.
Gods Unchained
Gods Unchained by Australia‘s Immutable X offers a turn-based competitive card game where players collect神器的卡牌游戏之神锻造师收集卡牌进行回合制对战。卡牌分五大属性,双方轮流召唤并建立军队。精良卡牌则稀有且交易自由。
20万玩家中99%的卡牌均已售空。《神锻造师》联合百年澳网举办锦标赛,冠军可获10万美金奖金。这类举措预示区块链游戏电竞时代渐近。同时,易于交易卡牌也让收入变现更便利。
数百万资金注入区块链游戏初期成功后,更多创新应用将持续涌现。毋庸置疑,这类去中心化应用正彻底重塑游戏行业常态与运作机制。
So in summary, blockchain and crypto-powered gaming offers profoundly new value creation and ownership paradigms for millions of gamers worldwide in the years ahead. With strong technological tailwinds around adoption, and staggering hype cycles attracting sheer amounts of capital – the initial pioneers seem poised to achieve mass market fit faster than ever imagined. As this next computing platform shift plays out, the broader implications for community, creativity and global connectivity remain simply awe-inspiring!