2024 Web3 Gaming Industry Trend Depth Insights

Web3 games have always been regarded as the key track to unlock the next traffic entry point in the Web3 industry. As the crypto market gradually warms up, Web3 games are showing some new development characteristics. For example, projects are focusing more on enhancing gameplay and playability; game types are constantly innovating; projects are gradually evolving towards platformization and ecologicalization, enhancing their risk resistance capabilities.

I. Industry Overview: A Three-Year Review of the Web3 Gaming Industry (2021-2023)

1. Market Size

From 2021 to 2023, the trading volume in the blockchain gaming industry remained relatively stable, with explosive growth in the first quarter of 2024. In 2021, the number of daily unique active wallet addresses for Web3 games exceeded 1.4 million, accounting for 49% of the total wallet address usage in the cryptocurrency industry. This figure remained stable in 2022. In 2023, the proportion declined, but in the first quarter of 2024, the number of daily active wallets reached a historic high, averaging over 2 million per day.

In 2023, the number of global game users exceeded 3 billion, with a market size approaching $2.1968 trillion, of which Web3 game revenue was $5.2 billion. Although the scale is still small compared to traditional Web2 games, the growth potential is enormous.

2. Development History

The focus of Web3 games has shifted from early emphasis on "Fi" and "material rewards" to more recent discussions about "gameplay" and "playability". Based on the development history, they can be divided into four categories:

• Early GameFi centered around Fi
• Users participate in game activities to earn material rewards in X to Earn(X2E) game.
• Focus on high-quality graphics and playability of AAA games
• Metaverse games that build virtual worlds

3. Financing and Fundraising

Between 2021 and 2023, the Web3 gaming industry attracted a large amount of investment and financing. 2021 was the inaugural year for Web3 gaming financing, with the financing amount reaching nearly 10 billion USD in 2022, hitting a historical high. Some Web3 gaming platforms also began to raise funds by issuing tokens or conducting ICOs.

4. Challenge Risks

The main challenges faced by Web3 games include:

• High-quality game content is still lacking.
• Game over-Financialization, difficult to cope with market fluctuations
• Lack of usability and a friendly user interface limits public user participation.
• Issues such as blockchain scalability, transaction speed, and transaction fees affect user experience.

2. Industry Ecology: Web3 Gaming Ecosystem Overview

1. Upstream - Infrastructure

The gaming public blockchain presents a situation of three dividing the world:

• EVM Sidechains: BNB Chain, Avalanche, etc.
• Combining sidechains and Layer 2: Polygon
• Appchain: Wax, Hive, etc.

BNB Chain ranks among the top in terms of total games, active users, and transaction volume.

2. Midstream - Game Publishing

More and more platforms are targeting Web3 game aggregation and distribution, such as Potral, DeGame, etc. These platforms generally provide features such as game NFT marketplaces, self-developed games, API/SDK, DID, marketing activities, and more.

3. Downstream - Gaming Community

Communities play an important role in the Web3 gaming ecosystem. Communities that appear in the form of DAOs enable players to directly influence project development. A community means creating an ecosystem of interaction and collaboration between players and project parties.

3. Industry Trends: New Changes in the Industry in 2024

1. Enhancing gameplay and playability, "gold farming" is no longer the only purpose.

Web3 games are advancing towards high-quality graphics, rich content, and excellent player experiences, even moving towards AAA production. The driving forces come from the unsustainability of the excessive focus on Fi and the competitive pressure to break into Web2.

2. The types of games are becoming increasingly diverse.

RPG, action, strategy, and casual games are the most favored by developers. The types of Web3 games are constantly improving, including but not limited to RPG, action, strategy, casual, card, racing, and puzzle games.

3. The project accelerates its evolution towards platformization and ecosystem development.

Web3 games are evolving towards platformization and ecologization to extend their lifecycle and strengthen the connections and integration with other tracks. Platforms and ecosystems have stronger risk resistance capabilities and longer lifecycles.

4. The community ecosystem may disrupt the traditional profit distribution model of the gaming industry.

The revenue distribution model of Web3 games is more decentralized. Players, publishers, and developers jointly create and distribute revenue. The role of the community in Web3 games is becoming increasingly important, and a strong community is a key competitive advantage.

4. Talent Supply: Productivity and Production Relations in the Web3 Gaming Era

1. Production Release Energy

Web3 games bring new technologies, key production factors, new infrastructure, and the development of emerging industries, creating a brand new production relationship in Web3 gaming.

2. Paradigm Evolution

Web3 games not only represent a new form of productivity in Web3 but also inherit the fundamental elements of the gaming industry. They are reconstructing the ways in which humans build communities, enterprises, labor, and organizations.

3. Talent Demand

Key talents needed for Web3 games include:

• Research and development talents
• Game Designer
• Art Designer
• Economists and game economy designers
• Product Manager
• Blockchain Expert

These talents need to understand games and be able to integrate into the Web3 ecosystem.

Conclusion

Web3 games are currently in their early stages, but the demand for talent has already emerged. In 2024, will Web3 games迎来"iPhone时刻"? We will always keep our expectations high.