For crypto gaming investors, 2022 was a disastrous year.
Anyone who invested in Axie Infinity (AXS) in early 2022 was certainly disappointed to find that the cryptocurrency has lost around 94 percent of its value since the start of the year. The situation is similar to most other crypto gaming tokens.
Throughout 2022, it became known that most play-to-win game mechanics were untenable. In many ways, most crypto games these days are based solely on hype and speculation, which often hurts the fun and long-term survival of games.
Despite the market crash, there were still around a million Blockchain daily active players for most of 2022. Wax Blockchain currently leads the number of daily players with 315,000. Wax hosts several major games like Splinterlands and Farmers World.
Current State of the Crypto Gaming Sector
Despite the abovementioned, the pioneers of many models of money-making games have played an important role in stimulating the interest of many brilliant minds in recent years. For example, Grand Theft Auto founder Dan Houser invested in crypto game company Revolving Games, and game developer Ubisoft wants to delve into crypto games as well.
In 2021 alone, around 3.6 billion US dollars went into the development of crypto game projects and this wave of investment has not abated in 2022 either. On the contrary: Venture capital firm Delphi Digital assumes that investments in crypto game development will be slightly above those of the previous year, despite the bear market.
Despite the moderate interest in crypto gaming and the comparatively low number of users, the sector should not be discounted. Crypto gaming is one of the most lucrative sectors for venture capital firms.
Game Development Takes Time
Most people forget that good-quality game development takes much longer than in most other crypto sectors. For this reason, all gaming and Blockchain enthusiasts should keep their cool. The crypto gaming sector is still in its infancy, and the last hype cycle could have been the first, similar to Bitcoin.
Despite a bad year from a technical point of view, the crypto gaming sector still offers many opportunities for the future of gaming.
Crypto games in 2023
Several traditional gaming companies are currently entering the crypto market. Ubisoft has made partnerships and investments in various Blockchain gaming companies. Also, Blankos Block Party, the first crypto game, launched on the Epic Game Store last September. Furthermore, it is reported that, in spring 2023, Final Fantasy maker Square Enix wants to launch Symbiogenesis, an NFT-based browser game, on the Ethereum Blockchain.
Other triple-A crypto games such as Illuvium (ILV), Guild of Guardians (GOG), and Ember Sword (EMBER) will also be released in 2023. Therefore, it is quite conceivable that one of these games will manage to attract a larger number of players.
Therefore, the first Triple-A crypto games can be expected to be released in 2023, which will offer a completely new crypto gaming experience that combines high-quality game graphics, as well as sophisticated gameplay with Blockchain technology for the first time. However, it is not yet clear whether these games will make a breakthrough, and whether the gaming community will truly embrace the new play-to-win game models.
By Audy Castaneda
