One can sit back and grieve the dried up funding climate in web3 games. Peaking after covid, funding picked up significantly in 2021 and hit almost $4 billion in 2022. That’s a far cry from 2025’s projected $412 million.
Another option is to carry on regardless of funding, hoping that your game will find product-market-fit when market sentiments improve.
That’s not a very sensible strategy, however, as evident with the numerous web3 game developers recently shutting down their games or pivoting to web2.
More intriguing, and a better source of insight, are the games which defy current headwinds. Understanding why these haven’t gone to zero is a useful lesson for web3 game developers still grinding in the hope of finding a sustainable trajectory.
The investment times are a-changin’
Looking at the thousands of web3 game projects managing to secure millions during the generous funding years is shocking. It’s obvious that investors blindly put their belief, and money, into a promising trend rather than the quality of the individual games. What isn’t surprising is that a majority of mentioned games are now either gone, or are struggling to stay above the surface.
As the sector has matured, investors have sobered. Web3 game developers can no longer expect to raise investment based on passionate visions alone. Now, at least one of two things are needed; reputation and solid metrics.
More particularly, this boils down to
- Tried and tested models rather than whacky ideas and nonsensical never-ending whitepapers
- Realistic retention data rather than hype
- Strong reliable teams as opposed to undoxxed degens having never made a game before
So what are some games making it work, and what differentiates them from the chaff?
Who’s leading the pack?
Certainly there are at least one or two more, but Wildcard from Paul and Katy Drake Bettner’s Playful Studios, EVE Frontier from CCP Games, and Soccerverse from UK-developer Soccerverse are examples of games having found the sweet spot in more ways than one.
All being genuinely product-focused, Playful Studios announced it is even allocating all web3 features to its associated Thousands streaming platform to enhance the Wildcard community. This allows the team to devote its attention to gameplay without having to balance it with blockchain integration for the sake of it, still rewarding Wildcard’s true followers and players. Something also helping the team in terms of funding is of course Bettner’s CV containing Words with Friends and Age of Empires.
EVE Frontier isn’t just a game. It’s a whole new way of leveraging blockchain to enable open-source UGC and expand a game universe that couldn’t exist without its underlying decentralised technology. Notably, CCP Games is possibly the only developer in the space managing to make sense of its use of web3 features to the point of even convincing the strongest industry antagonists.
Similarly, Soccerverse has roots spanning back decades in Soccer Manager Worlds. This is combined with a fully onchain economy built on tried and tested principles.
Based on real-world football, the basic management element in Soccerverse is almost a sub-part of the game. Its overarching blockchain-based features enable managers to own their clubs and weekly SVC token earnings, unlocking a meta-game that wouldn’t be possible without web3.
What unites these games is that each game is bigger than the token.
Although the token enhances and enables features, the game is designed to withstand a falling token price.
Most web3 games aren’t built on that principle, and that’s one of the reasons most web3 games are either dead or dying. Those who want to succeed, need to learn from the ones that aren’t.
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