Crypto Gaming

Updated on April 20th 2022

Crypto Monetizing Game Play

Video games are played by over 2 billion people worldwide. More than a quarter of the world's population is represented by this figure. It's a $170 billion industry with a 10–12% yearly growth rate. Every day, both creators and players generate vast amounts of value. There hasn't been a straightforward mechanism for players to monetize that value until now.

You don't have to be a pro to make money playing video games thanks to Virago. The thriving amateur Fighting Game Community scene is known for being one of the most passionate in the world, and Virago has the potential to accelerate its exponential growth. It will reward those gamers who have kept ancient games alive for so long, while also bringing the blockchain's benefits to one of gaming's most devoted fanbases.

Virago is a blockchain-based arcade fighting game. It's not only entertaining and thrilling, but it also brings back the old fighting game feel and allows users to earn $TNGR tokens while playing against gamers from all over the world.

Video games are taken to a whole new level thanks to blockchain technology and a specialized gaming coin that allows users to make money while ensuring a transparent and finite supply of tokens.

Virago provides a comprehensive game economy that harnesses the power, trust, and transparency of blockchain to allow economic transactions within the Virago arcade game, using a compliant cryptographic token called TENGRI.

The $TNGR tokens can be purchased using a Blockchain wallet. They can then use them to play against other players from across the world, adding an added element of excitement to the proceedings and unlocking the amateur scene. $TNGR tokens can be used to buy new Skins, artifacts to customize their appearance. In single game fights, players can win $TNGR tokens from opponents, or they can enter tournaments and win the prize money in $TNGR tokens, which they can cash in by withdrawing their token from the platform.

Market Opportunity

With 2.7 billion gamers worldwide, the global gaming market (hereafter referred to as the market studied) was valued at USD 176 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 217.9 billion by 2023, registering a CAGR of 9.4 percent between 2018 and 2023. During the same time period, the blockchain gaming market, currently valued at $1.6 billion, is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2025. Currently, there are over 1042 blockchain games on the market. 'Play-to-Earn' has unlocked a new understanding of what players should expect from their experiences, and the meteoric growth in early Play-to-Earn gaming experiences suggests that gamers are very interested in how the communities they build should reward them. This pattern will continue.

These platforms are attracting hundreds of thousands of new visitors in online traffic as people look for ways to pass the time as a result of global lockdown measures. Consumer interest in video games has skyrocketed, even among non-traditional demographics. Companies such as Microsoft, Nintendo, Twitch, and Activision have set new records. Microsoft announced in April 2020 that the number of subscribers to Xbox Game Pass, a Netflix-like subscription service, had surpassed 10 million. Microsoft also reported a 130% increase in multiplayer engagement among those subscribers between March and April.

Market Trends

The blockchain gaming market is currently relatively small, yet the idea of Play-to-Earn in games is as old as video games itself. In Mario Bros, you collect coins. In Sonic, rings. Collecting in game is a primal acquisitive urge of the human psyche. Later gaming economies had gold, like in WoW, ISK in EVE online, and vBucks, in Fortnite - with various levels of sophistication and the ability for the players to ‘buy’ assets (that they never own).

Many have been monetized, but only ever at the expense of the player - not for them. While some larger gaming companies – such as Ubisoft and Square Enix – have begun dipping their toes into blockchain-based games, most development has been led by crypto native companies, who understand the value in surrendering custody of the economy to the players.

For players, blockchain gaming has the following key benefits:

1. Digital property rights: in traditional games, players purchase digital items (e.g., skins in Fortnite) and then can really only use these items in-game. Through the creation of NFTs facilitated by blockchain technology, these purchases transform an expense into an asset, creating actual secondary value from these purchases. These assets can be sold on the open market with the players earning directly from their abilities.

2. Provenance: virtual goods can now have rich histories and individuality. Imagine being able to own the exact, signed skin your favorite esports players used to win the world championship. In Virago, the challenger who wins the tournament can actually take the loser’s belt. The histories of those who held championship belts will illuminate the hall of fame

3. Security: The decentralized nature of most blockchains means players don’t need to trust any single developer. Their virtual goods can be demonstrably scarce, highly secure goods operated on a cryptographic, decentralized blockchain.

4. Interoperability and composability: while it will take time, blockchain technology has the potential to allow interaction across ecosystems by leveraging existing building blocks. Imagine players wearing their Fortnite skins in League of Legends.

5. Increased financialization: players can use their virtual items like traditional assets as collateral for usage in DeFi. For example, a player could secure financing for their next battle pass by lending out their high-end weapon.

6. Financial alignment in game economies: gamers can now participate in the economics of games they love. Developers can share a portion of their revenue with the game’s supporters by issuing tokens. Developers are also incentivized to continue to improve the game collaboratively to grow the value of the underlying token.

These benefits also affect creators and developers of blockchain games. Blockchain games provide a healthier game economy with the opportunity to monetize more players versus the free-to-play gaming model, as well as the chance to preside over a burgeoning ecosystem whose implicit value grows over time and organically.

In traditional free-to-play models, less than two percent of players are converted to paying customers of in-game items. In Play-to-Earn models, players are incentivized because of their ownership rights and the fact they can earn more through their skills.

Moreover, sharing a portion of the economics with gamers means less acquisition cost to get players onto your platform, as well as better economic alignment between gamers and developers.

These are early days for blockchain gaming. More blockchain games will be developed that capitalize the benefits listed, with more complex games tapping into the world of blockchain enabled virtual economies.

There is currently a huge gap in the market. Games of skill like fighting games have extremely devoted players, and there is a huge underground fighting game scene with amateur and professional tournaments all around the globe - and this is without the support of any developers promoting the space. The games are naturally competitive, and most who play them chiefly enjoy that aspect.

This represents ample opportunity to develop a game where two players match-up against each other and determine a winner based on skill, with the benefits of earning tokens for each match-up. Players are able to monetize their skills and benefit from the blockchain-enabled virtual economy.

The fighting game scene is hugely active, and it is the 6th most popular category among video gamers with a larger unit market share than Racing or Strategy games.

The top 10 fighting games tracked by Eventhub record 60K players competing in online multiplayer or tournaments against each other. If people do not want to compete in the actual games, they can still be part of the action by following the fights and tournaments in of the 43K streams per week covering the fighting game scene. Total viewer hours amount to 3.7M per week for the Fighting Game scene, compared to c. 17M viewer hours per week for Action RPG games.