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This annual report examines cross-chain data from the blockchain industry to outline the most important metrics and trends in GameFi for 2022.
By looking at last year through the lens of on-chain analytics, we can chart the trajectory of the GameFi industry and make smarter investment decisions and analysis in 2023.
By the numbers, 2022 was a devastating year. Investors, GameFi participants, and NFT holders have witnessed a sharp decline in the value of their holdings after hitting record highs. Those who were more unlucky lost all their assets because they were involved in the collapse of Terra, BlockFi, Celcius, FTX or other smaller projects that failed or were hacked.
Despite this, well-known game studios continued to invest heavily in GameFi. Analysts predict that if blockchain games become more playable, they will become one of the primary means of driving mainstream crypto adoption.
But until then, most GameFi projects still fail. This means that blockchain industry players need to go beyond headlines and whitepapers to determine what is happening within the protocol and determine its sustainability.
When does on-chain analytics come into play?
For Players and Private Investors: Gaming still struggles to get out of its death spiral, and GameFi investments still resemble Ponzi schemes, aimed at getting in early in a project and exiting before it goes down. . If you’re playing games primarily for fun, you should be very careful for on-chain signals that indicate an impending decline.
For developers: Developers should carefully track cross-chain trends as the choice of launch or expansion platform can greatly affect the success of a project. Considerations include ecosystem support, user base, and performance. The GameFi project evaluation takes these factors into account.
finally, If you are a VC or media outlet researcher, your job depends on generating accurate insights about the GameFi industry. This report examines the underlying data.
Answer the following three questions:
The overall market in 2022 was tough. Judging by the price of GameFi tokens or his NFTs, the whole industry seemed to have stalled.
But looking beyond the most superficial numbers, despite the loss of value, there were some very optimistic signals in the industry. However, other ecosystems have attracted developers and created more innovation.
From $27 billion at the beginning of the year to $3.3 billion at the end of the year, the market capitalization occurred when the price of all crypto altcoins collapsed amid tightening macroeconomic conditions. Perhaps an optimistic indicator of the future, he was also one of the highest performing assets during the 2021 bubble. This shows that investors see blockchain gaming as a high-risk yet incredibly high-growth opportunity.
The monthly volume decline was perhaps the most disturbing statistic from last year. However, it is important to note that this does not reflect overall activity. As the price of the GameFi token has fallen, so has the amount of volume calculated on the amount of USD value exchanged within the protocol.
The number of transactions has had its ups and downs, but has remained relatively constant, unlike the sharp declines tracked by the overall volume metric. It means that most of the activity was maintained. (Or maybe that bot.)
BNB has attracted many light games and small projects due to its ease of development and low network fees. Few of these titles have been hits, and BNB has yet to join a game on the scale of The Sandbox, Illuvium, or Axie Infinity.
Polygon has doubled the number of GameFi protocols from 153 to 306. Wax increased 158% from 53 to 137 games. Solana is only two games away from him in 2021, but in 2022 he broke through with 19 new titles.
$5.4 billion of investment was paid into the GameFi sector, compared to $2.9 billion in 2021. In 2021, institutional investors were still fed up with the novelty of so-called blockchain games as Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and Decentraland made headlines. first time.
In 2022, GameFi could become a truly disruptive force if massive amounts of VC cash were used to build ambitious projects by traditional game studios and established blockchain companies. It was the year that people realized something.
The most notable examples are Sony, Epic Games, Ubisoft and Nintendo.
Epic Games, the studio behind Fortnite, has raised $2 billion to build its Metaverse, led by Sony. Details are still unknown as of early 2023, but plans are including legoThis was the most significant fundraising milestone of the year.
The studio and investor cemented its position as GameFi’s most active leader, completing 61 rounds, more than double the second most active investor. At $434 million, he was also the second highest funding recipient after Epic Games.
Animoca is the company behind The Sandbox, Benji Bananas, Arc8 and Phantom Galaxies.
Throughout 2022, Splinterlands (Hive’s main title) and Alien Worlds (Wax’s) were evenly matched in terms of active users. Depending on your outlook, this could indicate the strength of Alien Worlds and Splinterlands, or the prevalence of bots in these games.
Polygon is an EVM L2 built to scale up Ethereum. The project dates back to 2017 and its token, his MATIC, went live in 2019, but the network had its breakout year in 2022, showing span performance across DeFi, NFT, and GameFi. Polygon’s games with the highest average monthly DAU in 2022 were Planet IX (70K) and Benji Bananas (25K).
STEPN was the last big hit in the bull market and one of the only game-changing titles to make headlines by introducing mobile app-based “Move-to-Earn” gameplay. But a month after his NFT asset sneakers and tokens ballooned into the sky, the game entered a death spiral and prices crashed. The game is still Solana’s second most played game.
Apart from STEPN, the “Walk-to-Earn” title Walken is also built on Solana.
This reflects a loss of confidence in the company’s game, Decentraland. Decentraland was one of his big three titles on GameFi and the Metaverse, along with The Sandbox and Axie Infinity, and was widely recognized for its exorbitant prices for in-game assets.
These were the most actively played games in 2022. As previously mentionedSplinterlands and Alien Worlds are both card and text-based games that lack 3D worlds, making them surprisingly primitive for market leaders.
As of early 2023, Illuvium is already in beta, with a full release planned for mid-2023.
This work, footprint analysis
The Footprint Community is a place to help data and crypto enthusiasts around the world understand and gain insights about Web3, the Metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, or any other area of the emerging blockchain world. Here you’ll find vibrant and diverse voices who support each other and move the community forward.
