The market research company Polaris Market Research published their latest report on the blockchain gaming industry in February this year. The 116-page report, “Blockchain Gaming Market Share, Size, Trends, Industry Analysis Report, By Game Type; By Platform; By Region; Segment Forecast, 2023-2032”, is based on the company’s comprehensive analysis of the current market, emerging trends, and current and predicted growth rates. The research firm collates and bases its analysis on data from validated websites, analyst reviews, press releases, whitepapers and reputed paid databases. Based on the latest market trends, the report predicts the value of the global blockchain and play-to-earn gaming industry to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68.9% from US $9.12 billion in 2023 to US $1020.02 billion in 2032. That represents a massive 11084% increase in just nine years. The report provides a complete synopsis of the various factors predicted to drive the growth of the blockchain gaming industry. Their research found that a substantial increase in investment in the sector is underway, which could drive an exponential market expansion.
Burgeoning Interest from Traditional Gaming Companies
The first key indicator is that massive players in the traditional gaming sector are beginning to take a serious interest in developing blockchain and play-to-earn products. ‘Most of the world's biggest gaming companies are investing and collaborating with other platforms to provide blockchain gaming infrastructure,’ the report states. Indeed, just recently, gaming behemoth Sony has filed a patent, ‘NFT Framework For Transferring And Using Digital Assets Between Game Platforms, ’ for developing in-game assets that are player-owned and can be swapped between players, games, and gaming platforms. According to the patent, Sony also envisions NFTs, such as unique NFT weapons, awarded to players for achieving certain milestones. The Pokémon Company, owned by Nintendo, recently revealed their interest in exploring the blockchain gaming world when it advertised a job listing on LinkedIn for a Corporate Development Principal. The advertisement lists “Deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse” and “Deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs in the technology sectors above (Web3 and metaverse)” among the qualities the candidates are expected to bring to the company. The position is in a company department responsible for Pokémon's corporate strategy and development.
Rewards for Gaming
Another critical driver of growth is the fact that gamers are rewarded with assets with real-world value, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, for playing. This revolutionary concept allows gamers to profit and make a living from their skill, time, and effort. Gaming NFTs provide gamers verifiable ownership of in-game assets, including weapons, spells, armour, avatar skins, pets, up-grades and power-ups, and the ability to sell these on the secondary market to other gamers. The report's authors see role-playing games as having the most growth potential. The report concluded that although the Ethereum ecosystem currently holds the largest market share, and the most popular blockchain games have been developed on this platform, Binance Smart Chain is expected to be the ecosystem that sees the fastest growth in the future.
Asia-Pacific Will be Hub of Industry Growth
The report pinpointed the Asia-Pacific region as a critical growth area for blockchain gaming. The popularity of gaming and the number of potential gamers in the region are cited as being major factors, as well as the increasingly favourable blockchain regulation being set up by governments in the region. The region is known to have one of the world's highest levels of crypto adoption. Research by Triple A, a crypto payment company, found that 130 million of the 320 million owners of crypto worldwide are located in Asia. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are aiming to become global crypto hubs. Hong Kong has allocated US $6.4 million of its 2023-2024 budget to develop its Web3 infrastructure. The Securities and Futures Commission of the country has also passed recent regulations allowing digital asset trading. The Hong Kong government plans to implement a ‘virtual-asset development’ task force to advise on sustainable and responsible ways to develop the crypto sector.
Increased Investment from the Crypto Sector
The blockchain gaming sector is booming, with multiple new gaming projects being released and developed throughout the bear market. Together, Binance Smart Chain and Animoca Brands have launched a US $200 million asset program that will support the growth of the GameFi industry and foster startup crypto gaming projects. The report also mentions the following crypto companies as key players in the global GameFi market: Sky Mavis, Mythical Games, Dapper Labs, Open Sea, Voxie Tactics, Rokosoft, Gamestation, Pocket Arena, Planet Sandbox, Splinterlands, Animoca Brands, Wemade, AlwaysGeeky Games, G.JIT Japan, Immutable, Horizon Blockchain Games Planetarium, Codebit Labs, and Binamon.
Concluding Thoughts
Despite the huge backlash against play-to-earn gaming and NFTs from traditional gamers and the largely negative sentiment in the gaming sector press, it seems blockchain gaming has only started its journey. If the analysis in this report is accurate, GameFi is set to become a huge industry, especially in the East, where it has been the most favourably received.
