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The Future of GameFi – Why are Firms Still Investing?
During a bloody period in the crypto industry when liquidity is drying up, the developers keep on developing, and the investors keep on investing. With all of the turmoil happening around us, it can be difficult to see positive developments happening in the space, one of which is the increasing investments in and the gradual evolution of the blockchain gaming (GameFi) industry.
After the NFT craze of 2021, many metaverse projects saw a dramatic uptick in users and revenue during that time. However, as the bear market has ensued from the start of 2022, the GameFi space has also taken a hit, with many popular Play-to-Earn games reporting record low revenues, as indicated by GameFi NFT trade volumes for Axie Infinity and others.
NFT game trade volume has dropped significantly over the past year (The Block)
Although there are some real challenges to be solved, it’s clear that VCs see beyond short-term hurdles, as is indicated by the accelerated investments in the space. In Q2 of 2022 alone, $2.5 billion was invested in GameFi, indicating a huge leap compared to 2021’s aggregate investment of $4 billion – and this year is still not over!
So then the question needs to be asked – is GameFi dead, or is there true potential for blockchains to revolutionize the gaming industry and absorb at least some of the current $220 billion (and rapidly growing) gaming market?
What is GameFi?
GameFi is a portmanteau of the terms “game” and “decentralized finance,” and it refers to a financial system in which users can earn money by participating in video games. While most play-to-earn projects place emphasis on the “gaming” aspect, the most critical aspect of GameFi at its foundation is “money”. Its beauty lies in the financial opportunities provided by a highly viewed form of entertainment – gaming.
While GameFi has shown a slight decline compared to its popularity earlier in the year, it was definitely the highlight of 2021, growing from 658 projects to over 1,100 projects in one year. The gamification of blockchain made the technology more approachable, appealing and acceptable for the public,
GameFi – Challenges Abound, But So Are Opportunities
Before we discuss the future prospects of GameFi, we have to acknowledge the challenges currently faced in the GameFi sector. For anyone involved in crypto, it won’t come as a surprise to find out that the public perception of GameFi is not great – hostile even. And a good amount of that negativity is not without merit.
Public Image Issues
The biggest challenge by far will be to convince traditional gamers of the underlying true value of NFTs. Not for their perceived and oft-reported highly speculative value, but for their digital scarcity, provable ownership, security and programmability that enables in-game assets to be used far beyond their main purposes. The 2021 NFT Cambrian explosion led to an immense crypto adoption and made a lot of people wealthy. But it also left some pretty big scars after the market cooled down; countless stories of project rug pulls by anonymous operators and celebrities, and NFT newcomers getting scammed are still circulating the news.
Mainstream gamers still need to be convinced that the web3 space can tackle the challenge of building a self-sustaining game economy. One that gives the players a chance to decide whether they want to play the game for free and for fun, or whether to take it to the next level and earn an income from it.
Free-to-Play – Adjusting Course for the Better
To draw inspiration for how to structure and monetize a game, the web3 gaming industry need not look further for its most ideal strategy than the one that’s been right in front of their eyes for more than a decade – Free-to-Play. Countless titles, such as Candy Crush, Farmville, Roblox, Pokemon GO, League of Legends and many more, have proven to the world that free-to-play games can be highly lucrative without setting up paywalls for their users, sometimes even more so than paywalled games.
The F2P mechanism flips P2E on its head – instead of letting whales hoard all of the in-game assets and generate passive income, F2P games let them bring in 80% of the revenues through Pay-to-Win (P2W), which allows players to pay for in-game advantages. These P2W features are typically low-cost small advantage boosts such as resource packs, gacha characters, healing boosters and more. But in the aggregate, these small payments compound into enormous profits for the game. It works for everyone – most players get to play the game for free, big players get to accelerate their in-game success, and the game itself generates more revenue than it knows what to do with.
And this realization is one of the reasons why more and more investments are flowing into GameFi. Though it had a rocky start, the value proposition of NFT-based games is clear – every single aspect of traditional F2P games is made simpler and safer. In addition, every in-game NFT asset can be added to a highly liquid global market of all NFT assets, offering ways to trade NFTs from different games, as well as build in utility for them in order to grant unique capabilities, access rights, invites and more. And if that’s not enough, on-chain data also shows a clear trend – gaming activity currently accounts for 52% of all Unique Active Wallets (UAW), a 232% increase from last year. The numbers speak for themselves — the opportunity offered by blockchain gaming is immense, and investors are paying attention.
The Path Forward for GameFi – Keeping It Simple
In the past years, the approach taken by many blockchain game projects has been to advertise their games to crypto-natives, typically with the express aim of offering earning opportunities for players. As a result, we’ve mostly gotten games of subpar quality that have served players mainly as profit extraction vehicles with limited long-term sustainability, especially during bear markets when hype and liquidity are low.
