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Blockchain Gaming Is Here To Stay, But, Is The Industry Facing Talent Scarcity?

Some say that blockchain gaming will inspire the next wave of cryptocurrency adoption. Play-to-earn games are certainly ever-present in headlines and conversations around the world. Are they close to mainstream adoption? Not in the slightest. The industry is just beginning and there’s a long way to go. The companies producing the games are well funded and make incredible amounts of money. However, they don’t seem to have that many employees.

Related Reading | The 100x ROI for Gamezone’s $GZONE Confirms the Viability of Blockchain Gaming

Besides being a nascent industry, blockchain gaming production requires a special set of talents that are not commonly found. This presents an immense opportunity for young students and people looking to pivot and make a career change. Since monetization is built in the ecosystem, chances are blockchain gaming is here to stay. And you can be a part of it. Let’s look at the numbers and you’ll see what we mean. 

How Big Is The Blockchain Gaming Market?

In his report titled “Blockchain Gaming Beginnings: From Crypto Craze To Decentralized Fun,” author Joost Van Dreunen offers concrete numbers: 

  • How many people are playing? “Total addressable audience for blockchain gaming is still in its infancy. Mobile, PC, and console total 1.49 billion monthly actives.”
  • What devices are they using? “The platform of choice is PC, which includes browser-based (40% of total titles), local clients for Windows (16%) and Mac (6%), and Linux (3%)”
  • What blockchains are they interacting with? “The most popular blockchain is WAX (36%), based on an aggregation of top titles organized by protocol. Ethereum (10%) is much less prominent.”
  • However, “The success of Alien Worlds, which counted 1 million users in August, 2021, almost single-handedly accounts for the success for WAX.”
  • “There is a massive difference in popularity among the top titles: Alien Worlds has 59x more players than the #15, Zoo – Crypto World.”

WAX price chart on Bitfinex | Source: WAX/USD on TradingView.com
What Else Do We Know About The Blockchain Gaming Market?

We found even more data for you, let’s dive into the Unique Active Wallets, courtesy of Naavik’s Blockchain Games report:

  • Believe it or not, “DappRadar notes that games accounted for over half of blockchain wallet activity in the third quarter.”
  • Not only that, “blockchain gaming daily unique active wallets (UAWs) averaged 1.2 million in October 2021 or up 44% compared to September.”
  • Let’s dive deeper into those numbers. “The growth in UAW over the past month has mostly been driven by growth in Axie Infinity and Splinterlands wallet activity, which have increased 24% and 57%, respectively.”
  • This one mirrors the previous report. “The top title by monthly UAWs, Alien Worlds, has 10x the activity as the number ten title, Jelly Squish.”
  • September 2021 saw a decline in blockchain gaming, but the numbers are once again looking impressive. “Trading volumes grew 762% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2021 to $2.32 billion.”

What’s All That Noise About A Talent Shortage?

The wildest stat in Van Dreunen’s report is the number of employees the most successful firms in the space function with. Dapper Labs employs 242, Mythical Games 123, The Sandbox 94. Projects that are on the news all the time suffer the same fate, Decentraland has 52 employees and Open Sea 43. Compare that to, “to 9,500 f/t employees at Activision Blizzard, 11,000 at Electronic Arts, 6,495 at Take-Two Interactive, and 960 at Roblox.”

While we could interpret that the data reveals we’re dealing with efficient companies, Van Dreunen thinks otherwise. “A year-over-year increase of +102% in headcount across top blockchain game devs indicates that talent is likely to become a major bottleneck in search of the killer app.“ It may be so, but, that was until NewsBTC published this article. Young people reading this will realize the immense opportunity it represents and will take the appropriate measures.

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Remember that, besides in-game monetization, these companies raise money for new projects constantly and with ease. That means, “Abundant investment money will force firms to compete on hiring experienced developers, engineers, and producers in the short term.” They’re dying to hire you. Go and get the necessary knowledge, this story is just starting.

Featured Image: Matryx on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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Axie Infinity Raises $860K While Their AXS Token Rises 55% In The Last 24 Hours

The Axie Infinity team is making moves. On the one hand, they raised $860K “through a strategic sale of our governance token, AXS.” On the other, they announced an in-game decentralized exchange and their AXS increased in prize by 55% in the last 24 hours. Great numbers all around that would satisfy and attract any investor. And speaking about satisfied investors, their original backers were the people invited to Axie Infinity’s private sale.

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

Let’s digest all that part by part.

Axie Infinity ‘s $860K Private Sale

The terms of the “strategic sale” state the following:

“Axie Infinity raised $864,000 in a private sale of AXS to strategic investors in the middle of 2020. These investors purchased AXS at a 20% discount.

20% of the private sale tokens will be unlocked during the AXS public sale. The rest of the private sale tokens will be unlocked quarterly over the next 2 years.”

In the press release, they disclosed the investors:

  • Arca

  • Three Arrows Capital

  • DeFiance Capital

  • DeFi Capital

  • Sparq Ventures

  • Animoca Brands

  • Hashed

  • Dialectic

as well as angel investors:

  • Alexander John Amsel

  • Alex Svanevik (Nansen)

  • Bashylok Oleksander

The investors seem extremely satisfied. In a recent tweet, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su announced Axie Infinity and their Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) are the company’s most profitable seed investment by far. “Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns,” he adds for color. 

$AXS @AxieInfinity I think is now @DeFianceCapital best seed investment ever and it's not even close

Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns

World is unbound growth

— Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) October 2, 2021

The Great AXS 55% Rise

According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, “Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rose 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.” He also said it was “the highest increase among top50 crypto.” At the time of writing, the number has decreased a little. According to Coinmarketcap, AXS is “up 42.90% in the last 24 hours.”

Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rosed 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 2, 2021

The recently announced decentralized exchange will eliminate the need to leave Axie Infinity to trade tokens. “People want to acquire and use their tokens from the same place without having to use a bridge constantly,” growth lead Jeff Zirlin told The Block” That website broke the Axie Infinity meets DeFi story, saying:

“The DEX could help keep users playing the game because it will remove certain frictions that exist for players who have to move their tokens off the platform to trade them. The DEX will be built on Ronin, an Ethereum-linked sidechain purpose-built for Axie Infinity.”

In the “Strategic Sale” press release, they quote Defiance Capital’s Arthur0x, who said:

“Axie has been building relentlessly since 2018 and we are impressed by their execution so far. Their vision of combining NFT, gaming and DeFi together is extremely exciting. We are thrilled to see Axie continue to be at the forefront of innovation in NFT gaming and DeFi space.”

AXS price chart for 10/02/2021 on Gemini | Source: AXS/USD on TradingView.com
Epilogue: Our Prediction

Just three months ago, when NewsBTC first covered Axie Infinity, we predicted: 

“In the long run, Axie Infinity could add new features to its game, a new game mode, more resources. The expansion of this universe is set to provide cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology with a real-world use case that nurtures the gaming experience.”

Related Reading | Jack Dorsey Plans to Build A Decentralized Exchange For Bitcoin

They did add new features, just not the ones we were expecting. 

At that time, AXS was trading at $17,47. Each token is worth $111.21 nowadays.

Featured Image: Axie Infinity screenshot from their press release | Charts by TradingView