Crypto Games Roundup: Week 4 of March 2023

The closing week of Q1 is seeing investments into Web3 rising and Dappradar reporting record volumes for metaverse NFTs. Alien Worlds is strengthening its position as the top game while others have taken a small hit. Yuliverse, which entered the top ten last week, has fallen off for now. The studio behind EVE Online is joining the Web3 gaming effort and has secured funding for $40M.

Yuliverse Lets You Earn, and Make Friends

Yuliverse is a metaverse game that is taking the gaming world by storm. Inspired by Pokemon Go & Tinder, the game runs parallel to the real world, offering players a new and exciting lifestyle that is both socially and economically rewarding. Currently, Yuliverse has thousands of storylines that players can explore and complete, earning in-game tokens ($ARG and $ART) in the process.

Bitcoin Miner Celebrates Reaching 1M Players

Bitcoin Miner, a play-to-earn mobile game, has surpassed one million users, marking a major milestone. The game was created by Zebedee in partnership with European studio Fumb Games, and it offers players the opportunity to earn Bitcoin as they play. The crypto rewards are generated by the game's revenue. This unique feature has attracted experienced crypto traders and newcomers alike to the world of digital currencies.

EVE Online Creator Raises $40M for New Web3 Game

CCP Games, the company behind the popular MMO game EVE Online, has raised $40 million to develop a new game that will be integrated with blockchain technology. The game, which is currently codenamed "Project Awakening", will take place within the EVE Online universe but will be a standalone Web3 game. 

Yuga Labs Opens Otherside Metaverse for a Day

Yuga Labs’ Otherside Metaverse is set to launch its “Second Trip” on March 25. They are most known as the parent company of the popular NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club, and now they are offering access to a gamified test of their metaverse platform. The test will open to Otherdeed NFT owners and it will feature a two-hour narrative experience led by four team captains. Up to 10,000 voyagers will be able to participate on a first-come-first-serve basis. Non-holders can also watch a live stream of the event on the company's YouTube channel.

Q1 Metaverse NFTs Trading Volume Grows to $311M

Q1 of 2023 has witnessed a meteoric rise in the trading of NFTs in the metaverse. A report by DappRadar reveals that metaverse NFT trading volumes have surged to an all-time high of $311 million. The rise has been driven by various incentives offered by platforms such as Yuga Labs, Blur, and Decentraland. A total of 147,000 trades were conducted in different metaverses, with the Otherside Metaverse leading the pack. NFTs linked to Otherside amassed a trading volume of $222 million, which is a 237% increase from the previous quarter.

Weekly top players by game

Here's a look at this week's most successful crypto games according to DappRadar. Yuliverse has fallen off the board. Join our weekly mailing list to get the news and statistics straight to your email. 

* The number of players refers to UAW, or Unique Active Wallets. This means the number of in-game players with an active wallet that is used for transactions. This doesn't take into account players who don't use or haven't used their wallets in-game.

Game spotlight of the week: Hunters On-Chain

In our Superb spotlight this week is Hunters On-Chain. We tried out their recent tournament with our team and were impressed by the flowing gameplay and had lots of fun. The game is an arcade-like action RPG battle, where four players venture to the open arena to battle monsters and gather XP from their corpses. The monsters scale after each round and it's up to you to survive the whole three minutes. It gets extra points for the ease of signing up as this can be really difficult with some Web3 games.

Hunters On-Chain is a Web3 adaptation of the well-received mobile game Hunt Royale, which garnered more than seven million installations both on AppStore and Google Play. The team behind the game realized its potential for further growth, even though it was already a major hit, and so they came up with the idea of tokenizing it. This was in January 2022, almost a year after Hunt Royale's release in March 2021.