Analysis of the Blockchain Gaming Industry in November 2024: Development and Challenges Driven by the Bull Run

In November 2024, the Web3 gaming industry achieved significant growth against the backdrop of an overall improving market, but still faces challenges in mass adoption. With Bitcoin prices approaching the $100,000 mark, the gaming sector's market value soared by 79.1% to $35.1 billion. Despite strong performance in traditional metrics, with daily active users reaching 5.5 million, the industry still has some issues regarding Blockchain integration and large-scale adoption.

Macroeconomic Market Overview

In November, the cryptocurrency market performed strongly, with Bitcoin rising 39.0% from $69,386 to $96,427, followed closely by Ethereum, which increased 47.8% to $3,711. Bitcoin's market value surpassed silver and Saudi Aramco, becoming the seventh largest asset in the world.

The results of the U.S. elections have become an important factor for the growth of the cryptocurrency market, potentially affecting future cryptocurrency legislation and regulatory environments. The market has reacted positively, particularly reflected in the performance of emerging areas such as memecoins, decentralized artificial intelligence, and decentralized science.

The broader financial markets are also performing strongly. The financial sector leads the stock market amid expectations of US tax reform and deregulation. However, there has been some volatility in international markets, with the renminbi being under pressure due to concerns over potential increased tariffs from the US, while gold prices have fallen as election-related uncertainties have eased.

Blockchain Game Market Overview

In November, the market value of blockchain game tokens surged from $19.6 billion to $35.1 billion, with the average daily trading volume increasing by 79.4% to $11.9 million.

Daily active users have reached a new high, with an average daily DAU of 5.5 million, an increase of 15.7% compared to October. This growth is mainly attributed to the sustained user activity on opBNB and the solid performance of the Ronin ecosystem.

The trading indicators show complexity. Although the average daily trading volume reached 15.3 million transactions (an increase of 3.3% compared to October), the average number of transactions per user per day decreased from 3.131 to 2.810. The total monthly trading volume remains stable at 460.4 million transactions, and the data indicates a declining trend in the usage intensity of blockchain features by new users.

Some gaming projects have begun to adopt new strategies for applying blockchain technology, such as positioning themselves as traditional games with optional blockchain elements, rather than "NFT games". This strategy of "making blockchain features optional and invisible" helps to lower the user threshold, but also raises thoughts about the role of blockchain in games.

The entire blockchain gaming sector still faces technical challenges, as existing blockchain infrastructure struggles to meet the real-time gameplay, competitive matchmaking, and high throughput demands of modern games. While Layer 2 solutions and specialized gaming public chains are emerging, the gap between traditional gaming performance expectations and blockchain capabilities continues to impact development strategies.

Blockchain Game Public Chain Overview

In November, the number of active games reached 1,696, an increase of 4.6% compared to October. BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum remain the market leaders, with shares of 20.9%, 15.4%, and 13.4%, respectively.

opBNB continues to maintain growth momentum, with a 46.1% increase in average DAU compared to October. Ronin shows significant recovery, with November DAU doubling from 600,000 to 1.2 million, thanks to new partnerships and the launch of new games.

The TON gaming ecosystem is facing challenges, with DAU dropping by 41.9% to 116,400. Sui's average DAU in November was 233,300, an increase of 23.1% from the previous month, mainly contributed by the Telegram game BIRDS.

More industry participants are starting to get involved in the construction of Blockchain game infrastructure. Yield Guild Games has launched Studio Chain, B3 has introduced an open game layer and Prime Chain, providing infrastructure support for the ambitious sci-fi card game Parallel.

Blockchain Game Overview

As of the end of November, there are a total of 3,602 blockchain games in the industry, of which 1,361 are active. 298 games attracted more than 1,000 monthly active users, accounting for 21.9% of active games.

There is a significant gap between Telegram platform users and their participation in Blockchain. Even for MemeFi, which achieves the highest conversion rate among the top 10 games, its on-chain user participation rate is only 7.96%.

Despite facing conversion challenges, the success of the Telegram gaming ecosystem is inspiring imitation from social media platforms. The instant messaging platform Line has announced plans to launch 30 mini dApps by the end of January and expand to 150 by the end of the first quarter of 2025, primarily focusing on gaming applications.

At the same time, the Solana-based project Sonic X has surpassed 1 million KYC-verified users through TikTok, demonstrating the potential of social platforms as gateways for Web3 games.

Blockchain Game Investment and Financing Situation

In November, Web3 games secured 18 financing rounds, totaling $73.6 million. Although the number of events increased by five compared to October, the total amount declined by 22.3%.

Monkey Tilt leads this month with a Series A funding of $30 million, led by Pantera Capital. The platform combines gaming, entertainment, and betting features, achieving a monthly betting volume of $200 million since its launch in March.

Animoca Brands追加投资1,000万美元于Mocaverse，以支持其进一步开发可互操作的基础设施，以促进主流加密货币的采用。

Overall, despite the favorable conditions for growth provided by the current bull run, the Web3 gaming industry is still seeking a balance to maintain its crypto-native appeal and achieve mass adoption. The development of technological infrastructure and innovative application strategies will be key to the future growth of the industry.