Leo Li is the chief growth officer at data layer CARV.
Conditions are perfect for blockchain gaming heading into the new year. Off The Grid is delivering the fabled mainstream moment and Telegram is silently onboarding millions of users to crypto mini-games. The market hasn’t looked better.
Let’s dive into my reasons for blockchain gaming bullishness over the next 12 months and why – at long last – this will be the sector’s breakthrough year.
Off The Grid and Pixels show us that delivering fun and fairness is a recipe for success.
Leo Li
The games are fun
This is the year when blockchain gameplay finally caught up with modern expectations. I’ve always said that our games must first and foremost be fun and now we’re meeting this need.
Let’s start with Off The Grid. This early-access shooter has taken the internet by storm in just a few months. The coolest part? The game hasn’t just lit up crypto Twitter, but also lit up traditional Twitter. This is a necessary and important step since mainstream gaming acceptance won’t come if we only bank on those already invested in web3. Instead, we need traditional gamers embracing blockchain games because they’re fun, incentivizing, and keep players coming back. Great job, Gunzilla Games.
On the play-to-earn front, games are building out their universes with fuller experiences. Pixels enjoyed excellent growth becoming the most popular blockchain game for most of 2024. It’s easy to see why the game boomed shortly after moving from Polygon to Ronin – growing and tending crops, talking to villagers, and completing quests give gamers plenty to do. Playing alongside other avatars makes it an engrossing social experience.
Going forward, Pixels’ CEO notes the team is dedicated to protecting players with bot prevention, reward targeting, viral loops, and incentive structures. This is yet another decision with users in mind to level the playing field.
Off The Grid and Pixels show us that delivering fun and fairness is a recipe for success in 2025.
The onboarding is easy
This is also the year when onboarding became less of a headache. Gone are things like private key management and wallet onboarding in many cases, with invisible integration providing an easier onramp without users knowing it. Telegram is an ideal case study. After endorsing TON as its official web3 infrastructure and integrating wallet functionality, crypto quietly slipped into the pockets of hundreds of millions of users. As a result, we’ve seen crypto mini-games take off inside the trusted chat platform, with TON clicker Notcoin and its eponymous token rising to a market cap of more than half a billion dollars, and BANANA attracting 12 million players just over a month after launch.
The blockchain is invisible on the backend and the user doesn’t need to know the difference between on-chain and off-chain to start playing. This is the high-tech yet low-entry-barrier mix we’ve been waiting for.
Off The Grid follows this onboarding ethos. The game is web3 native but players choose whether to engage with features like minting in-game weapons or trading the forthcoming token – neither essential for the core gameplay experience. This represents a crucial evolution for games going forward. Rather than starting with the blockchain and trying to retrofit a game inside it, the sector is starting with excellent gameplay and using blockchain to further expression, storytelling, and the universe.
The vibes are good
Vibes are everything in crypto – and right now the blockchain gaming vibes are good. We’re witnessing a rise in gaming blockchains, exciting applications with AI, and an incoming political administration that’s friendly to the overall cause. The market is in a great position and every metric fills me with confidence for the year ahead.
Even more promising? The rise of identity and interoperability solutions that unite gaming profiles and unlock player history, achievements, and items across ecosystems. Our solution, CARV ID, is at record high with more than 3 million users counting an ecosystem footprint that enables data ownership, engagement, and monetization, vital for making digital assets useful for games and valuable in the new internet.
Of course, there are still hurdles. Web3 gamers don’t always have the kinds of customer protections that apply to traditional gamemakers and payment providers. For blockchain gaming to achieve true mainstream status, our sector must ensure security and protections on par with AAA games.
Still, with fun-first games, easy onboarding, and growing momentum, blockchain gaming is increasingly set to compete with the big leagues in 2025.
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