After Axie Infinity, many GameFi projects sprung up and then died

In mid-2021, Axie Infinity attracted the attention of the cryptocurrency investor community because of the sharp increase in the token price. This game helps many people in the Philippines, Indonesia make money during the epidemic period. The project opens the play-to-earn trend, growing until the end of 2021.

However, currently, Axie Infinity is still the leading NFT game, far ahead of other titles in terms of player count despite the sharp drop in stats. In the midst of the “downtrend” market period, the cryptocurrencies of GameFi projects are also the most affected group.

The Decline of the NFT . Game

More hacks 600 million USD into Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge to influence the entire market and GameFi projects. The problem has been temporarily resolved by the bailout 150 million USD led by Binance. However, the decline of NFT games is more evident through the event.

According to aggregated data from Sky Mavis, before the attack took place, the number of active users on the game was only 1.48 million, down 45% from the peak of nearly 3 million in November 2021. . Despite the sharp decline, Axie Infinity is still the leading game in the GameFi segment.

Axie Infinity’s daily active players drop drastically. Photo: Bloomberg.

“Axie Infinity handles 3 times more NFT transaction volume than other chains, excluding Ethereum. There are 2.6 million people who own Axie, which is 4 times more than the 2nd NFT game. With 2.2 million players, Axie Infinity is the biggest NFT game of all time,” Sky Mavis wrote in the announcement.

A project that has gone downhill but is still far behind other games in the GameFi array. This proves that the growth rate of the NFT game industry has slowed down after the peak recorded at the end of 2021.

According to Mr. Pham Nguyen Anh Huy, Senior Lecturer in Finance, founder of RMIT University’s Crypto and Financial Technology Center, the market is gradually reaching the point of saturation, too many players participate to make a profit. This leads to the GameFi trend slowing down and clearly diverging.

In December 2021, the bear market period following the sharp drop in the price of Bitcoin, GameFi-related assets were among the hardest hit. As noted by The Defiant, a series of large projects such as Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Decentraland decreased by more than 30% in value.

In addition, the problem of scams and sell-offs (rug-pull) kept happening, making investors no longer trust this model. In Vietnam, projects like Zuki Moba and Crypto Bike cause great damage to domestic investors.

Many low-quality, heavy-money games

After the development of the GameFi trend, many big players in the field of video games expressed their desire to participate in this market. Many studios opened by announcing the integration of NFT elements into popular games.

GSC Game World, the studio behind STALKER, said it will integrate NFT into the game’s sequel. This led to a wave of protests from fans on social networks.

The developers’ intention to integrate NFT was opposed by gamers. Photo: Activity.

“The publisher takes advantage of the popularity of the game to make a profit. They act for profit, not a quality game,” Chiristian Lantz, a gamer living in Ontario, US told the New York Times.

“Bad graphics, boring gameplay, crappy tactics, nothing attractive at all,” said Duc Hanh, a longtime gamer, who used to spend time “plowing” Axie Infinity.

According to this player, compared to traditional titles, GameFi Axie Infinity has no chance to compete. “Honestly, not for money, even if I begged, I wouldn’t even play that game,” Mr. Hanh concluded.

Talking to Zing, Pham Nguyen Anh Huy said that the gameplay and graphics of NFT games were a disappointment to electronic players. “Those projects seem to be created only for the sake of making money,” Huy said.

Many NFT projects are developed in a short time, lack of investment from the team. Sharing with Zing, Mr. Bao Hoang, who hired the designer for the Crypto Bike project, said that the game’s graphics were completed within a few days, the investor did not care about the ugly. Meanwhile, the gameplay of this game is nothing but mouse clicks.

Financial factors are heavily emphasized

The term GameFi is formed with two components, Game and Fi (Finance). However, the financial factor in the projects is of great concern while the core of the platform must lie in the gameplay.

According to Mr. Anh Huy, if GameFi 2.0 really takes shape, projects need to improve on gameplay and graphics to attract and retain players, not just depending on the current monetization mechanism.

The financial factor dominates the game in a GameFi project. Photo: Defiant.

According to Anh Huy, current blockchain games have a saturation point. There, the number of people investing was too large, while no new players joined, leading to the depletion of the bonus fund. Therefore, the model for an NFT game to operate sustainably is to still attract new players, retain old gamers even when no longer making money.

With Axie Infinity, at the same time this game peaked in terms of the number of participants, investor income also dropped sharply.

In November 2021, researchers from blockchain game market analysis firm Naavik reported that Axie Infinity’s game player revenue is decreasing day by day, even lower than the minimum wage of the Philippines – a country with a decent number of players. big.

“The project will be stable when users are willing to use the platform even if they lose money. In other words, a well-balanced model must have a larger number of users spending than making money,” said Wu Blockchain, an expert in the blockchain industry and exclusive news on Bitcoin mining in China.

Recently, several models have emerged as GameFi’s solution to this problem. StepN is still a form of NFT game but with integrated social (SocialFi) is running. Thanks to that, the project creates novelty and attracts participants. In addition, some major platforms also continuously upgrade the game, expand the community, and tournament to retain participants.

(According to Zing)

It may take 2 years for Axie Infinity to recover stolen cryptos

Game creator Axie Infinity hopes to recover at least part of the nearly $600 million in cryptocurrency stolen by hackers from systems associated with the game, although the process can be lengthy.