• During Q2 2022, gaming DApps alone accounted for 52 percent of the total blockchain activity.
  • Blockchain gaming is likely to see fund inflows of more than $12 billion by the end of the year.

 

Almost every sector in the crypto space, be it CeFi, DeFi, and others have been facing the heat of this year’s market correction. DappRadar recently published a report on the state of the blockchain gaming sector for Q2 2022.

As per their study, DappRadar found that the blockchain gaming sector has been highly resilient to the ongoing headwinds in the crypto market. In fact, this particular continues to have strong demand attracting fresh investments.

During the second quarter of 2022, venture capital firms poured more than $2.5 billion into the blockchain gaming industry. The VC investments have remained quite consistent with those done during the first quarter of 2022. In fact, the total investments in the blockchain gaming sector in the first six months of 2022 have already surpassed the $4 billion investment during the entire 2021.

As DappRadar reports, investments in blockchain games have already surpassed last year’s total investments by 33 percent. It further adds that the market is on track to rake in more than $12 billion by the end of the year.

The report also states that as the rest of the industry struggles, blockchain games have taken the lion’s share of unique active wallets (UAW). During Q2 2022, gaming DApps alone accounted for 52 percent of the total blockchain activity.

However, in comparison to the previous quarter, the UAW of the blockchain games dropped by 7 percent. But DappRadar notes that the blockchain gaming activity is still up by a staggering 232 percent in comparison to the same quarter last year.

Top blockchain games in the market

In the report, DappRadar has also provided insights into some of the top blockchain games in the market.

  • Splinterlands remains the most-played blockchain game with a UAW of 283,729 by the end of Q2 2022. Despite a 61 percent drop in its user base in June, this trading card game remained in the number one position in the second quarter. Spliterlands is currently focusing on long-term growth while addressing player engagements and consistent performances. 
  • AlienWoods remains the second-ranked game, however, it saw a marginal 4 percent drop in its UAW during Q2 2022. But sitting in the third position is Farmers World recording 33 percent user growth last quarter. 
  • On the other hand, the once very popular Axie Infinity didn’t have a very good quarter. In the second quarter, Axie Infinity’s users based tanked by a staggering 83%. However, this happened after the $600-million worth of AXIE tokens hack earlier in the second quarter.

At the same time, sales of blockchain gaming NFTs dropped 29 percent in comparison to the previous quarter. However, the gaming NFTs held relatively well considering that the overall NFT sales dropped 82 percent in Q2 over the previous quarter.

Metaverse and Web3 attract more investments

In another development, VC giant Andreesen Horowitz has created a $4.5 billion fund to invest in the development of blockchain games and the metaverse. Speaking on the matter, Pedro Herrera, Head of Research at DappRadar said:

Blockchain-based games have become one of the most promising sectors of Web3. Even with a drastic decrease in the value of playing rewards due to the collapse of game and metaverse-based tokens like JEWEL (- 99% down from January), SAND ( -81%), or SPS (-80%), web3 games still command 52% of the industry’s activity. And while gaming activity decreased 7% from the previous quarter, the downsides of other relevant blockchain categories such as DeFi (-17%) is more visible.

DappRadar notes that apart from the strong funds flows in Web 3 gaming, there’s also a strong flow of talent moving from traditional gaming companies to web3 game startups. It states that the Web 3 gaming space will attract $12 billion in capital by the end of the year.