Gaming chains are winning over developers and players | Opinion

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TON, Immutable, Ronin—the rise of gaming chains is one of this year’s major web3 stories. The Open Network, Telegram’s “official web3 infrastructure,” is a good example of this success by enabling in-app onboarding and new levels of engagement and reward. TON simply makes it easier for builders to build and players to play, demonstrated by year-defining titles like Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, and BANANA. After starting the year with just over 4M on-chain accounts, TON will finish the year with more than 120M.

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Answering “why” this is happening is a story in three parts. For developers, gaming chains provide a foundation that bridges the gap between web2 and web3, offering better tools, smoother onboarding, and more efficient scaling. For players, they benefit from connected ecosystems where their assets, achievements, and identities are more malleable on the backend. Meanwhile, for the industry, we move even closer to AI-enhanced experiences and cross-game economies.

The explosive growth of gaming chains isn’t just about better technology—it’s about enabling the connected gaming experiences that will define web3 over the coming year and beyond.

Building without barriers

Gaming chains went seriously wide in 2024. In Q3, further to the runaway success of TON, Immutable’s ecosystem hit about 200 titles, and Sky Mavis’ Ronin grew about 40% in the game count. Much of this success is indebted to how chains help developers bridge technical gaps. In a similar way to Unreal Engine transforming game development with specialized tools, gaming chains create purpose-built environments where developers can focus on creativity and build without compromise. 

Native gaming tools handle high-throughput player actions and complex smart contracts while ensuring low latency for real-time experiences. This goes a long way to helping developers feel at home and using something familiar to traditional infrastructure. With less technical headaches, they can focus on what they do best.

Further, the relationship is synergetic. For their part, gaming chains can support developers from the ground up. Gas fee reductions are possible for gaming partners, for example, in addition to specialized technical and tokenomics support for games transitioning from web2. Gaming chain creators can also incubate and invest in select games, drive adoption, and create buzz, thereby fostering ecosystem growth. This virtuous cycle helps developers succeed while building more engaging player experiences.

Gaming across the universe

There’s a lot for players to like in this gaming chain evolution, too. For starters, one of their biggest pain points is onboarding. Things like wallets introduce technical know-how, which isn’t always an easy barrier to clear. Here, again, gaming chains offer a solution by seamlessly introducing players to the ecosystem and invisibly integrating the blockchain.

Telegram made gaming waves this year because it does both of these things exceedingly well. Most users in most parts of the world (depending on regulation) enjoy automatic wallet connectivity on their Telegram profiles, letting them jump straight into mini-games without even needing to know crypto concepts. The result is big games, hyped airdrops, and hundreds of millions of players.

Gaming chains also solve a key challenge: blockchain games often exist in isolation. With shared infrastructure, players more easily maintain a single identity across multiple titles. Ronin Name Service is a good example since players create a unique callsign across the Ronin ecosystem and games, wallets, and dApps. Solutions like this help bring player value and utility—creating genuine digital ownership across the gaming universe without sacrificing gameplay.

Unlocking new gaming possibilities

Once siloed gaming data is unlocked and unified by gaming chains, possibilities expand dramatically. Cross-game economies, long promised by NFTs, have finally become a reality. Whether trading assets or sharing currencies, experiences deepen when they extend across titles. As a result, player digital footprints gain value across entire ecosystems rather than single games.

This unlocked data brings other knock-on effects like richer player experiences. Imagine rewards adapting based on cross-game achievements or reputation systems reflecting your complete gaming identity. Gaming chains create the shared infrastructure that makes player data portable and meaningful.

AI then supercharges these connected experiences. Chain-specific tools can personalize missions based on behavior, generate dynamic content that matches player preferences, and power AI companions that learn from interactions. This makes gaming specific to every player and, in turn, improves acquisition and retention. United data on the backend also gives game makers a better view of what players want and the ability to develop in that direction. Clearly, when game data flows freely, all sides of the gaming equation win.

Gaming chains are here to stay

This breakthrough year for gaming chains is just the beginning. The digital era is defined by data as the “new oil,” and gaming chains unlock this asset to foster innovation, participation, and smarter decisions. It’s a value proposition that increasingly resonates with all stakeholders—developers get purpose-built infrastructure, players enjoy tailored experiences, and the industry unlocks new data-driven possibilities.

As we move into 2025, gaming chains are redefining how we build, play, and connect. Expect this momentum to continue.

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Author: Yukai Tu

Yukai Tu is the chief technical officer at CARV. Tu is an expert in confidential computing and blockchain and holds a Master’s in computer science from UCLA. At CARV, Yukai is helping build the largest decentralized identity and data layer for gaming, AI, and beyond, integrating over 900 games and AI companies. He’s also worked as a software engineer at Google and Coinbase, a contributor to the Cosmos SDK, and a blockchain engineering lead at LINO Network.