Delphi Digital report: Web3 game overall funding declined, but activity remains strong

Original article by: Stacy Muur

Original translation: TechFlow

Since the beginning of 2024, Web3 games have underperformed the rest of the crypto altcoin space, with market capitalization falling 33% while the altcoin market has only fallen 14%.

Despite this, Web3 games remain a strong player, accounting for 30% of all decentralized application (dApp) activity and reaching 2.1 million daily active wallets.

Let’s dive into the key insights on Web3 gaming from the latest Delphi research .

Key Takeaways

• Funding for Web3 games peaked during February and March, with monthly investments ranging between $60 million and $100 million, bringing total funding to $673 million in 2024. However, this only accounts for 41.35% of total funding in Q1 2022.

• Over 50 games were launched in 2024, including notable profitable projects such as Xai , Pixels , and Notcoin .

• Xai raised $40 million in 3 months. Pixels reached $4.8 billion in FDV and 1 million daily active users (DAU) within 3 weeks of launch. Notcoin attracted 35 million users and reached a market cap of $1 billion with no external funding.

• Portal ’s FDV dropped from $4 billion to $280 million, and Overworld Incarnas lost 75% of its value. Mavia and Pixelmon also saw their values collapse by more than 60% each after the TGE.

• Shooting games remain the mainstream genre in Web3, among which Off the Grid stands out for its $110 million in financing and cooperation with Sony and Microsoft.

• Among MMORPGs, the most anticipated game is MapleStory Universe , which has raised $100 million.

• Pirate Nation is a fully on-chain game that is growing rapidly, reaching 100,000 active players and $1 million in revenue in the past 6 weeks.

• Mobile games such as King of Destiny and Matr1x Fire have grown rapidly, attracting hundreds of thousands of users. Matr1x Fire has exceeded 3.5 million downloads.

• Ronin and the TON ecosystem are leading the way in Web3 gaming. Ronin benefits from the success of Axie Infinity, while TON provides seamless integration with Telegram, reaching 900 million Telegram users. The success of Notcoin and Hamster Kombat further confirms this.

This summary summarizes the key points from Delphis Mid-Year Gaming Review report. Click here to read the full report.

Web3 Gaming Focus: Summary

Here are some recent games worth noting, most of which are not yet tracked on DappRadar. For statistics on the most popular games, check out this dashboard .

Source: DappRadar

Off the Grid [Shooting]

Description: Off the Grid is a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game created by Gunzilla Games.

Chain: Avalanche

Investment: $101 million

Fact: Off the Grid attracted over $110 million in funding and has a team of over 380 people. The game was released on PlayStation and Xbox in partnership with Sony and Microsoft, setting a new standard for the industry.

MapleStory Universe [MMORPG]

Description: MapleStory Universe expands Nexons renowned MapleStory IP into a virtual world ecosystem, hosting a variety of applications based on this popular series.

Chain: MapleStory Subnet Powered by Avalanche

Investment: $100 million

Fact: In 2023, MapleStory Universe received more than $100 million in financing from Nexon. MapleStory Online has more than 100 million cumulative players and is still an important player in the MMORPG field.

From July 24 to August 2, NEXPACE invited over 1,000 players to participate in the MapleStory N Pioneer Test. At peak, 714 players were online, and 92% of participants returned multiple times during the test. The team reported a retention rate of 79.97% after seven days.

EVE Frontier [MMORPG]

Description: EVE Frontier is a single-server survival game set in a dark, dystopian space world where humanity strives to survive and rebuild a shattered world. In March 2023, CCP announced that it had raised $40 million for the games development.

Investment: $40 million

Fact: Leveraging mature IP will provide a significant advantage for user acquisition, allowing them to target the loyal fan base of MapleStory and Eve Online.

MetaCene [MMORPG]

Description: MetaCene is developing a blockchain-based MMORPG set in a surreal post-apocalyptic world. Players use various NFTs to redefine civilization. The game aims to create an easily accessible Web3 experience, focusing on player-centric entertainment, governance, and AIGC-driven creation.

Chain: Rangers, but Apostle NFT collection is on the Ethereum chain

User Activity (UAW) (30 days): 38., 320

User activity record high: 57,060 (March 25, 2024)

Fact: MetaCene was founded by gaming experts with over 20 years of industry experience from companies such as Shanda Games, Blizzard, and Perfect World.

