Web3 Gaming on Blockchain
Web3 games are a critical entry point for mass adoption, and public chains are heavily invested in this area. TON has gained significant traction through Web3 social mini-games, but what other public chains have active game users, and which are expanding into the gaming sector?
The growth in TON's market value can be attributed in part to its ecosystem's mini-games such as Notcoin and Catizen.
According to Jack Booth, Marketing Director at the TON Foundation, the user base of Notcoin has grown to 35 million in nearly three months. The Notcoin token (NOT) was recently listed on exchanges like Binance and OKX, reaching a market value of $820 million within just one hour.
Another mini-game in the TON ecosystem, Catizen, has attracted nearly 6 million players as of May 17, with nearly 500,000 daily active users and 260,000 on-chain users, and over 2 million on-chain transactions.
Ronin remains a leader, with Klaytn seeing a significant increase in on-chain active users.
DappRadar data shows that daily active wallet addresses for Web3 games reached nearly 3 million in April, a record high. The majority of this activity is on the Ronin and Polygon public chains.
TON's Web3 games are emerging prominently, but which other public chains are also advancing in the blockchain gaming sector?
Ronin, an EVM-compatible game-specific chain built by Sky Mavis, the developers of Axie Infinity, has gained a leading position primarily due to the success of the Web3 game Pixels. In April, Ronin's daily unique active wallets (dUAW) exceeded 790,000, a 45% increase from March.
Ronin has partnered with several renowned game studios, including Directive Games, Bali Games, and Tribes Studio.
Polygon, once the most popular public chain for games, saw its daily unique active wallets (dUAW) exceed 557,000 in April. While it hosts well-known games like Matr1x and QORPO WORLD, Polygon faces challenges with game projects migrating to other chains.
Since the end of last year, Pixels migrated from Polygon to Ronin. The card game Zoids Wild Arena TCG by Korean developer ACT Games also moved from Polygon to Ronin.
In January, the game Crypto Unicorns announced its migration to Arbitrum's Xai network due to rising gas fees on Polygon, which increased operating costs and negatively impacted player experience.
In March, Korean game company Nexon announced that the blockchain version of MapleStory Universe would move from Polygon to Avalanche.
In April, Klaytn, which focuses on the metaverse, GameFi, and the creator economy, saw a 202% growth driven by the metaverse game Another World.
Founded by Korean conglomerate Kakao, Klaytn plans to merge with Line's public chain project Finschia by the end of June, launching a new mainnet named kaia, aiming to create the largest Web3 ecosystem in Asia through this merger.
Several public chains plan to launch Web3 gaming incentive funds:
Arbitrum
In March, the Arbitrum Foundation announced a gaming incentive proposal: a plan to invest 200 million ARB tokens (approximately $400 million) over two years to promote gaming projects on its blockchain. On-chain voting for this proposal will start on May 24.
Additionally, Arbitrum is advancing its Layer3 gaming chain development, following XAI, with Polychain Monsters launching a game-specific chain on Arbitrum Orbit through Altlayer.
Immutable
Besides Arbitrum, the game-specific chain Immutable recently announced a $50 million Web3 gaming rewards program, revealing its ecosystem is developing over 270 games, including highly anticipated projects like Illuvium and MetalCore.
Moreover, Immutable has partnered with King River Capital and Polygon Labs to launch a $100 million "Inevitable Games Fund," aiming to find and invest in promising game studios and Web3 infrastructure. Immutable is also actively developing the zkEVM chain system Immutable Nexus, ensuring optimal liquidity, security, and accessibility for games built on Immutable chains (including Immutable zkEVM and dedicated zkEVM).
Sui
Similar to TON, Sui is promoting its Web3 gaming ecosystem through partnerships with traditional Web2 giants. Sui recently announced a collaboration with BytePlus, a subsidiary of ByteDance, focusing on gaming and socialFi. BytePlus will provide content distribution, personalization, and AR technology services to support Sui developers in creating globally influential applications. Additionally, five new games are set to launch on Sui.
Starknet
In March, the Starknet Foundation announced the formation of a gaming committee composed of six experts. This committee aims to promote the growth of games on Starknet, analyzing, strategizing, and recommending plans to expand Starknet's gaming ecosystem. Game performance will be measured using metrics such as daily active users, retention rates, and revenue. Starknet is also supporting the on-chain metaverse game Realms.World with a donation of 2 million STRK tokens.
Manta Network
Recently, the game project Elfin, backed by Binance Labs, announced its integration into the Manta Network ecosystem, migrating 100,000 blocks of Elfin Land to Manta Pacific and donating 10,000 blocks to the Manta Foundation as user incentives. The Elfin team plans to deploy multiple game projects on Manta Pacific and build a gaming Layer3 based on Manta.
