Author: Stella L (stella@footprint.network)
Data Source: Footprint Analytics Games Research Page
In October 2024, the Web3 gaming market remained stable, in contrast with the broader crypto market's growth trend. BTC rose 15.9% during the month, nearing its all-time high price, while the total market capitalization of gaming tokens remained at $21.15 billion, close to the previous month. Daily active users (DAU) reached 5.3 million, mainly driven by Telegram-based games, especially Matchain, Sui, and Core, which saw significant user growth through the introduction of Telegram games.
This month saw several key developments: traditional gaming giant Ubisoft launched its first blockchain game on Oasys, and crypto fund VanEck invested in Gunzilla Games. Meanwhile, capital continued to flow into the industry, with Azra Games raising $427 million in funding.
Macro Market Review
In October, the crypto market had a mixed performance, with BTC showing significant strength, while other sectors saw more moderate gains. BTC rose from $60,764 to $70,398, a 15.9% increase. Notably, BTC reached $72,751 on October 29, nearing its all-time high of $73,104 set on March 14, 2024. In comparison, ETH had a more muted performance, rising from $2,453 to $2,519, a 2.7% increase.
Data Source: BTC and ETH Price Trends
The crypto market in October was significantly impacted by macroeconomic factors. The US dollar strengthened, the Chinese yuan weakened, and concerns over trade tensions and tariff risks intensified. This currency volatility was accompanied by rising bond yields and increasing gold prices, indicating a complex shift in global risk perception and investment flows.
As the US election approaches, political factors are increasingly influencing market sentiment. Investors are positioning themselves ahead of potential policy changes, with the acceleration of BTC's gains reflecting the market's assessment of the impact different election outcomes may have on digital asset regulation and financial policies.
Institutional activity remained strong this month, with BTC exchange-traded products (ETPs) recording significant net inflows. This sustained institutional interest, combined with BTC's performance diverging from other crypto sectors, suggests that large investors are becoming more selective in their allocations.
Regulatory developments continue to shape the market landscape. The FBI's "phishing enforcement" investigation of the NexFundAI token was a significant milestone, leading to market manipulation charges against three crypto companies and 15 individuals. Meanwhile, Crypto.com's legal action against the SEC highlights the ongoing tensions between industry participants and regulators.
Blockchain Gaming Market Overview
In October, the blockchain gaming industry showed mixed signals, with token market capitalization remaining stable but user metrics exhibiting more significant changes. The blockchain gaming token market capitalization slightly increased from $21.07 billion to $21.15 billion.
Data Source: Blockchain Gaming Token Market Cap and BTC Market Cap
User engagement metrics showed more significant changes, with October's daily active users (DAU) reaching a new high of 5.3 million, an 11.3% increase from September. This growth was primarily driven by the user metric peaks of Matchain during October 10-13, as it launched four games in the Telegram ecosystem. The surge in Telegram-related gaming activities continued to reshape user acquisition models.
Data Source: Blockchain Gaming Daily Active Users
Transaction volume showed moderate growth, with a daily average of 9.3 million transactions, a 2.1% increase from September. However, this growth rate was still lower than the DAU growth, indicating that the average transactions per user remained flat compared to September.
Data Source: Blockchain Gaming Daily Transaction Volume
Transaction value, on the other hand, saw a slight contraction, with the daily average decreasing by 1.9% to $7.5 million.
Data Source: Blockchain Gaming Daily Transaction Value
These metrics hold particular significance in the broader context of crypto adoption. The a16z 2024 State of Crypto Report estimates the current active crypto users to be between 30-60 million, representing 5-10% of the 617 million global crypto users reported by Crypto.com in June 2024. This significant gap highlights a crucial opportunity: converting existing crypto holders into active users. While Web3 games have long been viewed as a critical catalyst for broader blockchain adoption, their performance in the current market cycle suggests challenges in realizing this potential.
How can blockchain game builders adjust their strategies to bridge this participation gap? We will explore this further in the following sections.
Blockchain Gaming Mainnet Overview
The number of active blockchain games reached 1,606 in October, a 1.6% increase from September. BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum held the top positions with 22.5%, 18.4%, and 13.6% market share, respectively.
Data Source: Active Game Projects by Mainnet
The DAU metric showed a shift in the competitive landscape, with opBNB, Ronin, and the emerging Matchain becoming the best-performing chains. These chains had average DAUs of 1.2 million, 886,000, and 548,000, respectively, accounting for 25.6%, 13.1%, and 11.2% of the DAU market share by the end of October.
Data Source: Daily Active Users by Mainnet
The growth momentum of opBNB is strong, with a 10.5% increase in average daily active users (DAU) compared to September, mainly driven by GombleGames and Alliance Games, whose user bases grew by over 100% and 78% respectively. Interestingly, this growth reflects the shift of blockchain games on the BNB Chain towards opBNB, while the BNB Chain itself saw a 43.8% decline in average daily active users.
Matchain, a decentralized AI blockchain focused on data and identity sovereignty, launched its mainnet in August. The chain's average daily users surged from 78 in September to 548,000 in October, primarily driven by Telegram-based games such as LOL, Jumper, and Digiverse. During the period of October 9-13, Matchain's performance peaked, with an average DAU of 2 million, reaching a high of 3.3 million DAU on October 12. Although the user count subsequently declined sharply, it stabilized at around 615,000 in the last week of October. The increase from 78 to 548,000 DAU demonstrates the potential and challenges of user acquisition in the Telegram ecosystem, a common issue faced by the Web3 gaming industry, where projects struggle to maintain the initial growth momentum and achieve sustained organic growth.
