As the number of mini-games listed on the TON blockchain have gone from 120 to 160 in less than a fortnight, Telegram has released a new feature making playing games on the platform even easier.
While clunky tech has long been seen as a stumbling block towards the mass adoption of web3 applications, Telegram has introduced a simple bar at the bottom of the screen which lets players switch seamlessly between multiple gaming and messenger apps.
Notably, the company claims that over 500 million of its users now play games within the platform.
No wonder then that Animoca Brands chairman Yat Siu predicts the next mass wave of web3 users will come from gaming on platforms such as Telegram. He recently said, “I believe that over the next 12 to 18 months, we’re going to see over 100 million users join web3 because of gaming that’s happening on distribution outlets like Telegram”, in an interview with The Cryptonomist.
Siu also thanked the platform for the 3 million daily active users Animoca’s web3 gaming platform Gamee has gained via its Telegram group.
While he emphasised that web3 adoption will mainly come from gaming and other entertainment content, the distribution layer also plays a vital role. Siu explained that’s the reason Animoca has made such a significant ecosystem investment into TON, also becoming its largest validator.
But while the simplistic nature of most mini-games on TON clearly appeals to a large audience, it also has a strong tendency to attract bot activity. If deeper games such as social RPG Pixels and TCG Splinterlands – with teams that actively design rewards systems against bots – contain a playerbase of ⅔ bots – then how high is the bot rate within TON games likely to be?
For that reason, we should take the surging player numbers of simple tap-to-earn games such as Hamster Kombat and Notcoin with a large pinch of salt. That isn’t the same as denying the power of gaming on large distribution platforms, just that it’s unlikely to appeal to every kind of game, developer or player.
Indeed, with an increase of new initiatives such as Goat Gaming unveiling plans to build on Telegram, it wouldn’t be surprising to see TON become the largest blockchain in terms of number of games in the next few months.
Whether it’s just a bubble or more long-lasting remains to be seen. But it’s worth pointing out that so far, the value of most tokens integrated with these tap-to-earn games are highly speculative and currently have no utility.
Even to that, Siu would argue that similar to other meme coins, their value lies within the context of their culture, though.
Check out our previous interview with Siu, covering everything from John Locke and meme coins, to how Mocaverse helped the growth of Pixels, Animoca’s investment thesis, and much more.
