South Korean outfit Wemade recently made several announcements as part of its Wemix day.

Some key introductions included:

• Wemix Pay
• PLAY token 
• New games

Wemix Pay is a new payment system for the Wemix platform that will reward users with Prime Points. These can be used to access VIP passes, NFTs and airdrops. Scheduled to launch in H2 2024, Wemix Pay will also be integrated into major Wemix Play games and serve as a way to drive utility and demand.

Another addition will be the PLAY token. This is tied to actual in-game revenue and will only be minted when someone uses Wemix Pay. It will be required to buy some items in games such as Night Crows. The PLAY tokens are then burned and not recirculated, in order to prevent inflation. PLAY tokens can be earned alongside Prime Points through Wemix Pay.

These new and revamped features are part of Wemix’s new strategic direction, announced ahead of Wemix Day. In essence, it entails a refocus from high-volume to fewer but more high-quality games.

To this end, Wemade announced new games including web3-native Legend of Ymir and an MMORPG from Mir4’s developers called Project M. These won’t be released until late 2025 and 2026. In addition, RPG Crystal of Naramunz will launch on Wemix in early 2025, while Meta Toy DragonZ Saga will migrate from Immutable.

Finally, Wemix will launch its Wepublic voting and donation system in 2025, so charitable organizations can raise money by creating DAOs and engaging with the Wemix community.

How do you measure the success of a gaming blockchain? While there are various metrics to look at, one in particular is the number of total lifetime wallets signed up to the network.

To that end, at the start of June we looked at data tracking the number of total user wallets for the top gaming blockchains. As expected, Ronin came out the clear leader with its more than 20 million wallets, mainly thanks to its historic Axie Infinity activities.

But how did that number change during the month?

Total wallets on Ronin were up 5%, surpassing 21 million. The most popular game currently live on the network, social RPG Pixels, has accumulated 5 million in lifetime wallets, although its active users decreased significantly in June due to the game’s Chapter 2 update. The main reason behind the fall off in DAUW is the developer’s intentional measures against bot activity, which clearly seems to be working. Interestingly, it also indicates how widespread bots are within web3 games.

Instead Immutable was the biggest gainer, with total user wallets up around 30% during the month, breaking 4 million. This was mainly driven by new games such as Hunters On-Chain and Guild of Guardians and their ongoing play-to-airdrop events. New playtests and forthcoming game launches as well as Immutable’s own The Main Quest campaign also contributed to the influx of new users. 

Significantly, Immutable’s active user wallets also shot up, from 180,000 at the start of June to over 300,000 towards the end, 26th June more exactly.

Alongside picking up new active players, Immutable is also coming out on top in terms of the number of new games added to the network. While the company itself claims a total of +330 games, 167 are officially listed on Big Blockchain Game List, including games deploying on multiple chains in addition to Immutable. During Q2 2024, 25 new games which are deploying exclusively on Immutable were added to the Big List.

In contrast, despite having the largest amount of active players, Ronin only has 16 official ecosystem games.

No notable changes in wallet activity were tracked among Wemix’s current 1.2 million total wallets, or Mythos’ 800,000. Mythical Games CEO John Linden has recently spoken about the imminent migration of Mythos from Ethereum to Polkadot, which might bring new users to the ecosystem. 

Notably, Arbitrum-based gaming L3 Xai now boasts 1.5 million lifetime wallets. Meanwhile newcomer Sonic, which is a gaming-specific Solana-based L2 rollup recently announced it’s reached a milestone of 300,000 wallets signing up. Japanese gaming blockchain Oasys remained around 50,000 total user wallets.

Crowning itself the king of gaming chains, Sky Mavis’ Ronin network is certainly leading the pack among gaming specific blockchains when it boils down to total unique wallets. 

Recently breaking the 20 million-mark, the uptake in activity is mainly thanks to social RPG Pixels’ continuous growth, and in part increased traction around Sky Mavis’ own Axie Infinity games, as well as airdrop events, tournaments, and NFT mints on Ronin from third-party games such as Apeiron, Ragnarok: Monster World and Wild Forest. 

While Pixels hit 1 million DAUWs during May, Axie Infinity more than doubled its daily active user wallets – reaching 45,000 – during the same period.

Meanwhile, gaming-focused platform Immutable and its zkEVM blockchain has also seen a steady increase in activity. Following airdrop campaigns from recently onboarded action RPG Hunters On-Chain from Boomland, and the launch of squad RPG Guild of Guardians, the network currently has 2.5 million wallets, and 1.9 million total accounts. Immutable is also attracting new users via its rewards campaign The Main Quest, through which users signing up for an account can claim free daily gems.

With 70 games currently listed on its platform, of which Wemade’s own MMORPG Night Crows is the biggest by far with over 400,000 players, Wemix currently boasts a total of 1.1 million active wallets.

In comparison, Mythical Games’ Mythos Chain, which is in the process of migrating from Ethereum to Polkadot, has 800,000 total unique wallets, mainly thanks to its mobile football title NFL Rivals.

Top gaming blockchains by total user wallets

The winners of the MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 have been revealed today at the Dubai GameExpo Summit powered by Pocket Gamer Connects.

In celebration of the talented games companies across the Middle East and North Africa, the MENA Games Industry Awards highlights the top games, developers and service providers, whose work has impacted players worldwide. The winners have been selected by a panel of 80 industry experts.

You can view the full list of winners below.

DUBAI GAMES STAR

Winner: Yalla Group

Honourable mentions: DMCC Gaming Centre, Sawa Group

BEST GAMES STARTUP

Winner: Starvania

Honourable mentions: Nomadroid, Yalla Game

BEST GAME INNOVATION HUB/DISTRICT

Winner: DMCC

Honourable mentions: AD Gaming, NEOM

BEST TOOL & SERVICE PROVIDER

Winner: Xsolla

Honourable mentions: Audiomob, Tamatem Plus (Tamatem)

MOST INNOVATIVE GAME

Winner: AVO Escape Space (Game Cooks)

Honourable mentions: Fateel (Evolite Studio), The True Persian Love Story (Emeraldz Studio)

BEST ARABIC LOCALISATION

Winner: Assassin’s Creed: Mirage (Ubisoft)

Honourable mentions: Good Pizza, Great Pizza (TapBlaze) Good Pizza, Great Pizza (TapBlaze), HAWKED (The 4 Winds Entertainment)

BEST IN ESPORTS (SERVICE)

Winner: True Gamers

Honourable mentions: Power League Gaming, The Esports & Gaming Agency

BEST IN ESPORTS (TEAM)

Winner: Falcons Esports

Honourable mentions: Geekay Esports, NASR ESPORTS

BEST WEB3 GAMING (Sponsored by BlockchainGamer.biz)

Winner: WEMIX (Wemade)

Honourable mentions: Oneness Labs, Yayy

INVESTOR OF THE YEAR

Winner: Savvy Games Group

Honourable mentions: Level Up (NEOM), Shorooq Partners

BEST DEVELOPER (Sponsored by ID@Xbox)

Winner: Mad Hook

Honourable mentions: Jawaker, UMX Studio

BEST PUBLISHER

Winner: Tamatem Games

Honourable mentions: Babil Games, MBC Group

MENA GAME OF THE YEAR (Sponsored by Xsolla Funding)

Winner: DC Heroes & Villains (Jam City/Sandsoft)

Honourable mentions: AVO Escape Space (Game Cooks), Hunt (NewGen Studio)

MENA MARKET LEGEND (Sponsored by PocketGamer.biz)

Winner: Nour Khrais (Maysalward)

Congratulations to all the winners, honourable mentions and finalists at this year’s MENA Games Industry Awards.