Despite a bleak second quarter in terms of game tokens performance and web3 games investments, the number of new blockchain games keeps increasing.
During Q2 2024, 157 new titles were tracked by Big Blockchain Game List, ranging from Mythical Games’ Pudgy Penguins tie-in and Planet Mojo’s GoGo Mojo endless runner, to fully onchain PVP game Cambria: Duel Arena and IP expansion Baby Shark Universe.
Combined with the 119 new titles tracked in Q1, the first half of the year saw 276 new games.
As for which ecosystems most games are deploying on, the quickest growing category contains multichain games, meaning games deploying on more than one blockchain. This group accounted for 18% of all new games in Q2, compared to 27% in Q1.
More broadly, the industry has seen a change in trends compared to 2023. Notably, back then, BNB saw most growth, followed by Polygon – and later these two swapping the top spot in terms of the number of new games added to them.
In 2024 however, Immutable’s new Immutable zkEVM ecosystem is proving to be the top choice, with 16% of the new games added in Q2, and 14% in Q1. In large part this is thanks to its co-operative deal with Polygon.
Immutable is now the most popular gaming blockchain in terms of the amount of publicly announced titles, with 61 games added since the start of 2024, and 25 of those games in Q2 2024.
This trend is likely going to be further cemented during Q3. Immutable regularly states it’s got more than 330 games within its expanding ecosystem, although those have not been officially announced. Most recently, Planetarium’s Immortal Rising 2 has announced it’s deploying to Immutable zkEVM.
Other noticeable changes within ecosystems concerns TON, which saw a 14% decrease of games due to cancelled development or liveops.
However, alongside games dropping off, TON also saw a remarkable growth of new titles added, with 201 games currently listed on its platform. Mainly simple mini-games distributed via Telegram, this category is highly liquid and attracts a huge number of bots. Although it shouldn’t be ignored, the number of these games might not be as significant in comparison to blockchain gaming networks such as Ronin, Immutable, and Arbitrum.
Next after TON, BNB was the blockchain losing most games during the quarter, with a 12% drop. Wemix also experienced a substantial drop off (9%) of games in Q2 2024, however this has been explained to be part of the platform’s new strategic shift towards adding fewer but high-quality games in exchange for high-volume.
