DappRadar: $739 million invested in blockchain games in Q1 2023

Web3 gaming projects attracted $739 million in investment according to a new report from DappRadar and the Blockchain Games Alliance. Only 60% of these funds – $434 million – were raised by March 2023.

$214 million – almost half of March’s funding – was invested in gaming and metaverse companies. Another $159 million went to infrastructure companies. In comparison, 10 million dollars invested in NFT companies is a small part of the total funds.

The report also analyzes the trends in the number of wallets and chain transactions in the last quarter. This report updates the Q1 2023 report with additional data from March. It is important to note that unique active wallets do not necessarily translate directly to unique users, as consumers may own multiple wallets. However, it is a strong metric for a game’s activity.

In March 2023, daily unique active wallets (dUAW) connecting to blockchain gaming dapps averaged just over 740,000. This is a 3% decrease from the previous month.

Despite this decline, blockchain games accounted for 44% of activity in March and 45% in Q1 2023. This is up from Q4 2022, where blockchain games accounted for 42% of dUAW activity. This suggests that blockchain games are stickier than other types of dapps.

Top blockchain gaming protocols

Wax remains the most active blockchain gaming protocol, averaging around 314,000 dUAW in March – reaching around 42% of dUAW. However, this is down 8% from 342,000 dUAW in February.

In contrast, Polygon overtook Hive for the second most active protocol. In March, Polygon averaged 138,000 dAUW – up 53% from February. DappRadar attributes this increase to the success of Hunters On-Chain by BoomLand and Planet IX. The latter accounted for 43% of Polygon’s activity.

Hive is on a downward trend, reaching 27% fewer dUAW on average than February. 99% of the protocol’s activity is driven by Splinterlands, which shows how crucial the game’s success is to Hive.

The best blockchain games of the month

Alien Worlds continues to hold the top spot as the blockchain game with the highest number of unique active wallets – reaching 580,000 in March 2023. The title was also the most played blockchain game in Q1 2023.

Hunters On-Chain, Planet IX and Yuliver surged in dUAW last month. Hunters On-Chain debuted in March while Planet IX and Yuliver grew by 708% and 2,656% respectively. Plant IX announced an agreement with GAMEE, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, to sponsor tournaments. Meanwhile, Yuliver announced exclusive benefits for OG NFT holders that likely triggered transactions.

Key trends for blockchain gaming

The report describes an increase in activity for virtual worlds. Trading activity in virtual worlds ended the quarter at $350 million – the best quarter since Q2 2022. DappRadar recorded over 67,000 virtual land transactions in March, nearly half of the quarter’s total of over 143,000.

In addition, the report covers Yuga Lab’s growing list of partnerships and Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse. The full report is available today.