Play to Earn Games Are Leading New Trends in the NFT Space
AXS+8.61%
Currently, the NFT market is returning to rationality. Although the NFT market capitalization and number of holders continue to grow, the most important data determining NFT market activity—"24H Trading Volume"—continues to decline.
Latest data from NFTGO shows that this metric hit a historic high of $350 million at the end of August this year, and reached an all-time extreme of $560 million on October 29th, before entering a downward trend. Currently, this data is only $31 million, a decline of over 90% compared to the former, and over 95% compared to the latter.
Data source: NFTGO
Meanwhile, newly released profile picture NFTs are experiencing massive price drops below their issue price. The return to rationality in the NFT space is an undisputed fact.
However, the cooling of crypto art does not mean that the entire NFT sector has entered a harsh winter. On the contrary, if we focus on the subdivided areas of the NFT sector, we will discover a "surprising" new world—crypto games, or blockchain games, also known as Play to Earn, which is quietly recovering. This is specifically evidenced by impressive data in the crypto gaming space over the past six months, and people's attention to the crypto gaming field is also changing.
1 **, Impressive Data Performance, Promising Future**
Blockchain + games: By introducing a completely new economic model, blockchain games enable players to directly participate in the underlying construction of games and receive dividends from the long-term development of the game. This new model depicts for us a beautiful vision of "Play to Earn" that everyone can participate in.
This beautiful vision is also tangibly reflected in the data.
Latest data shows that since May this year, the number of blockchain game-related accounts or wallets has reached 754,000. Compared with the second quarter of this year, the number of game-related unique active wallets (UAW) has grown by 25%, a year-on-year increase of 509%. Although the number of unique active wallets represented by UAW cannot be equated with users, this data is sufficient to indicate that demand for blockchain games in the crypto industry is growing.
However, the overall data performance of the NFT ecosystem is not so impressive. Latest data from NFTGO shows that the number of traders in the entire NFT ecosystem began to decline after reaching a阶段性 high of 18,700 on August 25th this year. Currently, the number of active traders within 24H is less than 9,000, a decline of over 50%.
Data source: NFTGO
This trend is also similar when reflected in single applications across both crypto art and crypto gaming categories.
Within the past month, Axie Infinity, the most popular game in the crypto gaming sector, has maintained continuous user growth for 30 consecutive days, with a 30-day increase of 27% and total contract transfer volume of 1.075 million, a 30-day increase of 22.2%. In other words, even though Axie Infinity has evolved into a "giant" with a market capitalization of nearly $9 billion, it can still maintain high-speed growth.
The performance of CryptoPunks NFTs, once the leader in the crypto art space, is not so satisfactory. Data from DappRadar shows that the application had 990 active users within 30 days, a decline of 24.3%, and contract interaction volume of 4,380, a decline of 34%. For the NFT market, which has extremely high liquidity requirements, this downward trend is almost fatal, which is also the fundamental reason why a large number of newly issued NFT artworks have recently broken below their issue price.
Data source: dappradar.com
Data source: dappradar.com
In addition, the performance of crypto games in terms of financing is also worth attention.
According to the "2021 NFT Investment and Financing Report" by 01 Blockchain, since 2021 (as of the end of October), there have been 201 financing events in NFT-related industries globally. Among them, games and crypto assets account for the majority, with 50 and 42 events respectively. NFT trading markets had 25 financing events, and investment management had 16 financing events. It is evident that capital markets are also closely watching the future development of crypto games.
Data source: 01 Blockchain, "2021 NFT Investment and Financing Report"
Along with the changes in crypto game data, there are also changes in people's perceptions of crypto games.
2 **, From****"Focusing Only on Earning "to "Focusing on Playability "**
If we go back 3 years to when CryptoKitties became popular, discussions about crypto games remained at the asset level. Whether the game was fun didn't seem to be the key issue. Of course, this situation was also related to reasons such as long game development cycles and complex economic system design.
The problem is that if the focus remains only at the asset level, it's equivalent to game developers focusing their attention on exploring around the ERC-721 asset standard, while game playability becomes a secondary issue. With industry development, developers have begun to realize that before focusing on in-game assets, game developers need to address issues such as game sustainability, economic systems, gameplay, performance, and experience. Only when all these issues are resolved should they address crypto asset issues.
Simply put, before a game truly becomes fun, in-game assets cannot be "valuable." The number of players attracted is the key to determining whether game assets are truly valuable. If you only focus on assets, you're making the mistake of putting the cart before the horse and focusing on the trivial while neglecting the essential. After all, unimportant things, no matter how well done, can at best be considered "unimportant good things."
The emergence of Axie Infinity has "set an example" for crypto game developers, who began to recognize that a crypto game with not overly complex functionality could directly defeat Honor of Kings in terms of revenue and ascend to the industry throne. Thus, being fun has become the most important focus for such games.
