The upcoming MMORPG Chainmonsters on the Flow blockchain sold out its Genesis Bundle NFT sale in a matter of minutes. The sales event highlighted the increased interest in blockchain-powered games, in Chainmonsters, but also in the Flow blockchain. However, the sale also bared the growing pains of the blockchain network itself.
According to data tracked by DappRadar, the Chainmonsters NFT sale attracted a little more than 3 thousand users. They could pay for the Genesis Bundle NFTs using FUSD, a stablecoin on the Flow blockchain. In total they sold 4500 rare bundles for $80 each, 2250 epic bundles for $160 and 800 legendary ones for $450. This brings the total to $1,080,000.
The more expensive a bundle was, the more exclusive NFTs were included. Chainmonsters relies heavily on NFTs, as there will be plenty of seasonal NFTs that will only be available for a limited amount of time. In the game, NFTs can be resources, clothing for your game character, or the little Chainmons players are supposed to catch.
Currently Chainmonsters is still in its alpha testing phase, with a beta test coming up. 10,000 gamers have access to the alpha test, and through the purchase of these Genesis Bundles more can join the upcoming beta test.
Chainmonsters and Flow’s growing pains
The Germany-based game studio Bside Games has been working on Chainmonsters for a couple of years, and their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. They partnered with Dapper Labs and their Flow blockchain in October last year, and the game itself has gone through various iterations while it’s now sprinting towards a beta release.
However, launching a project on the Flow blockchain doesn’t mean things are easy. Sure, Dapper Labs has millions of dollars in venture capital backing, and they have the expertise from developing CryptoKitties. However, the growing pains of the new platform became evident surrounding the success of NBA Top Shot. Around the NFT sale of Chainmonsters again there were plenty of complaints of users who couldn’t log in or didn’t have their payments on the Flow blockchain processed.
It’s very clear that scaling up has become a priority for Dapper Labs and their Flow blockchain. Therefore they partnered with Google Cloud, which will serve as the official cloud provider for the entire Flow blockchain.
Blockchain gaming moving up
Despite the issues popping up with the Chainmonsters NFT sale, there’s enough reason to be bullish on blockchain technology in the games industry. According to the latest BGA Game Report by DappRadar gaming NFTs were responsible for more than $1 billion in trading volume in August alone. With $765 million Axie Infinity was responsible for the lion’s share, but looking only at value would not paint the whole picture.
During August, SPLINTERLANDS has become one of the most played blockchain games. It attracted more than 227,000 unique wallets in a month, a 420% increase from July. While various GameFi projects like CryptoBlades and Mobox keep attracting thousands of user wallets per day.
One of the attractive propositions of blockchain-powered gaming is that users contribute to a wider economy. Players earn crypto tokens through gameplay, and can then use those tokens to upgrade their character or simply sell the tokens using DappRadar’s Token Swap. Various game-related tokens have increased significantly in value this year, think about the AXS governance tokens for Axie Infinity or the newly launched SPS token for Splinterlands. With MBOX and ILV this market segment offers a variety of top performers.