This may not be the end of the GameFi sector just yet, however. The newer form of web3 gaming has started to practice patience, build a great, addictive game, and quietly build all of the exciting and innovative web3 features into the backend of the game without making too much fuss about it. The industry is steering away from P2E, embracing Free-to-Play with Pay-to-Win as a sustainable means of monetization. Attracting talent from traditional gaming and finally forcing large game studios to build blockchain tech into their backends are all crucial pathways to making a blockchain-based gaming future a reality.
However, these great leaps will not happen out of thin air — a lot of capital will need to be deployed over many years. Luckily, companies such as Immutable X, the NFT-gaming optimized Ethereum L2 startup, have launched a $500 million development fund to invest in GameFi. Solana Ventures has also amassed a $100 million fund to invest in GameFi and DeFi targeting South Korea. And they’re not alone. More than $10 billion is expected to flow into GameFi this year alone.
The amount of capital invested perfectly demonstrates the potential these firms see in the upcoming, more improved version of GameFi. With this amount of capital, and GameFi’s tendency to revamp, improve and further develop its new generation of play-to-earn games, it’s a matter of when, not if, blockchain gaming will become the norm in the future.
Written by Boxmining

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Week 38/2025 slot games releases
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Here are this weeks latest slots releases compiled by European Gaming
“Fruitferno 40” went live, a new 5×4 slot from Hölle Games. It comes just a few weeks after the Dragon’s Diamonds launch, a cluster-style title with an equally hot theme! Following up to that 6×5 scatter-pays smasher, the Hölle team have taken a short detour to drop a 40-payline sequel to Fruitferno 20, for all those slot purists out there.
GAMOMAT is raising the stakes again with the release of its horror-themed Dead Legion. Set on a war-torn battlefield that’s shrouded in mist, Dead Legion unfolds within a macabre world where the dead legions have risen. An epic, dark live orchestral soundtrack intensifies the atmosphere across the 5×3 reels.
Reflex Gaming is heading deep into ancient ruins with the launch of The Cursed Idol of Montezuma Treasure Hunt, a visually stunning, Aztec-themed slot that introduces the company’s exclusive Treasure Hunt game mechanic. This 6×4, 20-payline title combines mystery, tension and progressive gameplay in a setting inspired by the legends of Montezuma.
Precision meets power in Crown Supreme Hold & Win from ICONIC21, the in-demand iGaming content provider. To take the throne, players must navigate a compact 3×3 grid and the regal Hold & Win mechanic in a slotting experience that pulses with anticipation and big win potential.
Relax Gaming, the iGaming aggregator and supplier of unique content, has launched Net Gains Dream Drop, a high-energy sequel where players can reel in massive rewards beneath the waves. Packed with coastal chaos and big catch potential, Net Gains Dream Drop offers 4,096 ways to win, three types of Mystery Symbols, Coin Collection mechanics, stacked Wilds, and more.
SlotMatrix, the world’s largest casino content aggregator, proudly announces the launch of 20 Armadillos, a thrilling new slot adventure set deep in a jungle where fortunes roll wild. 20 Armadillos is a 5-reel, 4-row slot with 20 lines, medium-high volatility and RTP options of 94.16% and 96.96%. With a maximum multiplier of 30,000x and a responsive, mobile-first design, the game blends rich visuals with high win potential.
Amusnet has released its latest video slot, Roman Coins – a game that captures the magnificence of the Roman Empire and brings it to life on the reels. It is Amusnet’s first-ever 3-pot video slot. With a 5-reel layout and 25 fixed paylines, Roman Coins strikes a perfect balance between classic slot structure and innovative mechanics.
Play’n GO throws the switch on Lab of Madness It’s a Wild!, a gothic comic-inspired slot that surges with strange science and surprise. Players join the unconventional Dr Frankenstein as she attempts to jolt her patchwork Monster to life in a lab where every pull of the lever sparks new possibilities.
Playson, the accomplished digital entertainment supplier, ups the ante in its latest Irish folklore release, Golden Penny x1000, with a rare 6×5 reelset, x20,000 max win and a bountiful Free Spins Bonus. In an enchanted twist to base play, the colourful game field comes alive with collapsing symbols. Eight matching symbols form a winning combination, with the total of the symbols forming the win value.
Evoplay, the award-winning game development studio, has launched Lunar Wilds, an atmospheric slot that combines mystical forest visuals with powerful features and big win potential. Set beneath a silver moon, the game transports players deep into an enchanted wilderness, where packs of wolves roam under the night sky.
