Blockchain gaming has represented an enormous chunk of total on-chain activity for several years now, and in a recent DappRadar report on the month of January 2023, it is currently around half. Here is why that’s an important indicator, but also misleading.
In case this needs reiterating — and it might — DappRadar is one of the most important resources in Web3 and without a hint of sponsorship, I would say getting DappRadar PRO is worthwhile. That said, this report isn’t gated and is accessible to all on their blog.
What the title of this article refers to is chapter 5 of the report. Here is an extract and the relevant graphic:
In January 2023, the number of daily Unique Active Wallets reached 839,436. This marks a significant increase in the sector’s dominance, up from 45.2% in December to 48% in January.
Gaming is an extraordinarily large part of Web3 already and it is trending upwards. For those of us who are interested in blockchain technology’s value to games, this is highly encouraging. Similarly, if you’re interested in the prosperity of NFTs or even Web3 as a sector, this report is positive.
It is also worth noting that very few flagship, genuinely AAA games are even in open beta, let alone released. This suggests that the percentage of the pie gaming currently accounts for is modest in contrast to what it might show in the future. The article I published yesterday, Blur Overtakes OpenSea: Why it May Not Matter Long-Term is relevant here. I would also recommend our article 2022 Report Shows WAX Blockchain as Wildly Underrated which takes a look at the DappRadar and Blockchain Gaming Alliance 2022 report.
All of these indicators show the promise of blockchain gaming and its value to Web3, however, I’d like to highlight why this is a little misleading. Blockchain games, at least for the most part, are transaction-heavy — far more than almost any other blockchain activity. Take Alien Worlds, for example. As you can see in the below graphic, Alien Worlds has had multiple days in the past two years with over 15 million transactions. Without doing the necessary research, I’d still confidently guess that Alien Worlds alone accounts for more on-chain activity than a good portion of non-gaming combined.
Now, this isn’t to suggest that blockchain gaming isn’t a force to be reckoned with, indispensable to Web3, and on the ascent, but merely to plant a flag in the fact that blockchain gaming does pad its own transaction stats, albeit not on purpose.
With that out of the way, let’s reiterate the salient point here: without any major, triple-A Web3 games released, without any mainstream games integrating blockchain, and without a vast selection of playable blockchain games, gaming is running rampant in crypto. What will gaming’s share of activity be when we have all three of those boxes ticked?