In the past 30 days, its user activity has grown from 898 to 37.1k, a growth of +4,031.4%.

Avalon [MMORPG]

Description: Avalon is the worlds first multi-chain, truly open-world multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), built with Unreal Engine 5 and incorporating multiple blockchains. The game is set in a fantasy medieval kingdom where players use their NFTs to explore the world while competing for cryptocurrency and rare NFT rewards. The game is inspired by the legend of King Arthur and the alternate history of the Knights.

Chain: ImmutableX, Base

Fact: Both MetaCene and Avalon are led by industry veterans who played key roles in shaping EverQuest and Legend II, two games that defined the MMORPG genre.

Big Time [MMORPG]

Name: Big Time

Description: Big Time is a multiplayer action role-playing game (RPG) for PC that combines fast combat with an open game economy. Players actively generate and exchange game items. The game seamlessly integrates Web3 elements to ensure that these elements do not interfere with the entertainment experience, thereby attracting a wider audience.

Chain: Ethereum

Fact: Big Time has revitalized the Web3 gaming market after the bear market, generated over $100 million in revenue since preliminaries, and positioned itself as a strong Web3 native competitor.

Pirate Nation [Fully on-chain game]

Description: Pirate Nation is an innovative game developed by Proof of Play, a studio that combines gaming with blockchain technology. Players collect pirates and send them on adventures to collect crafting materials, treasures, and pirate gold. Pirates gain experience and level up through multiple adventures.

Chain: Ethereum, Apex Chain

Fact: Pirate Nation has experienced a staggering 2,400% growth in just three months. This surge, coupled with an impressive $1 million in gaming revenue in the past six weeks, demonstrates its strong position in the FOCG (Fully On-Chain Gaming) space.

Designed to support the Pirate Nation ecosystem, Apex Chain is one of the most active chains, processing more than 2.5 million transactions per day. This makes it the second-largest EVM Layer 2 solution in terms of transaction volume over the past month, second only to Base.

Infinigods [Mobile Game Studio]

Projects: Infinimerge, Immortal Siege, King of Destiny

Description: Infinigods is a Web3 game studio focused on providing cross-platform experiences for web and mobile platforms. Infinigods is committed to building a casual game ecosystem that is interconnected through its unique NFT collections and intellectual property, all inspired by ancient mythology.

Chain: Ethereum

Fact: Infinigods’ Web3 battle royale game King of Destiny is quietly growing its user base, approaching 1 million downloads and over 250,000 monthly active users (MAU).

More games worth watching:

• Capsule Heroes – Free PvP boxing game.

• Matr1x – an entertainment platform combining Web3, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and eSports, has over 24,000 unique wallets in the past month.

• Fableborne, an isometric multiplayer online game, has been downloaded 77,000 times.

• Treeverse – A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by the Endless Clouds team.

• The World of Dypians (WoD) – a multiplayer online role-playing game, currently ranks highest on DappRadar with 700,000 30-day unique active wallets.

Source: DappRadar

According to Delphi, there are no clear signs in the market right now — with meme coins and the Solana ecosystem outperforming most other Web3 sectors — that gaming will gain traction in Q4. Furthermore, products expected to launch in the next six months will increase competition and potentially further fragment liquidity.

However, they are hopeful that games such as Off The Grid, Maple Story Universe and Fableborne can have a positive impact on sentiment in both Web3 and Web2 markets. This type of content should still be considered the best Trojan Horse for cryptocurrencies, and they believe there is reason for optimism in the short to medium term.

This article is sourced from the internet: Delphi Digital report: Web3 game overall funding declined, but activity remains strong

Related: NFT is considered a security? The US SECs new move angers the public again

Original author: BitpushNews Mary Liu On August 28th local time, OpenSea disclosed that it had received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which means that the leading NFT company may be prosecuted for violating securities laws. The NFT market is home to tens of thousands of collectibles, ranging from on-chain artworks created by independent artists to digital and “physical” collectibles, as well as PFP projects such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, which have accumulated huge valuations over the past few years. If OpenSea is sued, this would not be the first time the SEC has taken action against NFT projects. Last September, the NFT animation series Stoner Cats, voiced by many Hollywood stars such as Mila Kunis, reached a settlement with regulators for…