Game tokens like SAND rally as metaverse becomes a hot topic — is this the future of GameFi?
ILV +2. 83%
Since Axie Infinity ignited the "Play to Earn" (P2E) model this summer, GameFi has become one of the hottest tracks in the crypto market. Over the past few months, various innovations in blockchain games have emerged, attracting numerous funds and users to this sector. Some early games have also achieved outstanding market performance by riding popular narratives.
From every market dimension, the metaverse and Play-to-Earn are currently the two most closely watched topics. OKX Market Data shows that recently, many metaverse and P2E gaming project and platform tokens have surged — for example, SAND, GALA, WNCG, and ILV have all appeared on the gainers list in recent days. On the other hand, as Axie's recent popularity and revenue have declined, can P2E continue to dominate the market? What is the next development trend? And will the meteoric rise of the metaverse concept become the future direction of GameFi?
GameFi and Metaverse emerge as hot tracks
From a market sentiment perspective, Google Trends data shows that global search interest in "Blockchain games" has risen 733% year-to-date. Search interest in "GameFi" has climbed 2,400% since late July this year, recently reaching its peak search volume. Searches from China, the Philippines, Pakistan, and other countries dominate the volume.
Source: Google Trends
According to DappRadar's latest report, blockchain metaverse and play-to-earn are the two most talked-about topics in Asia, mentioned 1.7 million times in Asian media — a 33% quarter-over-quarter increase. Furthermore, capital and traffic heat confirm growing market interest in P2E games. Data shows that investment institutions have become increasingly interested in blockchain games, with nearly $3 billion invested in gaming, virtual world, and NFT-related projects in 2021 alone. Well-known gaming companies like Dapper Labs and Animoca Brands raised $607 million and $221 million in funding, respectively.
Funding raised by well-known gaming companies Source: DappRadar
From a user engagement perspective, DappRadar data shows that in October this year, active wallets related to gaming accounted for 55% of the total blockchain industry. In November, gaming-related traffic increased 14% compared to October, with DappRadar forecasting a 63% increase by the end of November. P2E game traffic dominance is also growing. According to DappRadar data, since July this year, the blockchain gaming sector has seen steady user growth, reaching 1.318 million users — an increase of approximately 262% compared to early July. Trading volume broke through $200 million multiple times in November. As of November 25, the current trading volume for the blockchain gaming sector stands at $142 million.
Driven by multi-party hype, the market performance of these gaming projects has already reflected this momentum. According to CoinGecko data, many gaming sector tokens posted significant gains over the past week — for example, GALA (Gala) surged 227% in the past 7 days, TLM (Alien Worlds) rose 79.1%, SAND (The Sandbox) gained 64.3% over seven days, ILV (Illuvium) climbed 68.6% over 7 days, and GODS (Gods Unchained) gained 51.2%.
Beyond GameFi, the metaverse is also the hottest track right now. Since Facebook announced its rebranding to "Meta" and made a high-profile entry into the metaverse business at the end of October, the metaverse quickly became a trending topic across the entire crypto industry and tech world. Report data shows that global mentions of the metaverse reached their peak in early November. The surge in metaverse interest is further strengthening its connection to blockchain gaming, driving further growth in the gaming market.
Will the metaverse be the future direction of blockchain gaming?
This summer, the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity achieved astonishing traffic and revenue, earning the title of "King of Blockchain Games" and igniting the entire blockchain gaming market. But over the past two months, several popular blockchain games have shown declining revenue trends. Axie Infinity, in particular — a blockchain research firm Naavik reported that Axie's casual player daily earnings have fallen below the Philippines' minimum wage.
According to Token Terminal data, Axie Infinity's revenue did decline significantly from September to November, and with the emergence of various gaming projects, combined with the weakening of Axie's play-to-earn effect, Axie Infinity's hype and popularity have also declined. Looking at secondary market trading activity, trading volume fluctuations indicate that Axie Infinity's activity level is not what it was before. Therefore, discussions about "the future development trend of GameFi" have started to pick up.
For P2E games, the most critical factors are the innovativeness and sustainability of the economic model, as well as game quality. If the profit-generating effect of these P2E-branded games proves unsustainable, users will naturally churn. Of course, this does not indicate that the overall blockchain gaming market is in a downward trend — on the contrary, the blockchain gaming market still has enormous room for development.
In terms of the overall market, blockchain games have maintained strong momentum over the past few months. According to Grayscale's latest metaverse report, blockchain gaming financing totaled $1 billion in Q3, accounting for 12% of the total capital raised across the entire cryptocurrency industry that quarter. Additionally, Token Terminal data shows that play-to-earn DApps generated over $800 million in revenue in Q3 this year.
However, recently, driven by the metaverse concept, the blockchain gaming market seems to be showing a new trend — the metaverse is showing stronger integration with gaming. On one hand, it has driven the surge of metaverse-concept games (virtual world games); on the other hand, it has spawned an increasing number of protocols beginning to incorporate metaverse concepts and mechanics.
Speaking of virtual world games, the most representative projects currently are The Sandbox and Decentraland. Since Facebook rebranded to the metaverse ("Meta"), The Sandbox and Decentraland have seen significant token price increases, and virtual land assets within the games have also appreciated. OKX Market Data shows that The Sandbox governance token SAND rose 759% over the past month, and Decentraland's token MANA climbed 452% over the past month.
Furthermore, the metaverse's influence has also extended to the NFT space. The DappRadar report shows that virtual world games — highly correlated with the metaverse concept — generated 12,550 sales in November, producing over $78.2 million in revenue to date — increases of 170% and 30% respectively compared to late October. November's total gaming NFT sales exceeded $675 million, with virtual world NFTs accounting for 8% of the total NFT market cap, growing 166% since September. Well-known blockchain games like Mythical Games, Cometh, and Illuvium are all preparing to launch NFTs incorporating virtual world concepts.
So, will the metaverse be the next development direction for blockchain gaming?
The metaverse is a digitized virtual social ecosystem with three core components: user economy, hardware and network infrastructure, and blockchain technology. The metaverse aims to enable anyone to socialize in digital space and profit through virtual experiences. Currently, the focus of blockchain gaming lies mainly in using blockchain technology and NFTs to distribute user information across the entire blockchain. The two can merge and interact through the blockchain. In fact, many existing blockchain virtual world games have already combined metaverse abstract concepts on top of blockchain gaming, making social and creative elements more prominent and building a robust user economy system.
To summarize, for blockchain gaming to incorporate the "metaverse " concept, it will need to emphasize several key characteristics: avatar identity, social functionality, and stronger in-game interaction. Therefore, rather than saying the metaverse is a development direction for blockchain gaming, it would be more accurate to say that the early form of the metaverse will likely be primarily delivered through blockchain gaming as its content vehicle, enabling more decentralized and spatially-aware value flow and interaction between game developers and players. What can be foreseen is that the correlation between the metaverse and blockchain gaming will only grow stronger from here, and the two will jointly drive the expansion of the NFT space.
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