Axie Infinity, other blockchain games can’t keep players around, according to new report

Blockchain games are really struggling right now, it seems. First, they were kicked off of Steam, and now a new report claims that player numbers are dropping significantly.

Coin Desk reports that game-specific cryptocurrencies for the likes of Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and Decentraland are all down, despite large investments from venture capital firms. Hand in hand with that value drop comes a loss of players: Axie Infinity’s daily users shrunk by 30% over the past 30 days. The Sandbox and Decentraland saw player drops of 29% and 15%, respectively, over the same time period. But even without those drops, peak numbers for these blockchain games don’t hold a candle to top games on Steam and the Epic Game Store.

These are certainly not reassuring stats, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen such hand-wringing news. Axie Infinity’s numbers have been threatening to slip since October 2021, and a $625 million heist of its proprietary coin last month didn’t help.

Of course, many gamers want nothing to do with blockchain- and NFT-centric games in the first place. Xbox boss Phil Spencer is concerned about their potentially exploitative nature, and Ubisoft’s Quartz program has seen sluggish sales since its debut. That’s why studios like Battlestate have pledged to have no NFTs in Escape from Tarkov.