# Market Trends

Smartphone gaming has increased in the past couple of years. The mobile gaming market was valued at $79 billion in 2020 with a global average of 1.5 million mobile game players in 2020. This increasing demand for mobile games directly results from various technological advancements such as AR, VR, cloud gaming, and 5G. This trend is not surprising, considering the mobile game industry primarily relies on new technology. Blockchain Gaming Market The blockchain gaming market is currently relatively small, yet the idea of Play-to-Earn in games is as old as video games itself. In Mario Bros, you collect coins. In Sonic, rings. Collecting in game is a primal acquisitive urge of the human psyche. Later gaming economies had gold, like in WoW, ISK in EVE online, and vBucks, in Fortnite - with various levels of sophistication and the ability for the players to ‘buy’ assets (that they never own). Many have been monetized, but only ever at the expense of the player - not for them. While some larger gaming companies – such as Ubisoft and Square Enix – have begun dipping their toes into blockchain-based games, most development has been led by crypto native companies, who understand the value in surrendering custody of the economy to the players. For players, blockchain gaming has the following key benefits:

1. Digital property rights: in traditional games, players purchase digital items (e.g., skins in Fortnite) and then can really only use these items in-game. Through the creation of NFTs facilitated by blockchain technology, these purchases transform an expense into an asset, creating actual secondary value from these purchases. These assets can be sold on the open market with the players earning directly from their abilities.
2. Provenance: virtual goods can now have rich histories and individuality. Imagine being able to own the exact, signed skin your favorite esports players used to win the world championship. In Influencer Death Match, the challenger who wins the tournament can actually take the Winners belt. The histories of those who held championship belts will illuminate the hall of fame.
3. Security: The decentralized nature of most blockchains means players don’t need to trust any single developer. Their virtual goods can be demonstrably scarce, highly secure goods operated on a cryptographic, decentralized blockchain.
4. Interoperability and composability: while it will take time, blockchain technology has the potential to allow interaction across ecosystems by leveraging existing building blocks. Imagine players wearing their Fortnite skins in League of Legends.
5. Increased financialization: players can use their virtual items like traditional assets as collateral for usage in DeFi. For example, a player could secure financing for their next battle pass by lending out their high-end weapon
6. Financial alignment in game economies: gamers can now participate in the economics of games they love. Developers can share a portion of their revenue with the game’s supporters by issuing tokens. Developers are also incentivised to continue to improve the game collaboratively to grow the value of the underlying token.

These benefits also affect creators and developers of blockchain games. Blockchain games provide a healthier game economy with the opportunity to monetize more players versus the free-to-play gaming model, as well as the chance to preside over a burgeoning ecosystem whose implicit value grows over time and organically. In traditional free-to-play models, less than two percent of players are converted to paying customers of in-game items. In Play-to-Earn models, players are incentivized because of their ownership rights and the fact they can earn more through their skills. Moreover, sharing a portion of the economics with gamers means less acquisition cost to get players onto your platform, as well as better economic alignment between gamers and developers. These are early days for blockchain gaming. More blockchain games will be developed that capitalize the benefits listed, with more complex games tapping into the world of blockchain enabled virtual economies. There is currently a huge gap in the market. Games of skill like fighting games have extremely devoted players, and there is a huge underground fighting game scene with amateur and professional tournaments all around the globe and this is without the support of any developers promoting the space. The games are naturally competitive, and most who play them chiefly enjoy that aspect. This represents ample opportunity to develop a game where two players match-up against each other and determine a winner based on skill, with the benefits of earning tokens for each match-up. Players are able to monetize their skills and benefit from the blockchain-enabled virtual economy. The fighting game scene is hugely active, and it is the 6th most popular category among video gamers with a larger unit market share than Racing or Strategy games.

The top 10 fighting games tracked by Eventhub record 60K players competing in online multiplayer or tournaments against each other. If people do not want to compete in the actual games, they can still be part of the action by following the fights and tournaments in of the 43K streams per week covering the fighting game scene. Total viewer hours amount to 3.7M per week for the Fighting Game scene, compared to c. 17M viewer hours per week for Action RPG games. Consequently, Fighter Games provide a great opportunity for game developers, as they have a strong cult-like following and attract lots of gamers around the world. The Influencer Death Match game seeks to tap into that vibrant and enthusiastic armature playing base and let them earn the reward for all their hard work, as well as adding an extra thrill to the already ultra-competitive genre. The first mover advantage, strong name recognition, and the world class fighting game being developed under the hood, puts it in pole position to capture this huge and growing market and revivify the notion of playing fighting games to earn your living

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