The Web3 gaming industry is moving towards real rise

research methods

This research focuses on two core aspects:

• Analyze the internal structure of the game subfield
• Draw a panoramic view of the main projects in the current market

The research subjects include leading projects with a market capitalization of over $50 million, as well as large games that have not yet issued tokens but are highly regarded in the community. For projects that involve multiple fields, we categorize them into the most relevant vertical tracks.

Game Ecosystem Overview

As of January 2025, the Web3 gaming ecosystem can be divided into three main verticals: infrastructure, gaming, and ecosystem.

Infrastructure encompasses the technical underpinnings of Web3 games, including development frameworks, game engines, AI tools, data management systems, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks. To simplify categorization, this standard adopts a relatively broad definition. For example, the "data" category includes not only data analytics platforms but also protocols for data rights confirmation within games.

The game category includes all playable Web3 game types and is subdivided by different gameplay styles. Among them, "AA+ games" represent higher quality vertical tracks.

The ecosystem project aims to build network effects, covering platforms, studios, gaming guilds, task systems, and incubators/launch platforms. The platform mainly refers to the aggregated entry providing game distribution channels.

Market Overview Analysis

Overall Trends in Web3 Gaming

Trading Volume: Although the trading volume remains high, it has decreased compared to the peak in 2022.

Annual Funding Scale: Dropped sharply from $84 billion in 2021 to $5.58 billion in 2024.

• 2021-2022: Speculative sentiment drove capital inflows, with NFT assets, GameFi tokens, and the "play-to-earn" model dominating the market, but lacking sustainable user stickiness.
• 2024-2025: Speculative funds decrease, actual player participation rises, indicating the industry is transitioning to real gaming demand.

Daily Active Players: The user base continues to rise, and the game adoption rate is constantly increasing.

Web3 Game Market Value: After excluding the anomalous peak at the end of 2021, the current market value shows little difference compared to the early days, reflecting an improvement in the health of the industry:

• Early (2021-2022): Highly speculative, few users but NFT and token hype drives up market value.
• Current stage (2024-2025): Speculation subsides, real players dominate the market.

game type trend

Developer Structure: The proportion of independent developers is rising, mainly due to a decrease in venture capital and the maturity of development tools. With the improvement of tools, a surge in the number of games is expected in the future.

Project Survival Rate: With the end of the bear market in 2023, studios and publishers are regaining interest in Web3 games, leading to a significant increase in the number of new releases.

Web3 ecosystem chain dynamics

Top Chain Performance: Certain chain and certain Layer 2 solutions have risen the fastest over the past 12 months:

• Certain chain: Added 181 games (year-on-year +71%), of which 33% of the projects migrated from other chains.
• A certain Layer2: Added 119 new games with the help of a dedicated framework (year-on-year +68%), of which 23 are dedicated chains for Web3 games.

User Distribution: In terms of user base, both chains still hold a dominant position.

Migration Trend: A certain chain has become the chain with the most migration projects, indicating fierce ecological competition, and stability still needs to be improved.

smart contract development environment

EVM Dominance: 81% of new game chains are still based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), mainly due to:

• The development tools for non-EVM chains are still immature;
• The migration cost is relatively high.

Developer Choice: The project party actively seeks a better development environment, which forces the ecosystem to continuously innovate to maintain competitiveness.

Conclusion

Web3 games are shifting from speculation-driven to core focus on real users and sustainable development. Although the trading volume has decreased, the rise in daily active users indicates that the industry is maturing.

• Infrastructure layer: The improvement of tools has attracted more independent developers, and decentralized physical infrastructure and AI technology have further strengthened the technological foundation.

• Ecological competition: a certain chain and a certain Layer 2 become the main migration destinations, while the EVM chain still dominates the market.

• Future challenges lie in ecological stability, project retention rates, and the development of high-quality games. The next phase will focus on:

1. Innovation
2. On-chain deep integration
3. User Experience Optimization

Decentralized games will enter a new phase of development.