Graphics, user experience, gameplay, loading times, and general game quality have all improved thanks massively to technological advancements in the video gaming industry since the early 1980s. Now, with the advent of mobile gaming, it seems there’s an opportunity for blockchain technology to step in and usher in another new and lucrative stage for gaming on the go. But does this opportunity point towards blockchain as the future of mobile gaming? 

Mobile gaming by the numbers

By the end of 2019, research suggests that mobile gaming will generate a total of $68.5 billion in revenues – the equivalent of 45% of the total global gaming industry.

The market is huge, and it’s set to keep on growing. It has been estimated that 2.4 billion people are currently playing mobile games, with users in the US even preferring their mobile devices over their televisions. A total of $9.6 billion has been invested into innovation and development in the industry over the past 18 months alone. With good reason – mobile games now account for 33% of all app downloads and 74% of mobile-related consumer spending.vast 

Also, read – How Blockchain Technology Revolutionizes Gaming Industry.

The power of kittens 

With its ease of use, anonymity, and decentralized aspect, blockchain tech seems like it would be a natural partner to the fast-paced mobile gaming industry. So far, however, it’s yet to experience widespread adoption and integration, having made a splash barely within specific mobile gaming verticals. Interestingly, while the iGaming genre – with its play-for-real money apps and sports betting widgets – has been slow to integrate cryptocurrency despite it seeming like one of the first genres that would; other genres, including Platform and Hyper-Casual, have been much quicker on the uptake. 

Probably the most lucrative mobile game built on distributed ledger tech is CryptoKitties. This Ethereum-based app held its alpha launch in October 2017 and had already processed over $12 million in sales within three months. A kind of 21st century Tamagotchi – with a buying and selling element – CryptoKitties allows players to breed, trade, and buy digital kittens using cryptocurrency. Because everyone loves kittens, right? 

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest keys to this seemingly unassuming game’s success is that its developers, publishers, and advertisers aren’t the only ones who can profit from it. Players can generate tangible crypto assets, which they can then sell to other players in the game – something that never happens in traditional PC and console gaming. 

#Polygon raised $450m and #Voodoo 🇫🇷 one of the leading companies in mobile gaming is backing them.

Why? Voodoo announced in Q4-21 that they wanted to jump in hyper-casual crypto #Play2earn games.

The future of #Blockchain games on mobile is coming 🎮 📱 pic.twitter.com/XeImCInzPy

— Lucas Sornin (@lucas_sornin) February 8, 2022

A digital ecosystem

If there is a future for blockchain and mobile gaming, it will depend on solid ecosystems for different currencies, something that Itam Games is currently trying to establish. The company recently launched a mobile gaming-focused platform that runs on EOS (although they are pushing for blockchain expansion). It includes a store and exchange for users to safely trade the nonfungibles (NFT) they earn while playing its new RPG, Dark Town. Throughout the game, players can make NFT and transparently store, manage and trade them in their online wallets. Supporting this is Itam’s Digital Asset Decentralized Exchange – a system that filters the nonfungibles players earn according to the game developer, price, rarity, and genre. 

Item isn’t the only one to take blockchain in this direction for mobile. The public blockchain TomoChain is in the process of launching a new protocol – TomoZ – that will enable users to play decentralized games and apps on its platform without needing to purchase ETH or TOMO before they start. Since their digital assets are built on the TomoChain platform, users can trade them across different games with the supporting TomoX protocol. 

It’s too early to tell whether these new tools will have the impact needed to make blockchain more mainstream in the mobile gaming industry, but establishing new crypto-based economies does sound promising.