By Stacy Muur
Translation: Blockchain in Vernacular
Since the beginning of 2024, Web3 Play has underperformed the rest of the crypto altcoin space, losing 33% of its market cap while the altcoin market is down 14%.
Still, Web3 games remain a strong player, accounting for 30% of all dApp activity and 2.1 million daily active wallets.
Let’s dive into the key insights from the latest Delphi research on Web3 games.
Key Highlights
Web3 play money peaked between February and March, with monthly investments ranging from $60 million to $100 million, totaling $673 million in 2024. However, this only accounts for 41.35% of Q1 2022 volume.
More than 50 games are launching in 2024, with games like Xai , Pixels and Notcoin seeing significant gains.
Xai raised $40M in 3 months. Pixels peaked at $4.8B FDV and 1M DAU within 3 weeks of launch. Notcoin attracted 35M users and reached a $1B market cap with no external funding.
Portal’s FDV dropped from $4 billion to $280 million, and Overworld Incarnas lost 75% of its value. Mavia and Pixelmon also dropped by more than 60% after the TGE.
Shooters remain the leading genre in Web3, with Off the Grid standing out with a $110 million funding round and partnerships with Sony and Microsoft.
Among MMORPGs, the most anticipated is MapleStory Universe, which has raised $100 million.
Pirate Nation is a fully on-chain game that has grown to 100,000 active players and $1 million in revenue in the last 6 weeks.
Mobile games such as Fate of the Dragon and Dragon's Blaze have grown rapidly, attracting hundreds of thousands of users. Dragon's Blaze has been downloaded more than 3.5 million times.
Ronin and the TON ecosystem lead Web3 gaming. Ronin benefits from the success of Axie Infinity, while TON provides seamless integration with Telegram and access to 900 million users. The success of Notcoin and Hamster Kombat further confirms this.
This summary highlights the key points from Delphi's Mid-Year Game Review report.
1. Web3 games worth paying attention to
Below, I’ve highlighted some recent games worth noting, most of which are not yet tracked on DappRadar. To see stats for the hottest games, use this dashboard.
1) Off the Grid [Shooter]
Description: Off The Grid is a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game from Gunzilla Games.
Public chain: Avalanche
Investment amount: US$101 million
Overview: Off the Grid attracted over $110 million in funding, a team of over 380 people, and partnered with Sony and Microsoft to release the game on PlayStation and Xbox, setting a new industry standard.
2) MapleStory Universe [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]
Description: MapleStory Universe expands Nexon's renowned MapleStory IP into a virtual world ecosystem hosting a variety of applications based on the beloved game series.
Public chain: MapleStory subnet, powered by Avalanche
Investment amount: US$100 million
Fact: MapleStory Universe received over $100 million in funding from Nexon in 2023. MapleStory Online has attracted over 100 million lifetime players and remains a significant player in the MMORPG space.
From July 24 to August 2, NEXPACE invited more than 1,000 players to participate in the MapleStory N Vanguard test. Peak concurrent player count reached 714, and 92% of participants returned multiple times during the test. The team reported a retention rate of 79.97% after seven days.
3) EVE Frontier [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]
Description: EVE%20Frontier%20 is a single-shard survival game set in a dark, dystopian space, where humanity struggles to survive and rebuild a shattered world. In January 2023, CCP%20 announced that it had raised %204,000%200,000 for the game's development.
Investment amount: US$40 million
Fact: Leveraging proven %20IP%20 will provide a significant advantage in user acquisition, allowing them to target the loyal fan base of MapleStory and Star Wars: Star Wars.
4) MetaCene [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game]
Description: MetaCene is making a blockchain-based MMORPG set in a surreal post-apocalyptic world. Players redefine civilization using a variety of NFTs. The game aims to create an accessible Web3 experience that focuses on player-centric entertainment, governance, and AIGC-driven creation.
Public chain: Rangers, but Apostles NFT collections are on Ethereum
UAW (30 days): 38.32k
UAW ATH: 57.06k (March 25, 2024)
Fact: MetaCene was founded by gaming experts with over 20 years of industry experience from companies such as Shanda Games, Blizzard, and Perfect World.
Its UAW population has grown significantly over the past 30 days, from 898 to 371,000, a 4,031.4% increase.
5) Avalon [MMORPG]
Description: Avalon is the world's first multi-chain, true open-world MMORPG, built with Unreal Engine and integrating multiple blockchains. Set in a fantasy medieval kingdom, players use their NFTs to explore the world while competing for cryptocurrency and rare NFT rewards. The game setting is inspired by the legend of King Arthur and the alternative history of the Knights Templar.
Public chains: ImmutableX, Base
Fact: Both MetaCene and Avalon are led by industry veterans who played key roles in shaping EverQuest and Legend II, two games that defined the MMORPG genre.
6) Big Time [MMORPG]
Name: Big Era
Description: Big Time is a multiplayer action RPG for PC that combines fast-paced combat with an open game economy. Players actively generate and exchange game items. The game seamlessly integrates Web3 elements, ensuring they do not hinder the entertainment experience, thereby appealing to a wider audience.
Chain: Ethereum
Fact: Big Time has revitalized the Web3 gaming landscape after the bear market, generating over $100 million in revenue since preseason and positioning itself as a strong Web3 native competitor.
7) Pirate Nation [Fully on-chain gaming]
Description: Pirate Kingdom is an innovative game developed by Proof of Play, a studio that combines gaming with blockchain technology. Players collect pirates and send them on adventures to collect crafting materials, treasures, and pirate gold. Through multiple adventures, the pirates accumulate experience and level up.
Chain: Ethereum, Apex Chain
Fact: Pirate Nation has achieved a staggering 2,400% growth in just three months. This growth, along with an impressive $1 million in in-game revenue in the past six weeks, highlights its strong position in the FOCG space.
Designed to support the Pirate Nation ecosystem, Apex Chain is one of the most active chains, processing more than 2.5 million transactions per day. It is second only to Base among EVM Layer 2 solutions in terms of transaction volume over the past month.
8) Infinigods [Mobile game studio]
Projects: Infinimerge, Immortal Siege, King of Destiny
Description: Infinigods is a Web3 game studio focused on delivering cross-platform experiences for web and mobile. Infinigods is committed to building a casual gaming ecosystem that connects games to each other through its unique NFT collections and intellectual property, all inspired by ancient mythology.
Chain: Ethereum
Fact: Lord of Fate is a Web3 luck-based battle game developed by Infinigods that has been quietly growing its user base, approaching 1 million downloads and over 250,000 monthly active users (MAU).
9) More games worth watching include:
Capsule Heroes – Free-to-play PvP fighting game.
Matr1x – an entertainment platform covering Web3, AI, and eSports, had 24K unique wallets last month.
Fableborne – An isometric multiplayer game with 77K downloads.
Treeverse - An MMORPG being developed by the Endless Clouds team.
World of Dypians (WoD) — a multiplayer online role-playing game — currently has the highest number of unique 30-day active wallets on DappRadar at 700K.
Source: DappRadar
2. Summary
Delphi said there are no clear signs that gaming will gain traction in the fourth quarter in the current market, where meme coins and the Solana ecosystem are outperforming most other Web3 sectors. In addition, a large number of issuances are expected in the next six months, which may increase competition and further fragment liquidity.
However, they hope that games such as Off The Grid, Maple Story Universe, and Fableborne can have a positive impact on sentiment in both Web3 and Web2 markets. Such content should still be considered the best Trojan Horse for the cryptocurrency space, and they believe there is reason to be optimistic in the short to medium term.
