This article is an original Web3 annual review by Coinlive and Footprint Analytics; please cite the source if you intend to reproduce the content.
A lot happened in GameFi last year.
While Axie Infinity and The Sandbox made the most headlines, several projects unknown to the general public got all the players.
While BNB and the Ethereum Foundation became the most influential organizations in the blockchain industry, the BNB and Ethereum ecosystems hardly attracted the best or most active games.
Even as dozens of popular titles collapsed into the death spiral and hundreds failed to attract even a small number of players, GameFi received more investment from VCs than any other category in the blockchain industry.
It's a lot to wrap one’s head around. How can we understand 2022 to prepare ourselves for next year?
Instead of telling you what to think, we've put together the most interesting stats related to the GameFi industry, so you can look into projects, chains and funds and draw conclusions with the data.
A Note about GameFi Metrics & Indicators
We use a handful of metrics and statistics to assess blockchain games, namely the number of active users, the total number of users, the amount of volume, and the number of transactions.
However, these metrics are not cohesive, meaning a game or chain that performs strongly from one indicator is not guaranteed to lead in other indicators. For example, over the course of the year, Axie Infinity had the most volume, Splinterlands had the most active users, STEPN had the most total users, and DeFi Kingdoms had the most transactions.
No one indicator shows a blockchain game is "winning" or leading the pack—each gives insight into a particular aspect that, together with other indicators, can help analysts build a holistic picture.
7 Stats about the GameFi Industry
- The total market cap of all GameFi tokens reached its peak of $25 billion on April 1st.
This was $11B shy of the industry’s ATH of $36B in November, 2021. To track this metric, Footprint Analytics combines the market cap of tokens used as governance tokens and in-game currencies for GameFi projects.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Ud2-GameFi-Token-MarketCap-fp-34978
2. Developers launched 717 new blockchain games in 2022
They launched about the same number in 2021. In total, there are 2,171 GameFi protocols with transactions on the blockchain (only a small percentage of these are active.)
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Number-of-GameFi-Protocols-by-Chain-fp-35015
3. Only 14.5% percent of GameFi titles got more than 1,000 users
The vast majority of games fail to take off. Even out of the games that did manage to gain a sizable playership, very few were able to sustain normal, healthy activity and profitability for more than several months.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/@Footprint/GameFi-Dashboard?chain=
4. GameFi volume reached its 2022 peak on the week of January 2 - 8, with $916.5M flowing through protocols
Footprint Analytics defines volume as money that entered a protocol.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Volume-by-Week-fp-34980
5. GameFi transactions reached their peak the week of July 17 - 23, with 184.5K transactions
As evident from this fact, increased volume does not necessarily correlate with increased activity, since transactions can have a bearish sentiment as well (i.e. selling and outflows.)
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Transactions-by-Week-fp-34981
6. The largest monthly drop in volume happened from April to May, when GameFi volume declined by about 62%
What happened around this time? Terra Luna collapsed in the first half of May, wiping out an estimated $60B. The number of transactions, however, increased 13.5% MoM, echoing the point below Stat #7.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Volume-by-Month-fp-35200
7. The biggest MoM increase in volume was from July to August, when volume increased by 28%
In Footprint’s August GameFi report, we proposed 3 possible explanations: anticipation for The Merge, the possible beginning of less aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve, and a dead cat bounce on the way to lower lows.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Volume-by-Month-fp-34982
7 Stats about Blockchain Games
8. As of Dec. 25, there were 62 active GameFi projects and 1,478 inactive ones.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Active-%2F-Inactive-Games-fp-35011
9. STEPN got more total users than any other game last year, with 1.8M
STEPN made headlines last spring as it pioneered the Move-to-Earn model. The mobile game lets players earn tokens on their NFT sneakers as they walk, jog or run.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/@Footprint/GameFi-Dashboard?chain=
10. Splinterlands and Alien Worlds had most time atop the leaderboard for active users, each staying there for 6 out of 12 months
Splinterlands had the highest number of active users in January, February, March, April, May and September. Alien Worlds had the highest number of active users in June, July, August, October, November and December.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Top-10-Games-Ranking-by-Players-fp-34984
11. Farmers World was a solid third in terms of active users, having the third highest number of active users for all 12 months of the year
Farmers World is a farming NFT game that is the second most popular title on the WAX chain after Alien Worlds. Players develop farmland and can trade in-game NFTs in the marketplace.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Top-10-Games-Ranking-by-Players-fp-34984
12. Cryptokitties had the most total users out of all games on Ethereum with 112.6k total users
Despite being the largest ecosystem in crypto by market cap, Ethereum was not a major player in the GameFi industry in 2022, restricted by its congestion and gas fees.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/@Footprint/GameFi-Dashboard?chain=Ethereum