Since then, the industry has seen a large number of game projects with beautiful graphics and grand story backgrounds. Although most of them are still in early development stages, they are absolutely worth looking forward to. These include Star Atlas, an interstellar adventure strategy game running on Solana; Illuvium, a role-playing, combat, and collection game using Immutable X, a Layer 2 network specifically developed by Axie Infinity to improve performance; and Alien Worlds running on the high-performance basic public chain WAXP, all of which are worth close attention in 2022.
The following list shows crypto games with high attention. Of course, crypto games not included in this list do not mean they have no prospects, and crypto games included in this list do not mean they will necessarily explode in the future, nor do they represent the author's position on the rise or fall of token prices behind the projects. In the rapidly changing crypto market, any project may change its future development direction due to worsening or improving fundamentals.
No.
Project
Protocol
Game Type
Token Issued
Function
Features
ZED RUN
Ethereum
AR, Futuristic Horse Racing
No
Own/Trading /breeding racehorses and participating in competitions
Representative project of horse racing blockchain games
Ember Sword
Ethereum
MMORPG
Ember
Buy equipment, battle, buy and sell land, collect
Land sales of $200 million, very popular
Big Time
Ethereum
Action RPG
No
Strengthen characters, get skins, customize portals
AAA-level team: World of Warcraft, League of Legends
Alien Worlds
WAX
DeFi+Metaverse
TLM
Battle, upgrade equipment, mine, governance, minting
Alien Worlds game mining
DeFi Land
Solana
Cross-chain DeFi Farm
DFL (unsold)
Execute different functions of DeFi protocols, customize land, buy skins, battle, collect, bet, predict, etc.
Can manage different DeFi assets in one stop, can use AMMs, DEXs, lending protocols
Star Atlas
Solana
Interstellar Adventure Strategy
ATLAS, POLIS
Get ships, crew, land and equipment, governance
AAA-quality game, high-risk, high-reward gameplay including permanent death and asset destruction
Axie Infinity
Ronin
Pet Raising Battle
SLP,AXS
Breeding, battling, land purchase, game proposals and voting,staking
Trading volume and user count are the highest-ranked blockchain game on Ethereum
Crypto Blades
BSC
RPG, Weapon Enhancement
SKILL
Get characters, forge, reforge, upgrade weapons
Highest market cap and most popular blockchain game on BSC
My DeFi Pet
BSC/Kardia Chain
DeFi Pet
DPET
Buy pet eggs, auction pets, feed, hatch, battle,staking
First major game on BSC
My Neighbor Alice
BSC
Farm Building
Alice
Buy production items, DEX liquidity, game rewards, rental
Blockchain version of Animal Crossing
Loserchick
Polygon
Claw Machine + Blind Box
EGC, CHICK
Catch pets, get NFTs, mine
First claw machine blockchain game, pioneered dual deflation
Illuvium
Immutable X
RPG, Battle, Collection
ILV, Shards
Mint, burn and trading ; voting, protocol revenue and profit distribution; lockup, liquidity mining
Game is non-turn-based, but auto-battle, token core mechanism is minting, burning and trading, brand new 3D game
Space Y 2025
Poly Network
Mars Colonization, Sandbox Tower Defense
SPAY
Buy items, battle, collect, open blind boxes
Team: 12 years game development + 4 years smart contract
Gold Fever
Skale
Survival Competition
NGL, Jul, JBR
Battle, mining, token lockup, burning
Developed using Unreal Engine, close to AAA-level masterpiece quality
Aavegotchi
DeFi Pet
aToken, GHST
Buy character costumes, combat and farming revenue
First NFT game backed by a DeFi protocol
Chainmonster
RPG+NFT, MMORPG
No token issued
Catch, battle and breed, competitive competitions
Planned to launch on traditional gaming platform Steam in 2022
In summary, the gradual cooling of the crypto art field does not represent the decline of the NFT sector. On the contrary, with the warming of crypto games and the global discussion of the metaverse concept brought about by Facebook's name change, it points to a conclusion: NFTs are not just a passing trend, but a long-term trend.
Under this long-term trend, crypto games will open up huge imaginative space. According to Newzoo's "2021 Global Games Market Report," in 2021, the total number of global gamers exceeded the 3 billion mark, and by 2024, the number of gamers is expected to reach 3.32 billion, with global game revenue reaching $218.7 billion. If all goes smoothly, the traditional gaming market worth hundreds of billions will become the target for crypto games to conquer.
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This article may contain content about products not available in your region. This article is intended only to provide general information and does not take responsibility for any factual errors or omissions contained herein. This article represents only the author's personal views and does not represent the views of OKX . This article is not intended to provide any advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal or tax advice. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins) involves high risk, may fluctuate significantly, and may even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For questions regarding your specific situation, please consult your legal/tax/investment professional. The information appearing in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. Although we have taken all reasonable precautions in preparing these data and charts, we accept no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in its entirety, or excerpts of 100 words or less from this article may be used, provided that such use is non-commercial. Any reproduction or distribution of the entire article must also prominently state: "Copyright © 2025 OKX. Used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article name and include attribution, such as "Article Name, [Author Name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX". Some content may be generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.
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