Author: Footprint Analytics
Translated by: TechFlow
There have been discussions recently about whether blockchain games are dead, with both sides presenting valid points. Let’s analyze this from a data perspective.
Active Games
As of May, the Footprint platform tracked 3,153 games, with 263 games having monthly active users (MAU) exceeding 1,000, accounting for 8.2% of the total. If we raise the standard to 10,000 MAU, this number would significantly decrease. It’s important to note that these data only include on-chain users. Many games allow users to play without wallet login while still incorporating Web3 elements. Currently, data on this aspect is difficult to obtain, which may affect the actual player count statistics.
Daily Active Users and Transaction Volume
In May, the daily active users (DAU) of Web3 games increased by 9.6% to reach 3.3 million users, but the transaction volume significantly decreased compared to April (by 3.9 billion USD). While the growth in DAU is a positive sign, this growth should also be accompanied by an increase in transaction volume. Transaction volume is a crucial indicator of whether the game is engaging enough to motivate players to spend money. Users playing without contributing to the game tend to focus more on value extraction rather than investment. The correlation between average user game time and transaction volume in May is worth further exploration.
Reasons for High New User Growth but Low Transaction Volume
The recent implementation of “play games to earn airdrops” mechanisms in games may be the main reason for this phenomenon. While effective in the short term, it may have adverse effects on projects in the long run. Attracting users for retention through incentive measures helps improve metrics, but without a solid game foundation, token dumping may occur after the airdrop ends, leading to an unrecoverable death spiral similar to a single-token economic model.
Retention Rate
Retention rate is one of the best indicators to measure the level of fun in a game. In traditional Web2 games, the retention rate benchmarks are as follows:
Day 1 – 30-40%; Day 7 – 20%; Day 30 – 5-10%. In Web3, these retention benchmarks are harder to achieve, but some games show excellent performance in the Day 7 retention rate. Here are some examples of games with daily active users exceeding 50,000:
@ApeironNFT: 86,987 DAU; Day 7 retention rate 79.3%
@StarryNift: 73,146 DAU; Day 7 retention rate 70.8%
@pixels_online: 900,569 DAU; Day 7 retention rate 65.6%
@AxieInfinity: 63,385 DAU; Day 7 retention rate 42.1%
@NineChronicles: 83,360 DAU; Day 7 retention rate 40% (Note: Nine Chronicles has its own chain and is not indexed by Footprint)
Based on the retention rate data of these games, it is incorrect to claim that Web3 games are dead. Even without considering other metrics, it can be inferred that Web3 games outperform traditional benchmarks in terms of retention rate.
Current Adoption Challenges
Speculation: Speculative profit potential overshadows the true enjoyment of the game.
User Experience/Interface: Current Web3 games have lengthy registration processes, complex and unintuitive interfaces, and lack aesthetic appeal.
Time: Due to limited resources, games are often forced to be released before being fully polished. Compared to traditional standards, the development time of Web3 games is longer, and many outstanding Web3 games have yet to be released.
Conclusion
At this stage, saying that Web3 games are dead is both right and wrong. Games inherently have a short lifespan, which is particularly evident in Web3, as seen in the comparison between active and inactive games. The daily active users of Web3 recently reached a historic high, but are these users the industry expects? While the retention rate is high, it is limited to a few games, and many games lack enough daily active users to truly measure this metric. In the end, many of the issues present in the early stages of Web3 games are still visible, but these problems will be resolved over time. Additionally, small games on platforms like Telegram provide a good example of quickly and effectively guiding new users into the game. Blockchain doesn’t need to revolutionize games, it just needs to improve them.
Web3 games are not dead, the construction of Web3 games is ongoing…
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