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.

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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

Harmony Organizes $1M Hackathon To Bridge DeFi and Traditional Finance

According to the information available, Harmony Hackathon will last for six weeks. The Hackathon will commence on August 15, 2021, and ends on September 30, 2021.

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There will be three categories, and each one will have four challenges for the experts to complete.

Presently, the organizers, Harmony blockchain, have disclosed that the registration for the event will start in August. Also, there are more than one million dollars available in seed funds and participant prizes. The company made the announcement on Thursday through Twitter.

According to the announcement, the hackathon aims to achieve cooperation between traditional finance and decentralized finance.

Furthermore, the team aims at bringing more people from the traditional finance sector to tackle the challenges affecting both their industry and the DeFi sector.

A Brief On Upcoming Hackathon

According to what Harmony revealed, the Hackathon will come in three categories. These categories will have four challenges, including cross-chain & trustless bridges, cross-border with fintech integration, social wallets & keyless security.

Harmony also made some statements on Twitter saying that blockchain finance is where there’s product-market fit. However, many people who created decentralized finance are not of traditional finance.

Harmony Organizes $1M Hackathon To Bridge DeFi and Traditional Finance
Image Credit:  Harmony Official Twitter

Therefore, Harmony aims at bringing more traditional finance experts to add their knowledge to decentralized finance.

Harmony also mentioned that traditional finance experts have many things to teach them in DeFi. Likewise, DeFi practitioners can also help them understand the sector more and learn how to utilize it. So, it will be a mutually beneficial event for both TradiFi and Defi.

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Concerning the event, Harmony disclosed some people who will speak in the event or serve as judges for the participants.

According to the blockchain, these people include, Omakase, the core developer of SushiSwap, Lily Liu, the co-founder of Earn.com, the lead for DeFi Alliance Imran Khan, and other prominent people in the industry.

Also, the event sponsors include Messari, SushiSwap, CoinGeckom, Unstoppable Domains, DoraHacks, DappRadar, Hummingbot, and The Defiant, a news platform.

A Brief on Harmony

Harmony is a Sharding protocol that uses a “Trustless Ethereum Bridge” to separate its blockchain into different segments. These segments are responsible for the processing and storage of data in parallel.

The mainnet launched in 2019, and since then, the company has partnered with many others to push its operations further. Also, Harmony has completed many integrations since then as well. For instance, it added Terra to its blockchain to use the token on the apps in the ecosystem.

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The blockchain disclosed that it would sponsor the Hackathon in June. According to the blockchain, it aims to reach 10 billion users, which is a way to achieve it.

The registration will end on August 15, and teams can only be 5 people. Once they reached the submission deadline, the event will kick-off.

Featured image from Pixabay