The blockchain gaming trade has changed into a “recreation of musical chairs,” with no contemporary capital flowing in — simply the identical cash biking by means of totally different gaming tasks, in response to a blockchain gaming government.
“There isn’t any new cash coming into the system,” Gunzilla Video games Web3 director Theodore Agranat informed Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong.
Present capital is being shuffled round
Agranat mentioned “current capital” is simply being recycled between gaming tasks, with no new worth coming into the system.
“I might say it is also slightly little bit of a recreation of musical chairs,” he mentioned. Blockchain gaming noticed $16 million in funding in January, nearly 92% down from December 2024’s $222 million, as per analytics platform DappRadar.
Agranat identified that distinctive energetic wallets (UAW) in blockchain gaming have fallen from “round 10 million final summer season” to 7.5 million at this time, with roughly 70% of Q1 2024 progress pushed from airdrop and farming campaigns.
DappRadar named Q1 2024 the “play-to-airdrop” period, highlighting blockchain video games like RPG recreation Kuroro Beasts, fighter recreation AI Enviornment, and card technique racing recreation MixMob as notable video games with important airdrops over the quarter.
Gunzilla Video games Web3 director Theodore Agranat spoke to Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong. Supply: Cointelegraph
Agranat mentioned that customers had been artificially creating a number of crypto wallets and fascinating with video games solely to gather airdrops, a technique he mentioned is “completely unsustainable.”
No loyalty in blockchain gaming
“They’ll simply go from venture to venture and extract no matter worth they will from that venture. And as soon as there’s no extra worth available there, they’ll transfer on to a different venture,” he mentioned.
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“These are usually not long run like purchasers or customers of your venture or your product,” he mentioned.
“They’re professionals {and professional} people that, in lots of cases, are simply speculators that wish to make a return on the funding,” he mentioned.
Agranat mentioned the blockchain gaming sector must make the gameplay expertise the primary focus to maneuver ahead — a sentiment that has been echoed throughout the trade for a while.
In July 2024, Kori Leon, co-founder of the TON-based gaming ecosystem Pixelverse, mentioned that some blockchain video games did not ship on their guarantees. He mentioned that regardless of getting plenty of backers and funding, some Web3 gaming tasks couldn’t entice gamers.
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