Play-to-Earn Blockchain Games Continue to Grow Exponentially

Play-to-Earn blockchain games are growing exponentially as more players sign up. Figures from DappRadar show a significant increase in unique active wallets over the past 30 days. The trend spans all blockchains.

Significant examples of games include CryptoBlades, which has seen an 8,000% increase. ‘Axie Infinity’, meanwhile, boasts 314% growth, despite server crashes impacting player progress. Elsewhere, ‘Alien Worlds’ drew 84% more active wallets in the last period compared to the previous month. Overall, three in ten of the highest climbers in the DappRadar chart are currently games.

Why Do People Love Play-to-Earn Blockchain Games?

Video games have long been the biggest selling media products. Series like the ‘Red Dead’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ games helped change games from child’s play to narrative works of art.

As technology develops, so too does access to complex gaming environments. Putting it into context, the most advanced games from 20 years ago are now available in mobile form on your phone. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that as blockchain technology marches forward its impact on the gaming world grows.

Nowhere is this more visible than play-to-earn. These titles offer gamers a financial incentive to keep playing, flipping pay-to-play and play-to-win models on their heads. In this way, blockchain gaming is seen as a disruptive model that wants to give back to players, a key reason for its predicted continued growth.

Play-to-Earn Blockchain Games and IRL Impact

To the average nine-to-fiver, play-to-earn blockchain games might feel pretty far removed from a reliable income. However, there are examples of people making a real living from playable content on the blockchain.

VentureBeat ran a fascinating feature earlier this year on the new documentary, ‘Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines. It charts a rural community in the Pacific island state which has been playing ‘Axie Infinity’ during the pandemic to secure an income. Dubbed the ‘leisure economy’, the author of the article goes on to make bold claims about the future, including a prediction that one day everyone will be paid to play games.

It doesn’t take long to realise things are moving forward very quickly in this space. blockchaingamer.biz reports NFT games have received $452million investment so far in 2021. Remarkably, this is up from a mere $71million for the whole of last year.

Taking that into account, it’s a good idea to bookmark our NFT gaming and metaverse pages to keep abreast with developments. In recent weeks stories have included the alpha gameplay reveal for action-RPG title ‘Big Time‘, and free Revv racing cars given to MotoGP NFT owners. Elsewhere, the Apollo11 moon landings made an appearance in Decentraland, in another major moment for NFT gaming. It’s also worth noting that ‘Axie Infinity’ server problems are ongoing. You can read more on that here.