13. The Sandbox had the largest injection of cash in any given month, gaining roughly $504M in volume in February
At the end of January, The Sandbox announced a partnership with Snoop Dogg and Warner Music. The token price shot up 40% after the announcement.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Top-Volume-Games-in-2022-fp-34973
14. Out of all major titles, the game with the best new user average retention rate at the height of the market last January was MOBOX, which retained 56% of players one month after they joined
“Major title” is somewhat subjective in this stat, but refers to games that were consistently in the top-10 throughout the year for number of users.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Top-Weekly-Retention-GameFi-Projects-in-2022-fp-35048
7 Stats about GameFi Chains
15. Wax was the most active chain for GameFi in 2022 with 351K active users and a Daily Active User Ratio of 57%
For reference, the next most active was Hive, with 360K active users but a DAU ratio of 98%. Note that Splinterlands accounts for 99% of transactions and users on Hive. For all intents and purposes, Hive equals Splinterlands.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/The-Average-Daily-Active-Users-per-Chain-in-2022-Compared-to-the-Growth-Rate-in-2011-fp-2799bb88-3e65-4674-90d3-8ca5de9ad475
16. Wax held the largest market share of gamers with 40.47% followed by Hive with 20.86%
Wax is more diversified than Hive. Alien Worlds accounts for about 66.99% of Wax’s users, and Farmers World accounts for 19.67%. The remainder is fragmented among a dozen or so titles.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Number-of-GameFi-Users-%3A-Tree-Map-fp-3246
17. Whereas 63 blockchain games deployed on 2 or 3 chains in 2021, there were 149 that chose to go multichain in 2022
GameFi projects are increasingly going multi-chain to expand their userbases and mitigate risk. Some games even launched their own chains, like DeFi Kingdoms, which went from being entirely on Harmony to creating its AVAX-based DFK Chain.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Number-of-GameFi-Protocols-Deployed-on-Multichain-fp-27684
18. By the number of GameFi protocols, BNB was the chain of choice for developers, having 748 projects on it in total by end of the year
BNB is known for its low gas fees and ease of launching protocols, which has also led to products of varying quality on the chain.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Protocols-by-Chain-fp-34988
19. 87 new GameFi protocols were launched in January, more than in any other month, and most of these—57—were launched on BNB
The number is still lower than the number of projects launched in November or December, 2021. By January, the market had already entered its downturn.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/2022%3A-Chains-by-number-of-new-projects-fp-ae3a9179-8d15-44f2-8d75-1ed2d7e0054c
20. By the end of the year, BNB Chain had the largest number of active projects at 226
Polygon is a L2 EVM chain that has shown constant growth and strong technical performance in the last year. The game with the most users on the chain is Benji Bananas.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/Monthly-Active-Games-by-Chain-fp-c0e9bd53-c50e-4786-b9f6-53321e974de0
21. Solana went from having only 2 GameFi protocols at the beginning of the year to 20 by the end.
Particularly, Solana has become the go-to chain for Move-to-Earn projects. The 2 largest GameFi protocols on the chain are STEPN and Walken—which happen to be the 2 largest M2E projects.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/Monthly-Active-Games-by-Chain-fp-c0e9bd53-c50e-4786-b9f6-53321e974de0
5 Stats about GameFi Investment & Fundraising
22. Epic Games received the largest funding round, $2B from Sony and Kirkbi, to build its metaverse project
Epic Games is the studio behind Fortnite and the speculation is that it will build out a Lego-themed metaverse in the near future.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/GameFi-Project-Financing-amount-and-Financing-Times-in-2022-fp-7a5576d1-0698-492a-bed5-572639158cc2
23. Animoca Brands raised $434M in two rounds and disbursed fundraising in 61 rounds, making it one of the largest recipients of funding and the largest investor in GameFi
Animoca Brands, the company behind The Sandbox, has positioned itself a kingmaker in the GameFi space with investments in Axie Infinity, OpenSea and CryptoKitties. Its other major projects include Phantom Galaxies and Benji Bananas.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/Number-of-GameFi-Projects-by-Investor-fp-25608
24. There were only four Series B rounds and two Series C rounds closed in 2022 in GameFi
This is expected for a nascent industry like GameFi.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Investment-List-2022-fp-34990
25. Gaming projects received 16% of blockchain industry investments, more than any other kind
It should be noted that metaverse projects, which often overlaps with GameFi, came second with 7.79% of total blockchain funding.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/guest/chart/Funding-Number-of-Investment-by-Category%EF%BC%882022%EF%BC%89-fp-90ccba52-0fc3-4646-bcd0-e75dd3450174
26. Total investment in gaming increased by 84% from 2021 to 2022
Even while the GameFi category fared better than others like DeFi and CeFi, 2022 was a tough year for the entire blockchain space.
Reference: https://www.footprint.network/chart/GameFi-Investment-Amount-in-2021-and-2022-fp-35025
This piece is contributed by Footprint Analytics community.
The Footprint Community is a place where data and crypto enthusiasts worldwide help each other understand and gain insights about Web3, the metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, or any other area of the fledgling world of blockchain. Here you'll find active, diverse voices supporting each other and driving the community forward.
Footprint Website: https://www.footprint.network
Discord:https://discord.gg/3HYaR6USM7
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Footprint_Data