Introduction

Polygon has consistently grabbed headlines with mainstream partnerships, a $450M venture raise, and a $1B investment into scaling solutions. But how has Polygon’s gaming ecosystem fared?

2022 has been an amalgamation of pain and disappointment for crypto gaming. Almost a year into the crypto winter, highly anticipated games have delayed their launches or departed for competitors. The current first-generation of play-to-earn (P2E) games are suffering from diminishing incentives which harm their player bases. However, not all hope is lost, with some popular games within the ecosystem retaining their loyal communities.

This report will cover the Polygon gaming ecosystem through the 2022 bear market — an analysis of top projects, critiques, and an optimistic look into 2023.

Polygon Network vs. Polygon DeFi vs. Polygon Gaming

Transaction Comparison

The past six months within the cryptocurrency industry have been a calamity. From digital asset prices to protocol treasuries, metrics have plummeted. However, transactions within the Polygon network have remained relatively stable despite the turbulent market conditions. The same has been true for DeFi, but not for Polygon’s gaming ecosystem.

Gaming transactions within the Polygon network have dropped 40% since late May, from 429k to 255k. Gaming transactions have lost 5% of their market share relative to the Polygon network overall, falling from 15% to 10%. The basic assumption from declining transactions suggests that blockchain gaming is withering. Factors include declining players, unprofitable P2E rewards, and gaming dApps losing treasury runway. Obviously, this is not unique to Polygon.

Unique Users Comparison

A comparison of unique users portrays an opposing narrative. DeFi users have declined by 18% from May, as plummeting token prices resulted in dying yield farming opportunities and less trading-related activity. Surprisingly, the number of unique users within the gaming sector has remained stable. Gaming users have increased by 1.4%, suggesting successful retention of users. Successful retention strongly correlates with the growth of Polygon users. The number of unique users on the Polygon network has trended upwards, up 72% with users peaking at 5.9M during October. Relative to total Polygon network users, the percentage of gamers dropped by 16% to 23% in November. We’ll now analyze some of the top games within Polygon and review how they have fared.

Crypto Unicorns

Crypto Unicorns is a blockchain-based game revolving around unique Unicorn NFTs built by Laguna Games. The gameplay centers around a farming simulator where Unicorns grow berries, collect resources, and breed. The roadmap contains three other gameplay loops where Unicorns compete in jousting, racing, and team RPG battles. External games built with the Crypto Unicorns IP are also in development with external teams. The Crypto Unicorns multiverse continues with Shadowcorns, the nemeses of Unicorns. Unicorns and Shadowcorns compete over valuable resources that reside in the Dark Forest.