It’s been a major rollercoaster ride for the burgeoning blockchain gaming industry in the second quarter of 2022. Both the war in Ukraine and security incidents linked to the recent Ronin Bridge hack significantly hampered growth. Are P2E games dead? Well, despite all this, the market was able to grow by almost 2,000% compared to the previous year according to the market report by DappRadar and the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA). In this article, we take a look at the top 5 P2E Games and their current market developments.
What is Play-2-Earn Gaming (P2E)?
Play 2 earn, especially in crypto, is a game form, that allows users to earn in-game rewards, which can be converted to real-world currencies. Gaming has continually evolved from arcades to phones and laptops for the past few years. While games were fun, people could not earn money from playing them during those times. People played for the fun of it and not to earn rewards.
During the arcade era, players spend their money playing games. Those games require coins to work, making it necessary to insert coins before playing your favorite arcade games. And since these were one of the earliest gaming mediums, consumers quickly gained interest, parting with their coins to enjoy it. Today, you don’t need to go to a center to access games as they are now on laptops, phones, and game consoles, made specifically for gaming needs.
Q2 2022 – P2E games increase investment to 2.5 billion
In the second quarter of 2022, the blockchain gaming industry managed to garner a total investment of $2.5 billion. Compared to the previous year, in which a total of 4 billion dollars in funding was collected, these are strong numbers. The second quarter of 2022 thus confirms the figures from the first quarter. 2.5 billion dollars were also invested in this and should the figures repeat themselves in the next two quarters, a total of 10 billion dollars would be invested in 2022. This corresponds to a growth of 150%. The first two quarters already exceed the full year 2021 by 33 percent.
Active players have also risen sharply since 2021. As of March 2022, 1.22 million people were playing blockchain games. If you relate this number to the first quarter of 2021, there is an increase of over 2,000%. In the second quarter, these figures could even be increased by almost 3%.
Top 5 P2E Games in Q2 2022
5. Splinterlands
Splinterlands is a unique digital trading card game that allows players to truly own their cards and other in-game assets. Thanks to Web 3.0 technology leveraged by the HIVE blockchain, every card in Splinterlands is a non-fungible token owned by a player. Players can compete for rewards with their cards, keep cards as collectibles, sell them on a peer-to-peer market, combine cards to level up, or even burn them to unlock Dark Energy Crystals, the official in-game -Cryptocurrency from Splinterlands.
The game currently has around 280,000 daily active users. The in-game token $DEC costs $0.0005 as of today and lost more than 95% compared to its ATH on 10/14/2021. Despite all of this, Splinterlands was by far the most played P2E game in the first and second quarters of 2022. However, due to a change in the reward structure in June, the game is seeing a 61% drop in active users, so the game may be in for a tough time.
4. Gods Unchained
Gods Unchained is a free-to-play trading card game that pits players against each other in epic duels using fantasy cards. The Play 2 Earn game was designed to fundamentally change the way games work. Using Ethereum technology, players can be given real digital property and the means to earn items that actually have physical value. Designed to be the core currency of Gods Unchained, the $GODS token boosts the ecosystem by allowing players to earn and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The game has around 80,000 weekly users. The §GODS token is currently at $0.46 and is about 95% off its all-time high on October 12, 2021. Nevertheless, the coin still has a market cap of more than 200 million US dollars.
3. Axe Infinity
Axie Infinity is a game universe filled with fascinating creatures and axies for players to collect as pets. The aim of the game is to adventure with your Axies, to breed, collect and level them up. The universe has a player’s economy where players can own, buy, sell, and trade resources.
The Play-2-Earn game currently has around 750,000 users per month. The in-game token Smooth Love Potion (SLP) is currently priced at $0.004 and its market cap is $150 million. The ATH was on 07/21/2021 and was $0.336. Consequently, the token is down more than 87 percent. In addition, Axie Infinity became part of the largest hack in crypto history, in which almost $625 million was stolen. As a result, confidence in the play-2-earn game is crumbling and it is questionable whether it can recover from this.
2. Aavegotchi
The company Pixelcraft develops the game Aavegotchi on the liquidity protocol Aave. With the game, Pixelcraft Studios seeks to unite the DeFi and NFT universes with unique crypto collectibles that can be used for multiple benefits within these ecosystems. Aavegotchi has gained widespread popularity and recognition among active users and fans who are attracted to the pixelated ghost avatars that have original and innovative functions and features that give them unique in-game value.
Aavegotchi’s GHST token is currently trading at $1.33, down almost 53 percent from its peak on 01/12/2022. Aavegotchi is performing extraordinarily well compared to other market participants.
1. The SANDBOX
The game consists of a virtual world where players can create, own and monetize their gaming experiences on the Ethereum blockchain using SAND, the platform’s utility token. The vision is to offer a metaverse where players create virtual worlds and games collaboratively and without a central authority. The goal is to compete with existing game makers like Minecraft and Roblox by providing developers with real ownership of their creations as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and rewarding their participation with our utility token SAND.
The Sandbox currently has around 300,000 active players per month. The token SAND is currently at $1.30 and has a market capitalization of $3.8 billion. The token peaked on 11/25/2021 at $8.40. So SAND is about 85% away from its ATH. Nevertheless, the trading volume is almost constant and is around 100 ethers per day. As a result, the game was able to generate more than 129,000 Ether volumes in one year, which corresponds to around $180 million at an Ethereum price of $1400.
Conclusion – Do P2E games still have a future in 2022?
The token prices of almost all play-2-earn games have collapsed in 2022. The crises of the Ukraine war and the bear market also hit the blockchain gaming industry extremely hard. Fortunately, the number of active players remained constant, which could speak for sustainable growth. The 29 percent decline in NFT revenue since Q1 was barely noticeable in the gaming industry. Gaming NFTs saw revenue growth of 19% year over year. The prospects for the further course of the year are therefore not bad. Investments increased significantly compared to 2021, which is why the signs are bullish. Now the developers have to work with the newly acquired funds and create added value for the community.
