[NEW] Approximately 75% of Web 3.0 games fail: CoinGecko announces survey results

On the 29th of last month, CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency statistics website, released a report on Web 3.0 games. According to the report, 2,817 Web 3.0 games have been launched in the past five years, but 2,127 titles, or 75.5%, have failed.

Approximately 75% of these Web 3.0 games are inactive.

After the success of "Crypto Kitties" released in the second half of 2017, Web 3.0 games were released one after another. Metaverse games such as Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND), and P2E (Play to Earn) games such as Axie Infinity (AXS) became popular games.

Among Web 3.0 games based on the P2E model, M2E (Move to Earn) became popular overnight. A representative example is STEPN, where you can earn money by walking. The system, which allows users to earn crypto assets by playing games, has attracted the support of many users.

However, fundamental problems such as the games themselves being uninteresting and the proliferation of similar games have also been highlighted.

Fluctuation in failure rate depends on cryptocurrency market trends

According to a CoinGecko report, 422 Web 3.0 games were released in 2018, but 307 failed. Furthermore, cryptocurrency was in a bear market from 2019 to 2020, and GameFi's development slowed down. Only 244 Web 3.0 games were released in these two years. At the same time, the failure rate of Web 3.0 games rose to 94.3% in 2019 and remained high at 94.2% in 2020.

On the other hand, due to the bull market for cryptocurrency in 2021, the failure rate of Web 3.0 games reached an all-time low of 45.9%. Although the number of failed games has increased sharply to 339, exceeding 2018, the failure rate itself has improved significantly, helped by the bull market.

On the other hand, the number of failed Web 3.0 games in 2022 has more than doubled from the previous year. In fact, 742 failed, the highest ever. Despite the rapid launch of Web 3.0 games, the failure rate was 107.1%.

This trend continues in 2023, with 509 Web 3.0 games having failed so far. This is 70.7% of the Web 3.0 games launched this year.

However, CoinGecko points out that the decline in failure rate "may indicate that the situation of Web 3.0 games is stabilizing." This also suggests that Web 3.0 games may have entered a period of stability.

In this study, we surveyed 2,817 Web 3.0 games launched between 2018 and 2023, and identified the number of games that became inactive based on analysis data as of November 27, 2023. Inactivity is defined as a decrease of 99% or more from the peak number of 14-day moving average active users.

Development accelerates in Japan

Although the situation in Japan is not booming, there are still efforts to work on Web 3.0 games. Major game companies such as Square Enix, Gree, and Konami have already announced their entry and are working on development.

In the future, as these major game companies enter the Web 3.0 game field, Japan's position in the industry may improve.

Reference:Report
Image: Shutterstock

Related articles

STEPN developer Find Satoshi Lab releases test version of second game "Gas Hero"

DMM to release NFT strategic trading card game "Duelyst3.0"