The past few years have not been kind to crypto gaming and GameFi investors, with most tokens and NFTs struggling to take off and other companies shutting down. However, the sector is showing some signs of life.
OhBaby Games’ flagship NFT collection, the OhBaby Pass, launched at 0.1 ETH ($410) on Oct. 8 before quickly surging as high as 0.5 ETH ($2000) shortly after the mint concluded. The collection currently changes hands at 0.42 ETH.
OhBaby NFT – OpenSea
GameFi projects have had a decidedly poor bull market, with the sector’s total market capitalization falling to just $12.5 billion after Friday’s selloff. As a benchmark, The Sandbox metaverse’s SAND token and Decentraland’s MANA reached a combined $14 billion market capitalization during peak metaverse mania in 2021.
Standalone games are also struggling, with another 2021 darling, Illuvium’s ILV token, down 99% from its all-time high of $1911 to just $14.51, fueled by token unlocks and players abandoning the ecosystem.
As tokens bleed, investors are beginning to throw in the towel, with a notable NFT gaming investor, Grail.eth, publicly sharing his decision to step away from gaming tokens and NFTs in September
“I love gaming, but it’s not a market you are going to make any returns on right now. I pushed hard there for a few years, thinking products and teams were more ready than they are, but have been mostly met with a string of disappointments, products that are not ready, and straight-out scammy lying founders who f**k their community come TGE….my focus is going to be on investing in narratives where you can make money now,” Grail shared on X.
New Class of Gaming
The past year has seen some short-term winners emerge in the gaming space, particularly semi-idle or pixel RPGs such as Onchain Heroes and Cambria.
OhBaby has taken a slightly altered approach: its flagship game, OhBaby Kart, has been live on the Steam gaming marketplace since 2023, while the team develops a number of games, including its “Bam Bam Boom” platform fighter and deckbuilder, Pawker, amongst other ongoing projects.
Notably, the gaming studio’s products have had zero onchain integration until now, aside from payments, and the NFT pass marks the studio’s first onchain foray for its crypto-dominant playerbase.
“Tradable on-chain assets have inherently always made sense to me; it’s just that it made no sense having an asset but no games,” Pasteur Tran, the founder of OhBaby Games, told the Defiant. He also mentioned that the market can expect more onchain integrations in the future, but declined to share more details.
“I think the market conditions for crypto gaming have yet to even really start or even exist. I think there’s so much space for us to grow, and the space is still fresh. The first iteration was just a bunch of people who dreamed to make games but never made them before (and if you never made games before, it can burn you out very fast). Crypto gaming is likely to begin its rise from here, and we are ready for it.” Tran concluded.
