Did you know that the gaming industry earns twice the revenue of the film entertainment (Hollywood, Bollywood, and all other woods), home entertainment, Formula One, NBA, IPL, and all other biggest sporting industries combined?
Here is how the revenues of the biggest global entertainment and sporting markets at their peak (pre-COVID) add up:
The global gaming industry in 2021 by revenue: ~US$300 billion.
Estimates say there are 3.1 billion gamers in the world. This number may not sound intuitive, because you might be imagining a person spending 18 hours a day on a fancy gaming PC or console. But, if really look at it, most people on Internet today are gamers. If you played say Sudoku, card games, Subway Surfer, Candy Crush, or for that matter any game online, you are a gamer!
58% of gamers are casual gamers and hence most games seem free. But games have the ability to get addictive. And addictive things monetize really well. Look at social media, alcohol, tobacco, sports, health, or any other addiction. Addiction can be good or bad for you — not the point. The point is it creates behavior and hence monetizes.
We have established gaming is huge. But will blockchain gaming be that huge?
Axie Infinity, the most popular blockchain game, crushed Candy Crush’s revenue with less than 1% of the active users, hitting US$1.2 billion (annualized).
You can check out a detailed analysis of how they stack up against each other here.
But why how did Axie win?
Let’s analyze!
Here are 4 reasons why the blockchain gaming ecosystem is better than the traditional gaming ecosystem for gamers and game developers:
1. NFTs & Ownership: Traditional games treat players just as users. They have a life cycle that looks like below.
However, blockchain games have one very interesting concept called NFTs (Non-Fungile Tokens). If you would like a quick recap on NFTs, go watch this video below, and come back.
Now here is the key difference.
In the traditional world, you spend to buy stuff in-game and leave it behind when you move to the next.
(v/s)
In the blockchain world, you take your purchases such as avatars, collectibles, advantages, etc. with you, representing TRUE OWNERSHIP OF IN-GAME ASSETS.
As humans, we are wired to own and collect. Hence, on this point, blockchain gaming is a massive winner.
2. Interoperable and reusable: Carrying purchases from one game to another is an advantage to you, but it is also an advantage to game makers. Our purchase choices depend a lot on what we already own. While buying new tech, one thing we already check is how compatible it is with your existing devices. Hence, Bluetooth, USB ports, and electric sockets became popular, for interoperability. To attract new audiences game developers build new games which reuse the previous popular games’ assets and skills. That means your NFTs and assets will also start driving gaming niches. Blockchain will make different games interconnected and interoperable. And that is a massive win.
3. Early Community: Gamers are projected as loners in movies but they are very social on the contrary. The success of gaming-focused social media such as Twitch is the biggest proof that gamers are hyper-social. Gamers bond, share, trade, discuss and do many more social activities, albeit mostly online. Currently, most game communities are focused on sharing hacks and experiences. Blockchain gaming deepens the social angle. They bring in trading economies, co-building, pre-launch participation, incentives to contribute more than play. Hop onto any traditional game’s discord and an equivalent blockchain game’s discord and you will see the difference.
4. Co-builders: The most powerful and under-rated aspect of blockchain gaming is game development is open to all. Game developers are not just studios or companies, they are independent builders. They can collaborate on a specific project, decide on what role each one will play and how economic incentives will get split. All on the blockchain, enforced by the smart contracts and needs zero trust in each other (trustless). A truly global world.
In addition to this, there is one new role that blockchain gaming creates that is the secret winning card: INVESTORS
Even if you don’t game but understand money and economics, you can still ride this wave by buying in-game assets to
Flip for a higher price.
Lend out to gamers who can’t afford the asset but can game to earn and share revenue.
Get a cash flow from the revenue earned in the game.
This makes the ecosystem super-inclusive, speculative, social, and hence more importantly popular.
In the next set of articles, we analyze why Polygon Studios is game-changing for blockchain gaming and how can you benefit?
Check out this next blog here.
Girnaar Nodes:
If you believe in the power of blockchain gaming, then you know the potential Polygon and Polygon Studios hold to revolutionize the space. If you hold the Polygon (MATIC) token, then you must stake it. Staking Polygon token on the blockchain gives you an extra return in MATIC terms, and you can withdraw anytime. All on blockchain and 100% secure.
Girnaar Nodes is an Indian-origin validator on Polygon with top performance and 0% commission. Stake your MATIC tokens with us directly on the Polygon blockchain. See your Polygon (MATIC) bags grow while we work on the tech under the hood.
Check/ reach out to us out here:
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