In comparison with the standard gaming market, blockchain video games stay miniscule. Though 2024 began off with booming web3 gaming tokens, the full quantity gamers didn’t appear to choose up considerably.
Now that narrative appears to be altering, nonetheless, and to a big extent it’s due to Telegram and its integration of social mini-games on the TON blockchain. Utilizing TON’s tech stack, builders can construct video games and different dapps, together with wallets and exchanges, on high of Telegram.
Whereas Fb kickstarted the social gaming breakthrough with Zynga’s Farmville in 2010, Telegram has sparked what some predict to be the mass adoption of web3. A significant distinction to Fb nonetheless, is that by means of TON, video games on Telegram can entry fee techniques, NFT storage options, sensible contracts, and extra.
Web3 investor Delphi Digital just lately printed its A TON of Gaming Hype report, which appears into the ecosystem in additional element and highlights its most notable video games.
Though they’re nothing like formidable extraction shooter Shrapnel or the deep social mechanics of Pixels and Alien Worlds, TON’s ecosystem video games shouldn’t be dismissed as insignificant. Obtainable to the 900 million customers Telegram claims to have, if nothing else, these video games present how the ache level of onboarding friction in web3 might be overcome. And little doubt, the genres of video games constructing on TON are going to broaden past simple clicker video games. Certainly, they already are.
Lower than every week in the past we reported that the TON platform had grown from 120 to 160 video games. Now it’s as much as 176. Because the momentum has steadily grown all through 2024, faucet sport Notcoin, which launched on 1st January, was one of many first to kick it off.
In mid-June, it claimed to have hit 40 million customers. Its NOT token launched on Binance at $1 billion FDV in June, peaked at $2.1 billion, and has since gone right down to round $1.45 billion, in keeping with the report. Extra just lately, the value of NOT has elevated once more following an announcement it’s joined forces with AI/web3 gaming analytics firm Helika to assist sport builders constructing on Telegram.
Collectively main the cost with Notcoin is Hamster Kombat. In contrast to NOT, its token is but to be launched, and that’s accelerating its traction. The most recent claimed variety of gamers is 250 million.
One other sport rising in esteem extra just lately is Catizen. Beforehand constructing video games on WeChat, its developer has seen its cat breeding swipe sport entice over 20 million registered customers inside two months of launching. Notably, in keeping with the report “Catizen is the top game by in-game revenue through IAPs on TON. Over $10 million in TON has been sunk into the game by their 2.7 million DAU. Additionally, around 50% of the 1.25 million on-chain users are paying customers.”
It’s price noting that to a big extent, Catizen’s progress is right down to its future token airdrop, with the promise of 42% being allotted to gamers on the token launch.
Placing its person numbers in context, it’s price evaluating to the onchain knowledge we usually collect from analytics platforms resembling DappRadar. It’s not clear why the numbers don’t align, however whereas Catizen itself claims thousands and thousands of every day customers, its DAUW whole is simply tracked at round 100,000 every day wallets. This highlights among the knowledge reporting points arising from the extremely viral and very-easy-to-bot Telegram/TON-based video games.
Furthermore, we just lately seemed on the stage of bots in video games resembling Pixels, Splinterlands, and Alien Worlds, which confirmed that bot exercise can shortly surge regardless of energetic measures towards it. Video games on TON aren’t resistant to this. Certainly, fairly the other, some would possibly say they supply a super surroundings for bots to thrive.
One other essential query is how properly these video games can retain their customers. Because the report factors out, “Although those numbers are impressive, teams building on TON will need to prove their ability to run successful liveops and convert free-to-play users into paying customers without infinite inflationary token reward strategies.”
To this finish, extra niched video games like Fanton, a fantasy soccer sport which doesn’t promise huge token payouts, may very well be a extra sustainable wager. Though nothing the dimensions of Notcoin or Hamster Kombat, but, Fanton exhibits there’s potential for different video games past simple clickers on TON. Claiming 200,000 month-to-month energetic customers, the free-to-play tournaments run during the last couple of weeks solely reached 1000-5000 gamers nonetheless.
Amongst all of the clicker tokens is TON’s personal TON token. The place many gaming and meme-coins have zero utility, TON is the underlying fuel token used for all transactions on the community. Furthermore, validators have to stake TON to take part within the validation course of, and builders want TON tokens to run sensible contracts on the blockchain.
Though not restricted to gaming exercise, the TON blockchain at present has 39.7 million whole person wallets, 9.8 month-to-month actives and 370,000 DAUW.
Initially of 2024, the value of TON was $2.27, now as much as $7.30. Within the final 12 months, it’s up by 433%, as per CoinGecko, making TON a big consider driving web3 gaming ahead, whereas a lot else retains sinking.
