2021 was a year that will be a permanent part of blockchain gaming’s history. Though it wasn’t where the story began, it is where to story began to get interesting. In the first quarter, there were rumblings of potential, but by Q2, we were well on our way to the parabolic growth of Play-to-Earn (P2E) projects.
There were many games of note in this breakthrough year and some excellent projects were announced too. I played a whole host of games, from mobile, to browser, to desktop, and several stood out, even if they were still in development. In December, as I looked back on a wild year, I felt that one project stood out above the others: Splinterlands. And so, Splinterlands was awarded Token Gamer’s Game of the Year 2021.
Splinterlands had spent much of 2021 in the top 5 of the DappRadar games charts by users and ended the year jostling for 1st with Alien Worlds. 2022 has not seen any form of regression — in fact, as I write this, Splinterlands is sitting pretty in first position of said charts. The growth is frankly incredible.
Exactly 1 year ago today, 27th March 2021, Splinterlands had around 6,800 daily users. 12 months later, it has 380,000. In the last 30 days, Splinterlands has seen nearly 600,000 unique wallets and 75 million transactions. Then, some recent milestones have been reached. Balthazar — an NFT gaming platform with a scholar program for Splinterlands — teamed up with the game to giveaway $1m worth of NFT assets, as well as 3,000 scholarships.
Then, the billboard achievement mentioned in the title: 2 billion games of Splinterlands have now been played. That is a staggering achievement for any game in any genre or industry and one the development team ought to wear as a badge of honor. Jesse Reich, Splinterlands CEO, said:
“We’ve seen the Splinterlands’ team trailblaze many features and milestones in the industry supported by unwavering work ethic and dedication to the community. Achieving 2 billion games played is a remarkable milestone for Splinterlands and the industry as a whole. We’re thrilled to be a part of their success.”
— Jesse Reich, Splinterlands CEO
(I like to cite quotes properly, but it’s difficult to track down the original source of those words. I found it on Investing.com which Splinterlands retweeted.)
What Splinterlands has achieved in the last year is beyond noteworthy — 6.8k to 380k daily users — and if they can continue the momentum, the innovation, and the pioneering, where it will be on 27th March 2023 is difficult to imagine.
