Given blockchain gaming is such as nascent field, any data about the people playing such games is valuable.
And Swiss outfit BitCrystals has been digging down into the motivations of players of F2P mobile blockchain game Spells of Genesis.
Lack of money and complex process were cited as the main reasons why players didn't use blockchain
It’s just released a survey of 513 gamers (from a pool of a couple of thousand) about their attitudes to blockchain gaming and cryptocurrencies.
(In the interests of full disclosure, I was one of those 513, and we were rewarded with 10 BCY (worth around $3) and a collectible card for filling in the survey.
The extremes of blockchain gaming
Unsurprisingly 91% of the survey were male, with the majority aged 25-44. In terms of geography, the US was #1 at 25%, followed by Japan (12%), Russia (5%), and with the UK and Canada at 4%.
44% of players had purchased or traded an item on the blockchain over the past 12 months, with lack of money and the process being too complex being the main reasons why 54% of players hadn’t interacted with the blockchain in this way.
It’s worth pointing out that in the case of Spells of Genesis, you can happily play the game without interacting with its blockchain component, which needs to be accessed through an external mobile wallet app.
Drilling down into players who had bought or traded items, it became clear that – just as with F2P mobile games – the distribution is skewed towards a very committed segment.
27% of players had bought 10 or more items, while 19% had spent more than $500 on such items.
Hence, the conclusion from the survey seems to be that while a lot of players are interested in blockchain games, the process and cost remain prohibitive. Meanwhile, a small number of blockchain gaming enthusiasts are very active.
Populating the gap between these two groups will be crucial if the sector is to reach a mass market audience in coming years.
You can check out the full survey, which covers plenty of other data points via the BitCrystals website.
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