The God of the Sea unleashes lavish gameplay in Blueprint Gaming’s latest offering, Rise of Atlantis Legacy, with the highly anticipated title introducing a new Gates of Atlantis bonus game, boosting the chance of significant cascading returns. Boasting the ability to appear on any of the six reels, Rising Multipliers offer enriched payouts if featured in a winning combination, which are added at the end of a successful cascade.
Stakelogic is setting sail into uncharted waters with its latest slot release, Kraken’s Catch, a feature-packed, high-volatility slot where monstrous multipliers and a mysterious sea creature lie beneath the surface. This 5×3 slot with 15 win lines invites players on a nautical adventure where every spin can uncover treasures from the deep.
The post Week 38/2025 slot games releases appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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KSA Issues New Duty of Care Guidance for Gaming Arcades and Casinos
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The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has issued new guidance for gaming arcades and casinos to improve the implementation of their duty of care. The KSA previously visited gaming arcades across the country. These visits revealed that while most arcades are paying attention to their duty of care, implementation could be improved in some areas. The guidance the KSA is now sharing with license holders contains practical tools and explanations, but no new rules.
Duty of care of arcades
With the implementation of the Gambling Act (Wet Koa), the duty of care for gaming arcades has been further expanded. This means they are obligated to prevent and mitigate gambling addiction as much as possible. Since then, gaming arcades have taken steps to comply with this requirement. However, in practice, the stated good intentions and the relevant policy are not always sufficiently aligned. The KSA has discussed this with various parties within the sector. Based on the input from these discussions, the new guidance has been developed.
Guidance
The guidance for arcades includes resources that providers can use to properly fulfill their duty of care and better inform their employees. The guide provides explanations and examples of what arcades must do and what the KSA expects of them. It also includes an overview of frequently asked questions. In addition to the guidance, a poster and an animation have been developed to raise awareness among arcade employees about the duty of care.
Along with the duty of care guidance, arcades also received a Guideline for Identity and Cruks Verification. The KSA regularly receives questions from the sector about the Cruks exclusion register. This guideline addresses the operation of Cruks and the most common questions and problems.
KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen said: “Certain key factors of the duty of care are easier to monitor for online providers than in brick-and-mortar casinos. In our conversations with arcade owners, we’ve noticed that they want to do more with the duty of care, but sometimes still struggle with its proper implementation. With this new guidance, supplemented with informational materials for employees, we’re giving them new tools to do so. In this way, we’re working together to ensure that players are optimally protected even at brick-and-mortar providers.”
The post KSA Issues New Duty of Care Guidance for Gaming Arcades and Casinos appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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QuinnBet Expand Ospreys Partnership
Reading Time: 2 minutes
The Ospreys announced that official betting partner, QuinnBet, had expanded their partnership with the Ospreys. The partnership will see QuinnBet take a place on the Ospreys shorts of all three of the team’s kits this season.
The new, multi-year partnership will see the QuinnBet logo take a prominent placement on the back of all three playing shorts.
With the Ospreys competing in front of multi-continental audiences in both the BKT URC and EPCR Challenge Cup this season, QuinnBet’s brand is set to reap the benefits.
Launched in 2017, QuinnBet, regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, and in Ireland by The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, has firmly established themselves in the iGaming industry by providing a socially responsible service. With an emphasis on giving more back through unique promotions and excellent customer care, QuinnBet has become a trusted name in the industry.
Head of Commercial for the Ospreys, Richard Lancaster, said: “We’re delighted that QuinnBet have decided to expand their partnership with the Ospreys. We have already built a successful relationship, and we’re looking forward to building on that even further in the coming seasons.
“Working with QuinnBet has already been hugely beneficial for us in education around Safer Gambling awareness, and we’re already planning on how to improve on this even further as we look ahead to the future.”
Niall McPartland, Head of Commercial and Sponsorship at QuinnBet, added: “We are delighted to enter this significant three-year partnership with Ospreys Rugby.
“The partnership builds on our inaugural 24/25 season sponsorship of The Ospreys, and the extension until 2028 demonstrates the success of the partnership to date and the huge regard we have for the club.
“Ospreys are one of the dominant forces in Welsh rugby, producing numerous players who have gone on to represent Wales and The Lions internationally. We are therefore privileged that our association with the club, will showcase QuinnBet at the highest level to Rugby supporters across the UK, Ireland and internationally.
“We commit to utilising the partnership to promote our brand in conjunction with Safer Gambling, which is integral to our business and which Ospreys Rugby is fully supportive of. We would like to wish everyone at the club the very best for the season ahead.”
The post QuinnBet Expand Ospreys Partnership appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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