While parts of the web3 gaming industry are still waiting for the next high-end shooter to break through and take blockchain mass market, the revolution might already have started elsewhere.
Gaming has long been a feature of social platform Telegram, but recently it’s shot through the roof thanks to the implementation of web3. Exactly how many of Telegram’s 900 million users also play games is not clear, but its integrated blockchain TON recently surpassed Ethereum in terms of daily active users. That trending tap-to-earn game Hamster Kombat claims 158 million accounts (probably not unique players) gives us another indication of its rising popularity.
Earlier in June, tap-to-earn game Notcoin also made headlines breaking the $1 billion market cap following its introduction of crypto rewards and its token.
More recently, Animoca Brands’ gaming platform Gamee and its casual mobile games announced that over 2.5 million users had joined its Telegram group. Its rapid growth follows the launch of Wat Protocol, which lets users earn WatPoints for staking their GMEE tokens, owning partner NFTs, playing games, and more.
To emphasise this momentum, Pixelverse, the developer of tap-to-earn Telegram game PixelTap, also announced a recent $5.5 million funding round.
Of course, as with any game, games on TON include bots. The way these tap-to-earn games are designed make them even more prone to high levels of bot activity. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the majority of crypto gaming on Telegram is bots.
But while earning crypto tokens might seem an attractive feature, the tokens’ utility is less defined. Unlike prominent blockchain titles such as Pixels, Shrapnel, and Pirate Nation, where the underlying tokenization adds actual value to the ecosystem, many tap-to-earn games and the very nature of their meme-like coins have no function, so their long-term purpose is more vague.
In contrast, TON Foundation’s TON token underpins the entire TON network and it’s now a top 10 crypto, with a market cap of almost $18 billion. One element of this value creation is the fact that the network currently has 120 games listed on its platform, ranging from move-to-earn, strategy, mining, and the less frequent category MMORPG containing Tap Fantasy, so while the games themselves may be ephemeral, their combined impact certainly is not.
Not perhaps groundbreaking in-and-of-themselves then, the power of gaming on Telegram and TON and their integrated tokens certainly sparks the questions whether the mass adoption of blockchain gaming has already started, only in a different shape than the industry had predicted.
