The past few years haven’t been kind to crypto gaming and GameFi investors, with most tokens and NFTs struggling to get off the ground and other companies closing down. However, the sector is showing signs of life.
OhBaby Games’ flagship NFT collection, the OhBaby Pass, launched on October 8 for 0.1 ETH ($410) before quickly rising to 0.5 ETH ($2000) shortly after the coin closed. The collection currently changes hands at 0.42 ETH.
OhBaby NFT – OpenSea
GameFi projects have had a decidedly bad bull market, with the sector’s total market cap falling to just $12.5 billion after Friday’s sell-off. As a benchmark, The Sandbox metaverse’s SAND token and Decentraland’s MANA reached a combined market cap of $14 billion during the peak of 2021’s metaverse mania.
Standalone games are also struggling, with another 2021 darling, Illuvium’s ILV token, falling 99% from an all-time high of $1911 to just $14.51, fueled by token unlocks and players leaving the ecosystem.
As tokens bleed, investors are starting to throw in the towel, with one notable NFT gaming investor, Grail.eth, publicly sharing his decision to move away from gaming tokens and NFTs in September.
“I love gaming, but it’s not a market you’re going to get any returns from right now. I’ve been working hard on it for a few years because I thought products and teams were better ready for it than they are, but mostly I’ve been faced with a series of disappointments, products that aren’t ready for it yet, and outright scammers who fuck their community, come TGE…. My focus will be on investing in stories where you can make money now earn,” Grail shared on X.
New gaming class
Over the past year, the gaming world has seen some short-term winners emerge, most notably semi-inactive or pixel RPGs like Onchain Heroes and Cambria.
OhBaby has taken a slightly modified 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 the “Bam Bam Boom” platform fighter and deck builder Pawker, among others.
Notably, the gaming studio’s products have thus far had no onchain integration aside from payments, and the NFT Pass marks the studio’s first onchain foray for its crypto-dominant player base.
“Tradable on-chain assets have always made sense to me; it just doesn’t make sense to have an asset but not games,” Pasteur Tran, the founder of OhBaby Games, told the Defiant. He also said 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 really start or even exist. I think there is so much room for us to grow, and the space is still fresh. The first iteration was just a group of people who dreamed of making games, but never made them before (and if you’ve never made games before, it can burn you out very quickly). Crypto gaming will probably start its rise from here, and we’re ready for it.” Tran concluded.