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Blockchain gaming, crypto gaming, play-to-earn, and everything else related to it are still in their infancy. The convergence between crypto, blockchain technology, and gaming was almost unavoidable, and now that it's here, it's gaining popularity fast. There are many aspiring blockchain gaming studios and hundreds if not thousands of future initiatives.
Worldwide, blockchain game studios are developing and publishing new games every day, making the blockchain-based games market grow even more. As the number of studios and games increases, the competition between studios also increases, which naturally leads us to encounter higher-quality blockchain games. In fact, some studios have even rolled up their sleeves for triple-A games that will break the "blockchain games are bad" perception already. If we look at the current momentum of the growing market, it is possible to foresee that we will see very successful studios and games in the upcoming years.
As Gamepedia, we have compiled a list of some existing and successful game studios in the past years and today, apart from the game studios that will possibly create successful games in the upcoming years.
This studio developed the early NFT hit Crypto Kitties, and their open-source blockchain system, Flow, is utilized by the Rarible NFT marketplace and Animoca Brands' Moto GP game.
Dapper's NBA Top Shot basketball NFTs have earned over $700 million, with over 10 million transactions. Dapper Labs is also collaborating with the NFL to create a marketplace for digital football items and will debut NFTs alongside La Liga, Spain's top football league. Fast Company called Dapper Labs one of the ten most innovative gaming businesses of 2021.
With over a million monthly players, this gaming platform from the founders of Zynga (Farmville) and Myspace features games such as Town Star, Mirandus, and Echoes of Empire. The Gala Games website claims that "blockchain should be undetectable" in all their games since they employ "basic gaming principles that all gamers can enjoy."
The network runs on a decentralized player-owned Node Ecosystem powered by home computers. It has a collectible NFT set called VOX, and its most expensive NFT comes from the sci-fi strategy game Echoes of Empire, which costs $3 million.
Regarding player counts, turnover, and earnings, Axie Infinity, the creature breeding game, is the year's biggest play-to-earn success story. Every day, two million daily active users traded Axie NFTs in roughly 5 million transactions, totaling $33 million in secondary trading.
With over $2 billion in transactions, this game is the first smash hit of the play-to-earn concept, altering the lives of gamers in third-world nations. In December 2021, a virtual plot (Terra) in the game, Lunacia, sold for 550 ETH (about $2.3 million).
This studio has made over 100 investments, including four additional blockchain gaming (and DeFi) businesses mentioned in this article: Sky Mavis, Dapper Labs (Animoca utilizes their Flow blockchain platform), Decentraland, and OpenSea. Atari, Disney, Marvel, WWE, Power Rangers, Formula 1, and Moto GP are among the leading companies with whom Animoca collaborates.
The Sandbox, Animoca's most well-known game, is a user-generated virtual environment in which users may construct their own experiences and objects. The Sandbox employs a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), allowing Sand token holders to vote on how the world is organized and administered.
In October 2021, a virtual luxury boat dubbed Metaflower Super Mega Yacht sold for 149 ETH, or $650,000, in The Sandbox's digital real estate development Fantasy Islands (equipped with a DJ booth, helicopter landing pad, and hot tub). Perhaps the name is a pun on The Mayflower, which brought the first European settlers to the New World. This digital vessel likewise transports daring travelers to an unknown destination over practically uncharted waters.
Users may use their MANA tokens to purchase, sell, trade, and utilize virtual land (or LAND; each parcel measures 16m2) on this land-based crypto game platform. They also have voting rights in the DAO. Players may customize their LAND and then monetize it by building, renting, advertising, or creating paid activities such as new mini-games for players to play. Users can also utilize avatars and produce digital items such as wearables and art. This is the closest thing to a metaverse—a communal shared virtual place where people interact—to Minecraft. In November 2021, a piece of LAND on Decentraland was purchased for $2.43 million, which caused the value of MANA to rise.
Immutable is not a gaming studio, but still, their Immutable X Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum NFTs saves gas prices and speeds transactions. Gods Unchained, the successful trading card game with over 80.000 weekly active players, allows players to earn GODS tokens by completing weekly challenges.
Since its launch in March 2021, over 25 million dollars worth of Gods Unchained assets have been traded by players. In total, there are more than 65.000 NFT holders for this game at the moment. According to the given data from the game itself, the player base has grown over 50x in recent years. In the period of just one week, the game saw over 1.7 million matches played in 2021, which is a huge success for a blockchain game.
OpenSea, the world's first and largest peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, describes itself as "the world's first and largest marketplace." NFTs are non-fungible digital tokens for unique items maintained on the Ethereum blockchain, including art, music, sports, and gaming assets. On OpenSea, you may establish a cryptocurrency wallet, an NFT collection, and offer tokens for sale.
Although this is not a gaming studio in the traditional sense, it is the primary marketplace for selling digital assets in the blockchain gaming sector. Being a marketplace for blockchain games makes OpenSea a major player in the ecosystem.
This developer studio comprises seasoned game and platform developers who are "building global economies powered by player ownership" - in other words, they are more concerned with gameplay and community than cryptocurrency. Mythical Games' objective is to expose blockchain to a much larger audience, increasing mainstream acceptance of blockchain solutions by developing world-class goods with high-quality aesthetics.
Their game Blankos Block Party is now in early access and is a user-generated multiplayer game set in a colorful, cartoon-like universe. Players create party games and personalized collectible toy-like avatars and accessories; alternatively, they may buy artworks created by artists and fashion designers such as Burberry and cult toy designers Quiccs and Michael Lau. These NFTs may be purchased, sold, and traded in the game's marketplace using both fiat (conventional) and cryptocurrency; the assets cannot be sold on platforms such as OpenSea.
In light of all this, new game studios will enter the stage as blockchain games continue to grow in popularity. The ecosystem, which already hosts thousands of games, seems to be attracting new games in the upcoming years.
The fact that the potential is huge in this market increases the potential for fraud here as well as everywhere else. Some new studios can defraud the player base by issuing tokens with the promise of a "breakthrough game". Before buying tokens and NFT assets, it's important to take a look at the studio's previous works, partners, investors, vision, and mission. It is generally possible to find all this information on the studio's website or in the whitepaper they publish. If you cannot access any information, it is wise to approach that studio or the games created by that studio with some skepticism.