In 2022, the blockchain industry experienced a lot of turbulence due to the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange FTX. Despite this, the blockchain community stayed strong and thought of innovative solutions even in the most trying times.
An outstanding illustration of progress and hope is to be found in the emergence of the GameFi sector, which unites gaming, decentralized finance, nonfungible tokens, and the metaverse.
In 2021, GameFi saw a surge in growth, taking the lead in the crypto space. This was due to their successful projects, such as Gala Games, Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Axie Infinity.
The GameFi domain has seen steady progress, with increasing numbers of investors. In the year 2022, the venture capital that was put into Web3 gaming and the metaverse totaled $7.6 billion. According to certain industry experts, the GameFi space is anticipated to reach a market value of $2.8 billion by the year 2028.
Nonetheless, the emergence of a large number of investors in this flourishing field has caused some low-quality video games to be afflicted with unimaginative and rudimentary gameplay, as well as weak in-game financial aspects.
A gamer searching for the ideal venture may find it difficult to decide, but here are some GameFi analytics tools to help you measure the pros and cons of each platform.
DappRadar
DappRadar is a platform for exploring and reviewing decentralized applications (dapps) across blockchains. It provides information about the dapps usage, monthly traffic, and daily active users, including a list of the most popular dapps.
Launched in 2018, DappRadar is a widely-used analytics service for decentralized applications (DApps). It offers insights on DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs, with data for over 2,000 NFT games
Benefits
The "rankings" tab included in DappRadar is a well-received tool for users to evaluate a variety of DApps that encompass GameFi, DeFi projects, gambling, exchanges, NFT collections, marketplaces, social networks, and various blockchains. Rankings are based on criteria such as the number of distinct active wallets (UAW), quantity of transactions, transaction amount, and the combined balance of funds in the smart contract.
The project's page includes its score, tags, links to social media, and a description. In the middle are standard metrics (UAW, number of transactions, volume, balance), along with a graph representing the changes for different durations.
In the "Industry Overview" tab, users can acquire general statistics on DApps by choosing the desired period, type, and protocol. Additionally, DappRadar regularly distributes analytical pieces located in both the "Reports" and "Blog" sections.
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When using NFTs, two other choices are available. Firstly, the NFT Explorer allows people to search the general list of collections, the NFTs of a single collection, and a general view of NFTs from different collections.
On each individual NFT page, information such as the name, owner, minimum price, last sale price, blockchain, NFT metadata, and trading history can be seen. Secondly, there is the NFT Value Estimator, which presents an expected price of an NFT determined by current and past performance.
A screenshot from an NFT explorer is displayed in the image.
Game designers can utilize the "Developers" portion of DappRadar to promote their new game through varied marketing initiatives such as advertising campaigns.
Drawbacks
Navigating the abundance of data supplied for each undertaking could be a challenge for those new to the process, which may only be searching for the most basic facts regarding the endeavor.
A drawback of the platform was that, for a considerable period, only NFT games developed on the Ethereum blockchain were available, leaving out projects based on other chains.
This year has seen an improvement, with the monitored blockchains growing from three to 48. There has also been a substantial investment in the creation of new technical solutions.
The Application Platform of Dapp.com
Dapp.com is the most extensive DApp platform available globally. It features in excess of 8,000 DApps developed on multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, EOS, TRON, Steem, TomoChain, IOST, Stacks, and more. The platform exhibits DApps based on analytics, user remarks, and community responses.
Benefits
DappStoreWallet, a built-in wallet, is provided to users by the platform in order to give them easy access to and use the various blockchain-linked DApps.
The functioning of the project is reliant upon Dapp Token (DAPPT). Staking tokens allow holders to initiate projects through the platform and participate in voting.
A "Market Report" section exists on the platform for users to check out quarterly information on a range of topics, including games.
The platform has the benefit of having an uncomplicated interface and navigation, on which users can assess game ratings based on a few specifications -- for instance, by growing or reducing the cost for tokens, via user opinions, or by the level of hazard.