Data source: Matchain Daily Active Gamers
Sui performed strongly, with a 105.1% increase in average DAU to 186,000. This growth was driven by several Telegram-based projects, including BIRDS (a Memecoin and game mini-app) and MemeFi, which shifted its token issuance from the Ethereum L2 Linea to Sui in the weeks leading up to its airdrop. The combination of Memecoins and games appears to be a strategy for Sui to maintain user engagement.
Core saw a 75.7% increase in average DAU to 109,000, driven by traditional Web3 games like World of Dypians and Pixudi, as well as new Telegram-based games. The "Talk-to-Earn" and "Tap-to-Earn" game TomTalk has seen significant success, accumulating over 1 million users on Core within a month. Core's strategy appears to focus on long-term ecosystem development through strong support, such as its collaborations with TomTalk and Pixudi.
TON's average DAU declined by 27.7% to 195,000, reflecting the post-TGE activity drop-off of several games. However, TON's success in Telegram user acquisition has already inspired imitation across the industry. In addition to TON, multiple chains are now actively vying for the Telegram ecosystem's user base. Matchain, Sui, and Core have achieved notable success in this regard, while emerging chains like Sei, Ancient8, and Viction are also implementing similar strategies.
Meanwhile, other chains face their own challenges and opportunities. The Arbitrum community has put forth a proposal regarding the "Game Catalyst Program" (GCP) and its $220 million plan, suggesting that the allocated 220 million ARB tokens be returned to the treasury, highlighting the demand for financial and operational transparency in the GCP.
In contrast, Immutable zkEVM has taken a strategic step towards decentralization by removing its deployment whitelist and enabling permissionless deployment. Since launching its testnet in March 2024, Immutable zkEVM claims to have achieved significant growth, with over 2.5 million monthly active users on-chain in the first quarter.
Immutable
Overview of the Blockchain Gaming Ecosystem
As of the end of October, the blockchain gaming ecosystem had a total of 3,503 games, with 1,336 remaining active. 283 games have attracted over 1,000 monthly active users (MAU), accounting for 8.1% of the total games and 21.2% of active games.
Data source: Monthly Active Blockchain Games
The Telegram gaming phenomenon continues to shape the industry landscape, but also faces challenges in sustainability. Hamster Kombat topped the October Telegram game Mini App rankings with 51.9 million MAU. However, the discrepancy between the claimed user numbers (nearly 300 million in August and September) and the latest retention figures, coupled with a 70% drop in the token price from its all-time high post-TGE, suggests that the project still faces opportunities and challenges in converting initial user interest into sustained engagement.
Data source: Top Telegram Mini Apps Ranking
On another note, Ubisoft has entered the blockchain gaming space with Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, a tactical RPG focused on PvP combat and team-building mechanics, launched on October 23 on the Oasys Layer 2 Home Verse.
A notable investment event is VanEck's crypto fund announcing an investment in Gunzilla Games. VanEck had previously invested in Parallel. Gunzilla launched the highly anticipated game Off the Grid on PlayStation 5 and Epic Games this month. Off the Grid is built on Gunzilla's blockchain (recently upgraded from an Avalanche subnet to an L1), but the game is explicitly positioned on the official website as "not an NFT game", but rather a battle royale game with "optional NFT elements". This reflects a trend of incorporating blockchain features as auxiliary game mechanics rather than as core gameplay.
Off The Grid
This evolving approach to blockchain integration, particularly driven by established game companies, suggests a maturing market where technology is used to enhance, rather than define, the gaming experience. This subtle shift may help bridge the gap between traditional and Web3 gaming.
Blockchain Gaming Investment and Fundraising
In October, the Web3 gaming industry showed strong growth in investment activities, raising $94.6 million across 13 funding events, a significant 44.2% increase from September. Four of these activities did not disclose their funding amounts.
Blockchain Gaming Fundraising Events in October 2024 (Source: crypto-fundraising.info)
The highlight of the month was Azra Games' $42.7 million Series A round, led by Pantera Capital and supported by industry giants like a16z crypto, A16Z GAMES, and NFX. This investment reflects the industry's confidence in advanced mobile gaming experiences. Azra's vision for a "fourth-generation mobile RPG" signifies a significant evolution in mobile gaming, building upon console-level experiences with open worlds, complex camera systems, real-time combat, and extensive PvE activities. Increasing investor interest in the convergence of console-quality experiences and mobile platforms suggests a potential shift in the consumption patterns of Web3 games.
The infrastructure sector has also been active, with Alliance Games receiving a $5 million Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands and Asymm Ventures. Alliance Games focuses on AI-driven decentralized infrastructure, addressing key needs in the ecosystem.
The data in this report is sourced from the Games Research page of Footprint Analytics, a real-time data dashboard providing comprehensive and reliable Web3 gaming statistics. If you find any chains or games not included and would like to have them added to the dataset, please contact us. You can also self-submit contracts through this link.
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The content of this article is for industry research and communication purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market has risks, and investments require caution.
About Footprint Analytics
Footprint Analytics is a comprehensive blockchain data analysis platform that simplifies complex analysis for enterprises and projects in the Web3 ecosystem. It provides customized solutions, eliminating the need for extensive expertise and infrastructure maintenance. The platform offers tools aimed at helping to gradually build and manage long-term community growth, emphasizing sustainable growth and user loyalty. By combining powerful analytics tools and community management tools, Footprint Analytics enables projects to effectively leverage blockchain data for decision-making and growth strategies, covering areas such as GameFi, Non-Fungible Token, and DeFi.
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