in the last 2 years Blockchain gaming has seen an exponential rise both in financing and in participation. Crypto gaming has reportedly amassed millions of players and Unique Active Wallet registrations in this time period, with major brands seeing dollar signs as a reaction to this.

However, has this information been manipulated by the game and its development teams? While how far this gaming industry has come cannot be ignored, the decentralized nature can allow for data misrepresentation to bolster overall metrics.

Let’s take a deeper look at this possibility and what the governing bodies within Web3 have discovered about the compromise between some of our favorite titles and projects.

@siarhei

What has been discovered?

Nowadays an anti-fraud and bot service known as “Jigger” has been going around trying to figure out how many people are actually playing these crypto esports games we’ve come to love.

60 titles were tested and it appears that 40% of registered users were actually bots. 200,000 were found in each game, which is insane considering the supposed number of players these titles claim to have.

Games within the space have become free to play which means accounts can be created very easily to bolster the numbers. This may have adverse results in the future, as it will become increasingly clear that games are not gaining popularity through social media and the money put into games by so-called users.

Also, individual players can control multiple accounts at once, further increasing the number of users. Going forward, metrics for games being released need to be considered from all angles, taking into account circumstances like the above to get a true picture of a title’s popularity.

While the average game on the researched list had 40%, some titles like AnRKey X had a registered 80% of its player base being bots. Crypto games are still maturing, not a good read though as new players will pump money into these games and may fare worse due to lack of maturity in these projects due to misrepresentation.

Other aspects of Web3 were tested, such as tourism, asset exchanges (such as the Binance and Coinbase review), and gaming platforms. Overall, gaming on the Binance Blockchain (BNB) was recorded to be the worst overall. Games averaged 70% of their users were bots.

How were these readings made?

The way Jigger solved this is pretty simple. By simply finding out who owned/configured which wallet, they were able to find out who owned multiple wallets based on the project or service they were tied to.

@ Entrepreneur

Instead of registering them as a unique active wallet per person, they were associated back to a user showing how the engagement readings have been potentially misinterpreted.

“We take a list of token holders, put them on a graph, and link wallets using our algorithm,” – Jigger co-founder Levan Kvirkvelia.

Going forward Jigger believes that more measures should be implemented by games and Web3 service providers. Like a selfie authentication process that prevents users from creating or linking multiple wallets in a given project.

Other factors to consider

While the readings that have been presented to us paint a clear picture of what has transpired, there are also surface level factors that we need to consider, specifically social media.

It’s never been easier for influencers and brands to fake their social media presence to “grow themselves up” and gain publicity. While followers and likes can be bought, it is clear that a company is faking its social presence through irregularities in its participation. This is seen most often on Twitter, where most Web3 projects promote their brand and project updates.

Discord servers are also a way for updates and community engagement. If the server has a flock of bots taking over your user account, this can easily be seen who you are messaging with and replying to message threads/channels.

General these findings may be worrisome for newcomers and even seasoned veterans. Hopefully in the future we will see more transparency from project leaders and how they promote themselves.