People using the platform are able to check out the ratings of NFT ventures and also stay up-to-date with the latest news concerning these projects.
Drawbacks
It can be quite difficult for an amateur to locate the quarterly analytical report area. The connection to the page with these reports is found at the bottom of the page, written with small text.
During the same period, the publication of reports has halted briefly, with the latest report being released for the second quarter of 2020. Moreover, the level of analytics provided is comparable to the one offered by DappRadar.
The postings of the projects lack essential information, such as the token cost and active user count, and a short summary in a few sentences is not sufficient. Going through the overall rating of projects to get this information is not practical. The majority of the page is devoted to user comments, which is good, but Dapp.com is more focused on building a community than creating analytics.
CryptoSlam - A Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform
CryptoSlam is a platform that provides users with access to cryptocurrency exchanges. It allows users to track the prices of different cryptocurrencies, manage their portfolios, and buy and sell digital assets. The platform enables users to trade on multiple exchanges from one account. It also provides advanced trading tools such as automated trading, margin trading, and order-book trading. CryptoSlam provides a secure and user-friendly environment for its users to trade cryptocurrencies.
CryptoSlam is a platform that presents an aggregated view of the NFT market, allowing users to analyze trading volumes, spot the most sought-after collections, and keep track of upcoming releases of digital tokens.
The collection and individual NFTs pages of CryptoSlam feature a wealth of data, including a section on sales stats that updates as owners switch. The platform also assists in collecting information on fascinating NFTs.
Benefits
The benefits of this approach are numerous.
The platform's standout element is its real-time data that illustrates the activity within the NFT market. This includes the number of NFT token owners, the volume of token sales, the blockchain on which the NFT token lives, and the number of holders.
One web page provides a convenient feature for users to categorize different NFT projects by a range of criteria, for instance, the volume of sales within a game and the cost of the tokens.
A particularly distinct quality of the platform is its live sales portion, allowing the user to observe which individual sold an NFT token, the rate at which it was transacted, and its origin and destination addresses. This information is automatically kept up-to-date.
This service is a helpful way to keep track of the progress of an NFT project, allowing users to monitor all their transactions.
The platform is constantly progressing, with progress being made in January 2023 when Forkast.News and CryptoSlam joined forces to create the Forkast Labs project. This product is designed to offer a media analytics platform for digital asset management. The motivation behind Forkast Labs was the lack of a standard methodology to assess the true value of digital assets, which is typically judged by the current cryptocurrency prices. The timeline for the project launch, however, is still uncertain.
Drawbacks
One downside is that the platform doesn't have any analytics. It only provides real-time monitoring of NFT projects but does not provide any sort of evaluation of activities over a particular duration. Hopefully, this flaw will be remedied when the Forkast Labs project is released.
A negative aspect of the service is that it cannot categorize NFT projects into industries like gaming, gambling, or finance. Consequently, users who only wish to view NFT gaming projects and place them into a distinct slot or table cannot do so since the service does not offer this feature.
In a similar fashion to Dapp.com, this platform does not provide comprehensive information about the projects, for example, the creators, the current development stage, news about any alliances, etc.
Conclusion
The utilization of NFT analytics tools is primarily to reduce the amount of fraudulent activity in major marketplaces. Investing in NFTs takes much effort, is somewhat of a gamble, and can be almost inconceivable without dedicating significant time on social media and NFT trading sites to research all the NFTs available.
It is evident that none of the main analytics platforms have all the desired details in one package. However, these projects are indispensable for crypto fans.
Analytics platforms for NFT games should go beyond just the data of on-chain transactions to properly depict what is really happening in the game and how popular it is. Additionally, they should focus on broadening their scope to all the activities that games can offer to players; this will demonstrate that games are meant to be fun and entertaining and that transactions are not the only gameplay element.
Questions for Readers
What tools do you think would be an excellent addition for blockchain gamers as an analytic arsenal in making the right choice when scouting for blockchain games?