Top blockchain games by popularity
Introduction
Gaming is expanding at a breakneck pace. The gaming business is presently valued at $196 billion, with strong indications that it will exceed $300 billion in the next five years.
A recent spike of new players, particularly mobile platforms, is behind this development, making gaming a more practical and accessible experience for the estimated 2.6 billion gamers globally.
The success of blockchain games has flipped the gaming industry around, putting users in charge of financial decisions rather than producers.
P2E crypto gaming is a growing trend that should not be overlooked. But, before we get into the specifics, it's important to understand how everything works.
What are blockchain games?
Blockchain is a type of ledger technology that acts as an information recording and storage system that can't be hacked, tampered with, or otherwise messed with. The transaction history of a network is, in theory, public. Blockchain underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, offering up a slew of new possibilities for virtual economies - and game creators have taken notice.
Most games will include marketplaces where players can buy and sell commodities such as weapons, avatars, and loot boxes. Even if they paid actual money for it, they might not own any. That's because, for the most part, game creators have used a centralized model, which means they've had complete control over game dynamics, from the storyline to the game assets amassed by players.
Players have no true ownership of their accounts or things because everything is owned by one corporation. There are also some drawbacks to this concept, such as a lack of transparency and the potential for game mechanics manipulation.
For the first time, blockchain-enabled decentralized and fair virtual markets, allowing players to have a meaningful say in the gaming experience, as gaming firms no longer have complete control. Blockchain's gaming potential goes beyond only powering virtual economies:
Real ownership: Blockchain-based games provide players full control and ownership of their in-game goods. Assets are often represented by non-fungible tokens that are one-of-a-kind (NFTs).
Interoperability and metaverses: by tying in-game assets to blockchain tokens, gamers can trade them across different blockchain-based game economies.
Some of the Blockchain Games 2022
Blockchain gaming is still a niche when compared to regular gaming. That isn't to imply it shouldn't be taken seriously. While crypto games still account for a small portion of the overall market, there are already hundreds of them, and millions of people are playing them.
So, here's a quick rundown of the key players in the crypto gaming world:
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity, the king of all crypto games, has taken NFTs to new heights. This game, which has been compared to Pokemon Go, is populated by Axies (or digital creatures), each of which is an NFT. Axies can be purchased, traded, and bred, and they can also be used to compete against other players or teams in seasonal tournaments.
Rare Axies can be valued at tens of thousands of dollars, and a virtual property plot was sold for $2.3 million. What separated Axie Infinity from other gaming platforms is its thriving virtual economy, in which in-game tokens such as Axie Infinity Shard (AXS) and Smooth Love Potion (SLP) are gaining tremendous amounts of value (of up to 5,700 percent as of recently). Axie, unlike other well-known casinos, encourages players to cash out.
Mobox
This free-to-play option uses the Binance Smart Chain to integrate gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi). According to the creators of Mobox, this strategy would bring gaming closer to GameFi as a platform where players and investors can access games from many blockchains in one place.
The game's main purpose is to allow gamers to freely engage in NFT games and earn money while doing so. To impact the development and distribution of resources within the MOBOX ecosystem, MBOX tokens are utilized for transaction processing, staking, and governance.
Lightnite
Lightnite is a Fortnite-style battle royale game developed by the same team behind the Bitcoin arcade game portal Satoshi's Games. Players are rewarded with Bitcoin for shooting other players in this online multiplayer game, and microtransactions are totally enabled by the Lightning Network.
Mastering the game and shooting more players increases your chances of receiving more Bitcoins. Players who are shot, on the other hand, are fined and lose Bitcoins.
Gods Unchained
This card fighter game is quite similar to Hearthstone, as it is one of many games inspired by Magic: The Gathering. To combat and destroy opponents, players create decks and play cards. Players can entirely own the cards they win in a blockchain-based game and sell or swap them whenever they want. Special cards, like physical collectible card games, are extremely uncommon and can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties is one of the first few games to draw attention to the promise of blockchain gaming and the one that kicked off the crypto-collectibles sector, but it's still going strong. Users can buy, breed, and exchange cute cartoon-like cats of various rarities. You own the cats, much like in other blockchain games, and you can freely sell them. CryptoKitties is a straightforward but addictive game.
Splinterlands
Splinterlands is a good example of a card fighter experience with a player-driven economy, and it's similar to Pokemon, Yugi-oh, and Magic. The game is simple and quick to learn, and all cards and packs have real value and may be freely traded. New cards can be purchased via the official in-game shop or the marketplace. Splinterlands receives continuous expansions and improvements, resulting in an ever-increasing number of players.
Sandbox
Players can own land, build, play, and participate in virtual experiences in this virtual world, or metaverse. You can monetize the experiences you create within the metaverse by owning a sandbox plot of virtual land, which can be a fun hobby for artists or tiny devs who aren't comfortable with other gaming engines.
Players eventually contribute to the metaverse's constant expansion by using the SAND token to buy and sell all Sandbox features. Players can buy and sell virtual land as well as trade NFTs, which can be used to customize their avatar's appearance.
Sandbox has grown in popularity alongside Minecraft and Roblox, and it lays a strong emphasis on building a flourishing community of users who can engage and exchange ideas to help the platform grow.
Conclusion
Blockchain gaming brings up a lot of possibilities. You'll have genuine ownership of game assets, and you'll be effectively a stakeholder through contributing to a community-driven ecosystem (DAO) and having your voice heard on game-related choices, in addition to making money in transparent and fair virtual economies.
None of this was conceivable in traditional, centralized gaming, and the more crypto games that develop, the greater the motivation for more players to participate in more fair and transparent virtual experiences. If playing video games isn’t your cup of tea you can always get crypto in a simple old-fashioned way, via CEX.IO exchange.