Welcome to DappRadar’s regular monthly report – in conjunction with the Blockchain Game Alliance – on the state of the blockchain game sector.
The Blockchain Game Alliance is a non-profit organization counting over 150 members and committed to promoting and spreading awareness about the advantages of blockchain technology within the game industry, and DappRadar is providing its industry-leading data to assist in this goal.
Key trends
During September 2020, the average number of daily active unique wallets playing games across the blockchains tracked by DappRadar was 23,467.
This total was up 3% compared to August’s figure.
As in previous months, there has been a diverse set of trends across different games and blockchains underlying this activity
Although Ethereum gas prices are now returning to lower levels, the loss of more than 90% of its gaming activity since January remains the most important event of 2020.
Certainly, it will be fascinating to see if Ethereum-based games can regain their audience in the remainder of the year, or whether the sector will need to rely on the deployment of novel scalability solutions in the medium term.
One positive sign was a small rise in activity towards the end of the month.
Breaking down September’s activity on a per blockchain level, the main mover – as in August – was Thundercore, which has a number of casual mobile games available that are gaining traction as part of a wider promotion.
Otherwise, activity across EOS, Hive, and Steem was broadly steady during the month.
Axie Infinity on the rise
When it comes to individual projects, one example of growth remains Axie Infinity, which despite running on Ethereum, has maintained its upward momentum.
First experienced in July when speculators inflated the price of its Small Love Potion utility token 100-fold, the game continues to attract the attention of the broader blockchain community.
The trigger for its September boom – daily activity broke through the 1,200 barrier for the first time – was the acquisition of five rare Mystic Axie NFTs by blockchain consultancy and investment company Delphi Digital for around $160,000.
More generally, the company commented that it’s invested in the game’s upcoming governance token.
The result is that Axie Infinity’s daily activity jumped from around 100 in June to around 600 unique wallets by the end of September, also driving $2 million of trading value during the month.
Splinterlands tweaks its tournament mode
As has been the case since June, the most popular blockchain game remains Splinterlands, which runs on the Hive blockchain.
It experienced a small drop in audience compared to August; down 3% across the month, and down 5% in terms of peak traffic.
Yet this wasn’t unexpected as mid-month it released its Collection Power update. This gates access to bi-monthly tournament tiers, and hence rewards, dependent on the ‘combined power’ of the total cards owned by players.
One element of this is to reduce the activity of bot accounts which some players use to mine rewards. Another – more longterm one – is to encourage players to be economically active in terms of buying packs and trading cards in the marketplace.
LiteBringer launches
One significant product launch during September was CipSoft’s LiteBringer game.
A PC idle RPG running on the Litecoin blockchain, it was formally released on 15 September and quickly grew to just under 1,000 daily active unique wallets.
Since that peak, daily activity has since declined; down to around 600 daily active unique wallets at the start of October, although almost 3,000 unique wallets have interacted with the game in terms of lifetime activity to-date.
Of course, being an idle game and one that requires players to transfer some fraction of a Litecoin in order to play, it’s no surprise LiteBringer may take some time to find its core sustained audience.
For real-time daily activity and revenue data from the blockchain games sector, go to DappRadar’s Games category.
Developers should also check out DappRadar’s new Developer Area, which provides details about how to onboard with new blockchains, information about development tools, and everything you need to ensure your dapp is making the most of DappRadar’s audience.
For more information on the Blockchain Games Alliance, including its activities, check out the BGA website.
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