In 2022, the global blockchain gaming market was estimated at $4.6 billion and was projected to grow to $65.7 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of ~70%. Gaming today seems to be among the most popular categories for blockchain technology applications.
Web 3.0 has revolutionised many industries, and gaming wasn’t spared either. Web 3.0 gaming has opened doors for players to venture into a player-built world with utmost security.
Adoption is a word often heard in the crypto space, but it has various meanings. From those learning how to buy Bitcoin to those seeking innovation in gaming, the blockchain provides several opportunities for both investors and players. Crypto keeps taking bigger and bigger chunks out of the traditional financial system, and all the hype around buying a McFlurry with digital coins hid another important area of adoption from view. As people spend more of their lives online, the attention games gain increases, too.
It’s not easy to try a heap of games in order to discover the best ones, but someone has to do it. So, here are the hottest blockchain-based games of the moment, and for good reason.
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Sorare Fantasy Football
Football card collecting consumed many people’s lives when they were kids, and some members of Gen Z can admit it. Many adults also spend a lot of time playing fantasy football. Therefore, Sorare Fantasy Football brought the two together for the blockchain generation.
Gamers create a team of five players by buying auction cards or trading them with other players. The card is the most valuable asset as each player has a unique one produced per season. To understand the level of engagement, it’s worth noting that Kylian Mbappé’s trading card was sold for more than €55,000.
Your 5-member team wins points depending on the players’ performance in real-life games, and if it does well, you can win pay-outs in ETH or more cards. Ethereum is the in-game currency, though you can fund your account with fiat money too.
As with any self-respecting blockchain game, Sorare offers the possibility to earn from playing as well. You can buy cards and sell them when their value increases or create an all-conquering team. While some cards may change hands for a footballer’s weekly salary, those who want to start small also have some options.
The Sandbox
This virtual world platform saw the light of day in 2012 as a regular Windows, Android, and iOS game but pivoted towards blockchain when Animoca Brands bought it six years later. The Sandbox is all about user creativity and the content players generate to contribute to the ever-expanding multiverse.
Games like Minecraft and Roblox were sources of inspiration. But this game aspires to cede ownership and control to users instead of producers. As a result, you can buy virtual land, build on it, own it, and monetise your gaming experiences. NFTs enable you to own your creation and be rewarded for maintaining the game’s ecosystem.
You can create in-game objects through the VoxEdit function and sell them in the game’s online marketplace. The game uses three tokens to allow you to do this, among which there is SAND, the ERC-20 token and the main in-game currency that serves as the foundation for every interaction and transaction in the ecosystem. LAND consists of NFTs representing digital real estate and can be bought to develop as you want. If you create it successfully, you can rent or sell it.
The Six Dragons
The Enjin platform offers blockchain game devs the tools needed to create games using the Ethereum blockchain, mint tokens, and also the opportunity to own and trade their in-game items.
Among the most sensational games here has to be The Six Dragons. Just like with Sandbox, the emphasis here is on the player. You venture into a fantasy-themed open-world role-playing game where you farm for valuable materials, explore the land, craft and trade items with other users, and enhance your arsenal using powerful enchants.
The Six Dragons takes pride in being shaped and run by its users and take advantage of the blockchain’s decentralised feature in the best way possible. The fantasy theme is quite outdated in both traditional and blockchain gaming. But this product looks great and gives you plenty of scope to explore its world and gain, craft, design, and trade items, thus being rewarded and helping the ecosystem grow. If you want to buy Enjin Coin to use in the game, Binance is a good bet.
Star Atlas
Star Atlas is a fantasy game based in a metaverse-style virtual world and a futuristic play-to-earn MMORPG built on the Solana blockchain. The game is launching in stages, and some believe it won’t be fully released within this decade. It might be true, and it will definitely generate a lot of hype when it’s fully released. Until then, there’s already a playable portion of the game available as the game launches in stages with mini-game releases. You can get a taste of what to expect when the project is out and waiting to be taken advantage of. It employs cinematic-like gameplay graphics and its own society with multi-dimensional P2E mechanics and a fully functioning economy, making it an epic move and one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in the gaming industry.
There are two tokens in the Star Atlas ecosystem – POLIS and ATLAS. One acts as the governance token, and the other as the in-game currency.
Neon District
One recurring theme of blockchain games is SF dystopias, and Neon District makes no exception. This RPG is built on a cyberpunk theme and has players battling enemies in Unity City. It employs a “morally-questionable cast of characters”, oracles, genetic mods, crime syndicates, etc. You’ll fight your way through the city, gathering skills and one-of-a-kind pieces of kit, each represented by NFTs. You can then trade them in the game’s marketplace where Ethereum is the main currency.
As developers and gamers realise and fulfil blockchain’s potential, expect to see more title reveals in the coming months and years. Players will finally get more say in shaping their favourite games and gain greater control over their assets.
The future is bright, and it is blockchain.