It’s the time of the year when we look back at what happened and try to make sense of it. So for today’s email I’m taking the easiest option and looking at
the blockchain games I enjoyed the most,
by which I mean which the blockchain games I played the most,
by which I mean the blockchain games I made the most videos about in 2023.
This generally means that games which launched earliest in the year have performed better but this is not always the trump card you might expect.
Nevertheless, in first place is Hunters On-Chain, which did indeed launch early in 2023 and has provided plenty of enjoyment as it’s moved from Polygon testnet to mainnet, through various NFT drops and tokens going live.
And there are plenty of features still to go live and tweaks to happen in 2024. More significantly, when it comes to a game primed for mass market adoption, I continue to consider it extremely well-placed.
My next most videoed game, however, was released on 22nd November, which just goes to show how committed I’ve been in recent weeks to Nine Chronicles M, the idle RPG from South Korean dev Planetarium.
It’s available to play across mobile and PC and as a fully onchain game provides plenty of nuance — ranging from NFT staking to incentivized liquidity pools and a peer-to-peer marketplace. Not the most accessible game but one for the cognescenti and I continue to get stuck in.
As for other games, in joint third place come browser-based autochess game Mojo Melee and PC strategy game Blocklords.
Both are excellent but somewhat unfinished with plenty of expansion expected in 2024.
Other titles I’d like to highlight because I also played them a lot are:
Axie Infinity Homelands: Sky Mavis’ land resource expansion,
NFL Rivals: significant for its ability to work within app store T&Cs, and
Pirate Nation; a fully onchain game with a fast iterative build process.
Of course, there are dozens more titles which will come to the spotlight in future months, although it was the case that despite mine and others’ (!) best efforts, 2023 did not see any new high quality blockchain games generating large player bases.
The most popular blockchain games in terms of active wallets remained Alien Worlds and Splinterlands, joined by Pixels, which successfully launched on Ronin. These attracted a couple of hundred thousand wallets daily at best.
And maybe this trend will continue in 2024 in that the most popular blockchain games find their audiences outside of traditional gaming communities. But given both market conditions and the quality of products, I think there’s a reasonable opportunity that this particular circle will finally be squared.
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Calendar
Blocklords’ first battlepass launches — 3rd January
Nifty Island starts its play-to-airdrop — 21st January
Line Next launches DOSI mobile app — January 2024
Blockchain Gaming World news
There’s still one podcast I want to get released before the end of the year but penultimately in 2023 comes my chat with Peter Kieltyka, the CEO of Horizon Blockchain Games, the company behind TCG Skyweaver and wallet infrastructure Sequence.
It was probably the most technical podcasts I’ve done in terms of content discussed. What else would you expect from someone whose favorite website is GitHub — Peter, not me: check out that mugshot! — also someone very happy to talk about the difference between non-custodial and self-custodial wallets. (Actually very important.)
Nevertheless, even from a muggles’ point of view such as mine, I hope it’s interesting to dig into the complexities of how you make blockchain accessible for developers and users: not the same thing but related.
Another pertinent point that arose is the balance between accessibility and security. Personally, after five years, I’m now very comfortable handling my wallet’s seed phrase and find anything else confusing. But — once again — I am not the person on which to base your business model.
Oasys Gets Another Verse news
Japanese gaming blockchain Oasys has announced another key partnership in the form of local developer Gesoten by GMO, which runs a mobile platform in which gamers can earn points by playing. Gesoten has 3.6 million users and they will be able to sign into the new experience simply using their existing ID, earning points and crypto for their activity.
The result of the deal will be the launch of GESO Verse, a self-contained app chain within the overall Oasys ecosystem. Three titles have been announced:
Universal Stallion from HashLink
GeGeGe no Kitaro – Youkai Yokocho from Fuji Games, and
Yolo Fox Game from MetalistGame
Aavegotchi stuff
Despite owning some NFTs and staking some GHST tokens, I can’t say I’ve ever fully understood Aavegotchi, which was one of the first fiercely blockchain game on Polygon and which now — like others — is deploying its own ecosystem on its own chain, of course called Gotchichain; a Polygon Supernet.
And it’s full speed ahead for developer Pixelcraft Studios in 2024. It’s planning the launch of its Aavegotchi Gaming Console (AGC), a bundle of services including a game launcher, achievement system and a loyalty points system.
Other elements include a new staking protocol, a new NFT drop, the decentralization of the Bazaar marketplace — which will also be part of AGC — and not to forget the games — including Gotchiverse3D, Spirit Force Arena, Gotchi Guardians and Licky’s Escape.
Additional Links
BlockchainGamer.biz’s most read articles of 2023.
Framework has invested an undisclosed sum into Merit Circle, gaining BEAM tokens, which it bought from the project’s treasury using USDC. BEAM is the best performing gaming token of 2023, up >1,100%, perhaps partially because of Framework’s investment a cynic might now say!
Moonbirds NFT collection is not for sale but open to collaborations.
US outfit Tiltyard has decloaked to announce its fully onchain competitive gaming platform — including new game Midnight Heist — that will deploy on Avalanche in 2024.
GRAPE token is live on BNB: down 83% today but still with a $240 million FDV.