While Axie Infinity may be the star of the show, DappRadar’s Q3 2021 blockchain gaming health report shows many other games ahead in terms of unique active wallets (UAW).
As predicted, the research notes that play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, and to a lesser extent, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are propelling growth in the blockchain gaming market.
With that in mind, has gaming become the new high-definition television? According to DappRadar’s analysis, 1.54 million UAWs were registered in the third quarter of this year. They note that this is a 25% quarter-over-quarter increase and a 509 percent year-over-year increase.
Nearly half of the 1.54 million wallets, 754,000, are associated with blockchain gaming. This, they claim, is due to the increasing popularity of P2E games.
The seven-day trailing average for UAWs reveals a surge in games around July, peaking at little around 1,100. By comparison, DeFi reached a year-to-date peak of slightly over 1,100 UAWs in May and has subsequently experienced a precipitous fall, resulting in a range average of between 500 and 700 afterwards.
While this is impressive for the gaming industry, DappRadar notes that UAW refers to unique addresses connecting with a certain smart contract. Due to the possibility that an individual may have many wallets, this measure should not be viewed in the same manner as daily active users.
“Unique Active Wallets (UAW) or unique wallets refer to unique addresses that interact with a given smart contract; therefore, UAW does not translate to (daily) active users (DAU). A single individual might utilize different wallets to interact with a single dapp.”
Axie Infinity is the star, but only for a little time.
Axie Infinity is a cryptocurrency similar to Pokémon, however it runs on the Ethereum network. And with rumours that some users earn hundreds of dollars each month playing it, it’s unsurprising that its monthly user base exceeded 1.8 million in August.
However, DappRadar claims that seven other blockchain games outperformed it in terms of UAW engagements over the previous 30 days. The most popular game was Alien Worlds on WAX, followed by Splinterlands on Hive and Arc8 on Polygon in third place.
Despite a 53 percent increase in active wallets quarter over quarter, WAX’s dominance (as a gaming blockchain) dropped by 31% compared to Q2. This is because other blockchains, most notably BSC and Hive, saw tremendous growth in Q3.
With P2E adding an element of entertainment, it’s possible that gaming metrics may continue to drift further away from DeFi in the future.
