Crypto gaming has taken the world by storm over the past 12-24 months. Reports for Q1 of 2022 are suggesting the upward trend may continue.

The cryptocurrency market started off fairly shaky in January of 2022, continuing down a fairly uncertain route as Q1 drew to a close. However, crypto gamers have not been put off by this climate. Investments in this sector of crypto have been totalled at $2.5 billion. This recent news came from a report by DappRadar and the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA).

Is Crypto Gaming Gaining Popularity?

Despite much skepticism this recent finding potentially shows that crypto gaming is picking up speed. The majority of crypto tokens took heavy losses early May. This was due to Terra (LUNA) and the stable coin TerraUSD crashing. Despite this the gaming sector has not seen any sign in slowing down. Showing there is no direct link between the crypto market and gamer’s activity.

To set the scene we will cover the recent reports based around the gaming side of crypto.

In 2021 there was $4 billion invested into crypto games. Many games and companies were able to make their mark. With games such as Splinterlands, Alien Worlds and Axie Infinity being some of the most popular. They attract millions of users each month, each showing their own economies as players trade large volumes.

Since this promising start in the first quarter, predictions have been set in place by analysts. They are suggesting that by the end of 2022 investors could pour a whopping $10 billion dollars into the crypto gaming market. Breaking it down further, reports have shown each month’s reports. January created the high at $1.02 billion, February $0.72 billion and March $0.79 billion. There are currently around 400 active games found on the blockchain, showing a 90% increase from the year previous. Venture capital firms are also expanding the crypto game eco-system by pumping billions into investments for a variety of games.

What Causes The Popularity Of Crypto Games?

For many, cryptocurrencies are a bit of a grey area, with many onlookers instantly presuming that many crypto endeavours are fraudulent. What enables there to be a buzz around crypto games and what does this mean for those involved? In the last 12 months there have been some gaming industry legends dipping their toes into NFT games and crypto realm.

Firstly, players are able to play mobile crypto games, a concept that has allowed significant growth in users. This is due to how popular and accessible the games are through mobile devices. Major game developers and companies have allowed outsiders to understand what crypto games are due to their already established position in the gaming world. The likes of EA, Ubisoft and Atari have been vocal about how they view crypto, all in a positive light.

The Sandbox game, developed by Pixowl has also somewhat legitimised the concept of crypto and gaming. This game is an open world adventure game, following in a similar vein to Minecraft and The Sims. Players are able to complete quests with friends, stake in game tokens and also buy & sell NFTs on the marketplace. What has enabled The Sandbox to make crypto gaming that little bit more accessible are the in-game collaborations that players are able to experience when playing. The likes of Gordan Ramsay, Slipknot, Adidas and The Walking Dead have teamed up with The Sandbox. Seeing names like this in crypto gaming has been groundbreaking, showing the early potential of this market.

Crypto Gaming Setbacks

As mentioned above the market has faced some unnerving activity. Ultimately many investors have been left puzzled and maybe even scared.

Axie Infinities platform, Sky Mavis fell victim to hackers in late March of this year. The hackers stole around $600 million, (173, 600 ETH tokens and 25.5m USDC) out of the user’s Ronin wallet. This specific game is one of the most popular crypto games. It boasts more than 2 million players and has had more than $3 billion traded by their fan base.

For many Axie Infinity popularised crypto gaming. It has a similar play style to the popular game series, Pokemon. Players are able to buy characters to play that pose as NFT collectibles. Many of which can be priced highly with the desirable attributes and play abilities. The in-game marketplace on Axie Infinity was the first game to trade over $4 billion in historical transactions. The token associated with Axie Infinity has a market cap of over $1 billion.

Other projects such as Wormhole, Cashio and Qubit Finance all faced heavy blows in the first financial quarter of 2022. Many lost their funds, with each project losing several million each in capital. These events had ripple effects on the whole crypto community. Despite security measures, it is proving that even the blue chip crypto projects can fall victim to fraud and cyber attacks.

Conflict and other political/economic affairs may also have a detrimental effect on the value tokens may possess. Due to the climate surrounding these, many people see crypto investments as fairly risky investments. Therefore they opt out and tend to go for safer alternatives hence the overall drop in value players may be experiencing with their tokens and NFT collectibles.

So what does the future hold?

To conclude it is evident that crypto games are a growing trend. It’s showing no real sign of slowing down, more and more players are being introduced to these titles. Many of these are coming from trusted companies and individuals within the tech world. Having this added layer of trust gives incentive for players to give more of their time and money to these titles.

With many games mentioned above showing massive amounts of success in such early points in their lifespan, it is clear that crypto gaming can only become more popular as time goes on!