Blockchain gaming faces several challenges in 2025. Tobin Kuo, CEO of blockchain gaming company Seraph, told Cointelegraph that sustaining player engagement, adopting new technologies, and building sustainable in-game economies were the hurdles GameFi must overcome to remain viable.
According to Kuo, over 60% of players disengage from Web3 games after only 30 days. The CEO said a lack of long-term incentives and poor gameplay mechanics were behind the Web3 gaming sustainability problem. Kuo told Cointelegraph:
“As the attention economy accelerates, projects must prioritize player-centric design, focusing on immersive storytelling, skill-based rewards, and game mechanics that go beyond ‘earn-first’ models instead of relying on trend-based attention.”
Building better blockchain games in 2025 also requires integrating new technologies such as generative AI to enhance player experiences.
The Seraph CEO said that GameFi projects failing to integrate nascent tech typically record 30%-40% reductions in player retention compared to projects embracing new technologies.
A poll of Web3 gaming professionals shows the biggest negative impact on the GameFi sector in 2024. Source: Blockchain Game Alliance
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Building sustainable in-game economies
“Unstable in-game economies are a leading cause of project insolvency,” Kuo said. Building sustainable token models for Web3 games that control inflation and feature data-driven player rewards was key to maintaining player retention. The CEO explained:
“Strategies such as dynamic loot distribution, staking-based rewards, and player-controlled economies via decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are likely to emerge as best practices for sustainable GameFi development.”
Clicker games like Hamster Kombat are a prime example. Hamster Kombat captured headlines in July after the game surpassed 300 million users in less than five months.
However, the game experienced an 86% reduction in active users following a token airdrop, which was considered the largest in crypto history.
As of November, the game only had 41 million players compared to the 300 million peak levels recorded during the summer.
State of the blockchain gaming industry in 2024
The Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) recently released its 2024 State of the Industry Report, which polled 623 professionals from the Web3 gaming industry.
According to the report, approximately 53% of respondents indicated poor user experience (UX) and complex user interfaces (UI) present the biggest challenges to onboarding new players to Web3 games.
Industry professionals outline the main problems facing the GameFi sector. Source: Blockchain game Alliance
An earlier report from the BGA revealed that 10% of users were deterred from Web3 gaming due to complexities in setting up a crypto wallet.
During a panel at the Blockchain Futurist Conference in August, Long Do, CEO of Anomaly Games, said abstracting away blockchain features so players did not know they were interacting onchain was key to driving adoption.
The BGA’s 2024 report also showed that 33% of respondents said poor gameplay experiences were one of the top three challenges currently facing the industry.
A OnePoll survey conducted earlier in 2024, polling over 2,000 adults, found that the majority of gamers polled were unaware of blockchain gaming.
According to the survey, 52% of respondents did not know what blockchain games are, and another 32% indicated they heard of blockchain games but never played one.
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