TapNation Proves Web2 Studios Can Win in Web3 Gaming

Not subscribed to Gaming Crypto?

Join leaders from all leading Ecosystems and Studios and learn about the business of Blockchain Gaming

Welcome back to this week’s edition of Gaming Crypto! I’m Kostas and this week we take a look at TapNation’s .

The Web2 Studio that’s proving web3 gaming’s thesis

TapNation, a French mobile games publisher, has quietly run two of the most successful campaigns in Web3 gaming over the past few months.

The first campaign was in Monster Squad Rush, a hypercasual platformer, where they partnered with Arbitrum to reward players with ARB tokens based on daily and weekly leaderboards. A wallet was generated for players seamlessly in the background, when signing up for the game. 

After reaching level 5, players unlocked the daily leaderboards, where, based on their position, they were awarded mini-ARBs, which they could convert to ARB tokens if desired. Interestingly, the winner of the daily leaderboard—a significant achievement—was awarded 7,500 mini-ARBs, equivalent to 7.5 ARB tokens. This amounted to just a few dollars. 

The second campaign was in Color Water Sort, a puzzle game, where TapNation collaborated with Unique Network, an infrastructure provider in the Polkadot ecosystem. Similarly, players had a wallet created for them in the background.

Again, players needed to reach level 5 to unlock the leaderboard, which, in this case, was a daily leaderboard. Here, players were rewarded directly with UNQ, the tokens of Unique Network (not mini-UNQs), which had approximately the same value as the ARB tokens in Monster Squad Rush.

The price of UNQ is approximately $0.009, while ARB is valued at $0.34. The TapNation team employed a clever strategy here. With UNQ’s low price per token, they could directly reward players with whole tokens. However, with ARB’s higher price, to award the same dollar value, they would have to give less than one token outside the top 50 or top 100. While the dollar value remains the same, this would likely seem less impressive to players. Thus, they smartly introduced mini-ARBs. Instead of 7.5 ARB tokens, players received 7,500 mini-ARBs, which, despite being worth the same, appeared far more substantial.

How did the experiments fare? 

While the results for the Arbitrum campaign haven’t been published yet, the collaboration with Unique Network for Reward Mode has revealed some compelling results:

“In a 150,000-player sample, users of Reward Mode generated 89% more ad revenue than non-Web3 users—a direct boost to TapNation’s business. Retention and session counts rose by 16%, proving that blockchain rewards can drive meaningful engagement and monetization, not just hype.”

Indeed, while many have theorized that aligning player and developer incentives with rewards would significantly boost in-game spending and retention, TapNation’s experiment proves it.
The 16% increase likely refers only to session counts, not retention percentages, as there’s no mention of D1, D7, or D28 retention specifically. However, it would be particularly interesting to publish that comparison as well.

The press release also highlighted a few other key points regarding the campaign’s goals and TapNation’s future plans:

“In less than six months, over 650,000 new users have entered the Polkadot ecosystem through this integration, well ahead of TapNation’s initial milestone commitment of 734,366 users.”

This statement suggests that the campaigns were designed with specific user acquisition milestones in mind.

“We’re already working on what’s next: giving players more control over their identity and in-game profiles.”

Certainly, more is to come.

🎮 More Gaming & Web3 Stories

• Spellborne is now live on mobile! Both on iOS and Android. [Read more here]

• ChronosWorlds, an indie RPG, is launching soon. [Read more here]

• Bario, is a new platform build on Base that aims to support indie game developers. [Read more here]

• Reaper Actual is a new FPS founded by legendary gamemaker, John Smedley. It has raised $30m and will be build on Tezos. [Read more here]

• Chunked V2 is now live on Somnia. [Read more here]

Disclaimers

_{This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial, business or legal advice. These are the author’s thoughts & opinions and do not represent the opinions of any other person, business, entity or sponsor. Any companies or projects mentioned are for illustrative purposes unless specified.}

_{The contents of this newsletter should not be used in any public or private domain without the express permission of the author.}

_{The contents of this newsletter should not be used for any commercial activity, for example - research report, consultancy activity, or paywalled article without the express permission of the author.}

_{Please note, the services and products advertised by our sponsors (by use of terminology such as but not limited to; supported by, sponsored by or brought to you by) in this newsletter carry inherent risks and should not be regarded as completely safe or risk-free. Third-party entities provide these services and products, and we do not control, endorse, or guarantee the accuracy, efficacy, or safety of their offerings.}

_{It's crucial to provide our readers with clear information regarding the inherent nature of services and products that might be covered in this newsletter, including those advertised by our sponsors from time to time. When you buy cryptoassets (including NFTs) your capital is at risk. Risks associated with cryptoassets include price volatility, loss of capital (the value of your cryptoassets could drop to zero), complexity, lack of regulation and lack of protection. Most service providers operating in the cryptoasset industry do not currently operate in a regulated industry. Therefore, please be aware that when you buy cryptoassets, you are not protected under financial compensation schemes and protections typically afforded to investors when dealing with regulated and authorised entities to operate as financial services firm.}