A vibrant community
Japan has over 67 million gamers, who spent over $19 billion on their hobby in 2018, making Japan the third largest gaming market globally.
More significantly, as demonstrated by the success of games such My Crypto Heroes from Japanese developer Double Jump.Tokyo, the market is in the vanguard of adopting blockchain gaming.
That’s one of the reasons hundreds of developers, dapp users, and media outlets gathered for the Tokyo Blockchain Game Conference.
DappRadar was invited to contribute to a panel discussion alongside our friends at MakerDAO and OpenSea to discuss trends on the dapp game ecosystem.
Opportunities and challenges
During the panel discussion on the current dapp environment, OpenSea, MarkerDao and DappRadar all agreed the biggest barriers for mass adoption are user experience and a lack of high quality dapps.
Dapps need an onboarding experience similar to that of mobile apps: a few taps and the user is ready to go.
The good news is we’re seeing such action being taken. Some dapps already offer the option to create a wallet for users and to save their private keys temporarily, resulting in a smoother onboarding experience.
Similarly, mobile OEMs such as Samsung and LG are releasing handsets featuring built-in cryptocurrency wallets, which will assist in users’ education.
In addition to these initiatives, tech giants such as Tencent are experimenting. The company’s game Let’s Hunt Monsters is an interesting attempt to combine elements of blockchain with gaming.
For example when players reach level 22 they have the opportunity to own a non-fungible cat token that’s held on the game’s private blockchain.
Let’s Hunt Monsters has had over three million registrations, taking it to the top of the Top Free Games category in the Chinese App Store. Tencent is using its incredible marketing power to attract users to blockchain technology and learn about its transparency, as well as how item distribution and transfers work.
What’s happening in Japan?
Attending any conference, it is always fascinating to listen and learn from the speakers, panels and audience feedback and the Tokyo Blockchain Game Conference certainly delivered some highlights.
Japanese gamers are known for being a highly engaged and monetizable audience and Japanese dapp developers are leveraging their already expansive knowledge of the market.
Hironobu Ueno, CEO/CTO of My Crypto Heroes developer Double Jump.Tokyo announced three ambitious new projects.
The first is My Crypto Footballer; the second a new blockchain game based on the IP of popular mobile game Brave Frontier; and finally there’s a NFT collaboration with VR game Swords of Gargantua.
Kota Ozawa, CEO from Crypto Spells shared the latest news from the Japanese blockchain trading card game. It is part of Double Jump.Tokyo’s MCH+ program, which provides knowledge and resources including the My Crypto Heroes’ game engine to other blockchain games.
Crypto Spells achieved 600 ETH in card sales on the first day of its presale, and over 8,000 players partaking in over 170,000 battles. Cards in Crypto Spells will also be made interoperable with My Crypto Heroes.
Another successful Japan’s blockchain game at the conference was mobile title Crypt-Oink, which has grown more than 400 daily active users.
Future releases from Japanese developers include Axel Mark’s Contract Servant and Arc Inc’s Wallet Battler. Japan is also the next target market for high profile blockchain projects such as Enjin and Kakao’s Klaytn.
Overall, the Tokyo Blockchain Game Conference was a huge success for the organizers and for the crowds that made the journey, as every visitor experienced the enthusiasm of the blockchain gaming community in Tokyo.
Keep up-to-date with the world of dapps at DappRadar.
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