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 gaming funding peaked between February and March, with monthly investments ranging from $60 million to $100 million, totaling $673 million in 2024; however, this only accounted for 41.35% of Q1 2022 transaction 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, and Notcoin attracted 35M users and reached a $1B market cap with no external funding.
Portal’s FDV dropped from $4 billion to $280 million, Overworld Incarnas lost 75% of its value, and 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 in funding.
(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 "Lord of Fate" and "Dragon's Blaze" have grown rapidly, attracting hundreds of thousands of users, with "Dragon's Blaze" having been downloaded more than 3.5 million times.
The Ronin and TON ecosystems lead Web3 gaming, with Ronin benefiting from the success of Axie Infinity, while TON offers seamless integration with Telegram and access to 900 million users, further borne out by the success of Notcoin and Hamster Kombat.
This summary highlights the key points from Delphi's Mid-Year Game Review report.
Web3 Games Worth Watching
Below, I’ve highlighted some recent games worth noting, most of which are not yet tracked on DappRadar, to see stats for the most popular games, use this dashboard.
1. Off the Grid (shooting)
Description: (Off The Grid) is a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game developed by Gunzilla Games.
Public chain: Avalanche
Investment amount: US$101 million
Overview: (Off the Grid) has attracted over $110 million in funding, has a team of over 380 people, and has partnered with Sony and Microsoft to publish games on PlayStation and Xbox, setting new industry standards.
2. MapleStory Universe (MMORPG)
Description: (MapleStory Universe) expands Nexon's famous (MapleStory) IP into a virtual world ecosystem and hosts a variety of applications based on this beloved game series.
Public chain: MapleStory subnet, powered by Avalanche
Investment amount: US$100 million
Overview: In 2023, MapleStory Universe received over $100 million in funding from Nexon, MapleStory Online has attracted over 100 million lifetime players and remains a major 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, with a peak concurrent player count of 714, 92% of participants returning multiple times during the test, and the team reported a retention rate of 79.97% after seven days.
3. EVE Frontier (massively multiplayer online role-playing game)
Description: EVE Frontier is a single-shard survival game set in a dark, dystopian space where humanity struggles to survive and rebuild a shattered world. In March 2023, CCP announced that it had raised $40 million for the game's development.
Investment amount: US$40 million
Overview: Leveraging proven IP will provide significant advantages 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 where 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 on Ethereum
UAW (30 days): 38.32k
UAW ATH: 57.06k (March 25, 2024)
Overview: MetaCene, founded by game experts with more than 20 years of industry experience from companies such as Shanda Games, Blizzard, and Perfect World, has seen significant growth in the number of UAWs in the past 30 days, from 898 to 371,000, an increase of 4031.4%.
5. Avalon (MMORPG)
Description: Avalon is the world's first multi-chain, true open world MMORPG, built with Unreal Engine and integrating multiple blockchains. The game is set in a fantasy medieval kingdom where 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
Overview: 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
Name: Big Time
Description: Big Time is a multiplayer action RPG for PC that combines fast-paced combat with an open game economy where players actively generate and exchange game items. The game seamlessly integrates Web3 elements to ensure they do not hinder the entertainment experience, thus attracting a wider audience.
Public chain: Ethereum
Overview: Big Time has revitalized the Web3 gaming landscape after the bear market, generating over $100M in revenue since preseason and positioning itself as a strong Web3 native competitor.
7. Pirate Nation (Fully on-chain game)
Description: (Pirate Kingdom) is an innovative game developed by Proof of Play, a studio that combines games 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 upgrade.
Public chains: Ethereum, Apex Chain
Overview: Pirate Nation has achieved a staggering 2,400% growth in just three months, and 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 over 2.5 million transactions per day, and is second only to Base among EVM Layer 2 solutions in terms of transaction volume over the past month.
8. Infinigods (Mobile Game Studio)
项目：Infinimerge、Immortal Siege、King of Destiny
Description: Infinigods is a Web3 game studio focused on providing cross-platform experiences for web and mobile devices. Infinigods is committed to building a casual game ecosystem that connects games to each other through its unique NFT series and intellectual property rights, all of which are inspired by ancient mythology.
Public chain: Ethereum
Overview: (Lord of Fate) is a Web3 luck battle game developed by Infinigods, whose user base has been quietly growing, with nearly 1 million downloads and more than 250,000 monthly active users (MAU).
9. More games worth watching include:
Capsule Heroes - Free 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 currently in development 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.
Gameta - Gameta is a multi-layered NFT gaming ecosystem that aims to bring a large number of Web2 users to Web3 through casual gaming entertainment. Through hyper-casual games, the platform aims to bring 20 million Web2 users to Web3 within 18 months.
Recently, Gameta announced a partnership with the parachain DePIN project, XG Network, which focuses on developing on-chain game and payment module engines, and Advertising Time Token, an innovative Web3.0 application that integrates RWA and DePIN technologies and aims to become a new traffic and asset entrance for the Web3 space, to add color to the GameFi space in Web3.
For more information about Gameta, please read:
Gameta's cooperation projects in the past month
A list of Gameta's cooperation projects in the past two months
summary
Delphi said there are no clear signs that gaming will gain traction in the fourth quarter in the current market (where Meme Coin and the Solana ecosystem are outperforming most other Web3 sectors), and further, 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 will have a positive impact on sentiment in both Web3 and Web2 markets, and that such content should still be considered the best Trojan Horse in the cryptocurrency space, and they believe there is reason to be optimistic in the short to medium term.
#OffTheGrid #Gameta #GameFi #NFT
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