Blockchain gaming emerged as one of the fastest-growing (and most lucrative) niches within the cryptoverse in 2021. With the idea of the metaverse gaining momentum, several promising play-to-earn games flooded the market to capitalize on the growing opportunity.
The annual blockchain industry report published by DappRadar underlines that blockchain games generated more than $4.5 billion via in-game NFT transactions. The report also shows the meteoric growth of blockchain-based virtual worlds in 2021. Spearheaded by games like Axie Infinity, Splinterlands, Gods Unchained, and many more, the play-to-earn blockchain gaming revolution disrupted traditional gaming models.
At the same time, these platforms played a critical role in bringing more users to the crypto ecosystem. The latest boom of play-to-earn games also attracted the attention of venture capital firms and angel investors, leading to a record $4 billion investment in 2021 compared to $80 million in 2020. With everything working in favor of blockchain throughout 2021, the future of the play-to-earn looks even brighter.
In 2022, trends like GameFi will gain traction as new play mechanics are introduced, taking the concept of play-to-earn to new heights. The year will also likely witness the emergence of platforms that support blockchain gaming, including decentralized secondary marketplaces and more. That said, here are some promising blockchain gaming projects that will shape the future of this evolving market in 2022 and beyond.
Projects That Will Shape Blockchain Gaming In 2022
The first project to look out for is Soccer Manager Elite. XAYA, a blockchain development company in the ecosystem since 2013, has teamed up with GeekyAnts to bring the classic sports management game onto the blockchain.
Soccer Manager Elite is a 100% blockchain-based game. Not only is the game fully decentralized, serverless, trustless, and permissionless, but it also features DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and DEXs (decentralized exchanges). The game features fractionalized NFTs alongside the play-to-earn model, like XAYA’s previous Huntercoin and Human Mining games.
In addition, XAYA has also rolled out a full-fledged product suite for blockchain gaming, including the XAYA ecosystem, XAYA Game Studio, XAYA Trading Platform, and the XAYA Developer Hub to advance the growth and expansion of blockchain gaming.
Splinterlands, the most played blockchain game of 2021, is yet another project that has shown all signs of setting a new trend in 2022. This year, the game is already off to a flying start, registering more than 525,000 active users and upwards of 17 million transactions within the first week itself.
Simply put, in 2021, Splinterlands emerged as the “king” of blockchain games. In 2022, it is aiming to hold on to the crown. There’s a lot in the pipeline for 2022, including decentralized governance, multiple in-game updates, new game mechanisms, advanced security tools, anti-bot and anti-scalping features, airdrops, token sale, and much more.
Spells of Genesis by Switzerland-based game studio EverdreamSoft (EDS) is another promising project to look out for in 2022. Like XAYA, EDS has also spearheaded the use of blockchain in gaming since 2014. The Spells of Genesis game was introduced in 2017 and is playable on iOS and Android. Further to the point, the game minted the first NFT in 2015, long before NFTs became a mainstream trend.
Following the game’s success, the EDS team migrated Spells of Genesis to Ethereum and is now testing a Polygon integration. The EDS team has also started collaborating with Polkadot and Kusama to expand their offerings further. Moreover, EverdreamSoft has launched Crystal Park, a collection of open-source software for easy blockchain integration into customer products. As the platform continues to expand, EDS will play a key role in helping the next wave of blockchain games with its ever-growing range of standalone modules.
Blockchain ecosystem Tezos has also entered the play-to-earn revolution with its new NFT game DOGAMI. This unique AAA NFT gaming merges investing with pet ownership in the Web 3.0 infrastructure. Dubbed as the “petaverse,” DOGAMI allows players to adopt, raise, and pet over 300 unique DOGAMI breeds alongside an in-game earning mechanism.
Amid the growth of cryptocurrencies, questions regarding blockchain’s environmental impact and sustainability are raised repeatedly. Legacy chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are already under the microscope. As such, DOGAMI leverages Tezos, which has established itself as an energy-efficient third-generation blockchain.
Leading gaming brand Ubisoft is also leveraging the Tezos network for its newest platform Ubisoft Quartz, where players can win AAA NFTs. Tezos also just announced a partnership with top e-sports Team Vitality. With more projects transitioning towards green crypto, Tezos represents a potential disruptive powerhouse for the blockchain gaming industry in 2022.
Each blockchain game is unique has its specific requirements. While Ethereum still dominates the NFT market, new blockchain networks have overcome gas costs and slow transaction speeds. One platform aiming to cement itself as the new hub for blockchain games is Ardor. Created by the Jelurida team, Ardor introduces a unique parent-child chain architecture alongside native support for NFTs.
Even though hundreds of blockchain networks exist, most don’t support native NFT minting or trading. This increases third-party dependency, leading to security risks, unnecessary costs, and greater centralization. Jelurida’s Ardor blockchain addresses these problems through its advanced customization and privacy mechanism features. Furthermore, the platform removes the need to rely on smart contracts to support NFTs. Instead, developers can utilize a built-in transaction type to provide rich functionality while still delivering flexibility to support a wide range of NFT use cases like registration, minting, trading, and transfers.
In the meantime, Ardor is also building bridges to existing networks to deliver a fully cross-chain infrastructure. For instance, with a bridge to Polygon, Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solution, the Mythical Beings NFTs, built on the Ignis chain, can now access Ethereum-based and EVM-compatible marketplaces. This feature isn’t just limited to Mythical Beings. Any project built upon Ignis and Ardor chains can use the bridge to convert any asset or NFT into multichain. Accordingly, the Jelurida ecosystem is helping make the dream of a “multichain ecosystem” a reality in 2022.
Another innovative project that will open a whole new world of opportunities for content creators as the blockchain gaming ecosystem continues to grow in 2022 is Creaton. As a decentralized, subscription-based content sharing platform, Creaton powers the creator economy. The platform enables content creators to distribute their content and monetize it using blockchain technology.
Hosted on Polygon, Creaton assures high transaction speed, low gas costs, and seamless interoperability with multiple individual chains. Content creators can mint all their content into NFTs stored in Arweave’s decentralized content storage solution using the ecosystem. Once done, users who subscribe to the creators can decrypt and view the content.
Simply put, Creaton opens the doors to secondary marketplaces and new monetization opportunities. With the transition to Web 3.0 just around the corner, Creaton has placed itself among the game-changing innovations of 2022.
The Future Is Promising
There is no denying that blockchain gaming is here to stay. The 5000% increase in investment in blockchain gaming projects in 2021 as compared to 2020 further underlines the growing interest of investors in this burgeoning industry within the crypto ecosystem.
In addition, the highly anticipated concepts of blockchain 3.0, web 3.0, DeFi 2.0, and the metaverse are all coming to life this year. To stay on-trend, prepare for an exciting journey in 2022 as promising projects battle it out to secure their positions in the changing dynamics of the billion-dollar global blockchain gaming market.
