Challenges for GameFi in 2025
Blockchain gaming faces many challenges in 2025. Tobin Kuo, CEO of blockchain game company Seraph, told Cointelegraph that maintaining player engagement, adopting new technologies, and building a sustainable in-game economy are the challenges GameFi must face to remain viable.
According to Kuo, more than 60% of players quit Web3 games after only 30 days. The CEO said a lack of long-term incentives and poor game mechanics are behind Web3's game sustainability problems. Kuo told Cointelegraph:
“As the attention economy accelerates, projects must prioritize player-centered design by focusing on immersive stories, skill-based rewards, and game mechanics rather than relying on trend-based attention.”
Building better blockchain games in 2025 will also require integrating new technologies like generative AI to enhance player experiences.
According to Surafel CEO, GamFi projects fail to integrate new technology, resulting in a 30-40% reduction in player retention compared to projects that incorporate new technologies.
Web3 gaming experts' opinion shows the biggest negative impact on the GameFi sector in 2024. Source: Blockchain Game Alliance
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Building a sustainable in-game economy
“Unstable in-game economies are a major cause of project losses,” Kuo said. Building sustainable token models for Web3 games that control price inflation and feature data-driven player rewards has been key to maintaining player retention. The CEO explained.
“Strategies such as dynamic loot distribution, stake-based rewards, and player-controlled economies in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) may emerge as best practices for sustainable GameFi development.”
Clicker games like Hamster Kombat are a prime example. Hamster Kombat grabbed headlines in July when the game surpassed 300 million users in less than five months.
However, the game experienced an 86% drop in active users following a weather simulation that is considered the largest in crypto history.
As of November, the game had just 41 million players, compared to a peak of 300 million during the summer.
The state of the blockchain gaming industry in 2024
The Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA) recently released its State of the Industry 2024 report, which surveyed 623 experts from the web3 gaming industry.
According to the report, 53% of respondents identified poor user experience (UX) and complex user interface (UI) as the biggest challenges in onboarding new players to Web3 games.
Industry experts outline the main challenges facing the GameFi sector. Source: Blockchain Game Alliance
According to an earlier report from BGA, 10% of users were banned from Web 3 games due to complications in setting up a crypto wallet.
During a panel at the Blockchain Futurist conference in August, Anomaly Games CEO Long Do said that keeping blockchain features out of the way so players don't know they're interacting onchain is key to driving adoption.
The BGA 2024 report also found that 33% of respondents said poor gaming experience is one of the top three challenges facing the industry today.
A previous OnePoll survey conducted in 2024 surveyed more than 2,000 adults and found that the majority of gamers surveyed were unaware of blockchain gaming.
According to the survey, 52% of respondents do not know what blockchain games are and another 32% have heard about blockchain games but have never played any game.
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