December has been an eventful month in the world of onchain and crypto gaming. Older gamers might be interested in the movement of an old favorite to blockchain, while the younger crowd is already enjoying the tap-to-earn Sonic X, but now with additional benefits. The iGaming scene further embraces crypto, all covered here.
Wider blockchain RNG adoption in iGaming
Similar to what’s been happening in the Game Dev scene, iGaming also continues to further move into blockchain integration. Reputable Bitcoin casino operators like CoinPoker have been offering a wide selection of cryptocurrency options for deposit and withdrawal for a while now. Similarly, now we see more and more adoption of blockchain-validated RNG for shuffling and other certified true random results. With the casinos at the forefront of these innovations, it’s easy to deduce that other gaming branches will follow.
Ragnarok: Landverse comes to Ethereum
Landverse is a spin-off of the legendary MMORPG Ragnarok Online. It was recently announced that the game will launch on Ethereum network Ronin in early 2025. Nostalgic MMO fans will surely welcome this new incarnation and the innovations it will bring.
What we know about the game so far:
It will be free-to-play on Android and PC with similar gameplay to the original RO
This version will be a fresh start and will not support asset transfers from other servers
Publisher Zentry will maintain constant validation through a node installed on the Ronin network
Ronin is already the host of several big titles in the world of crypto gaming, Axie Infinity and Pixels being among them. Rangarok: Landverse has already had a soft launch on the BNB chain, and supposedly the testers have produced around $15M of NFTs and other assets through sales.
Players will be able to mine for real crypto resources in the game, but there will also be reward tokens, all packed in a familiar cloth for anyone who played the original. Pre-registration is currently open for everyone interested, with some early rewards being promised as well.
SonicX airdrops Solana tokens to gamers
TikTok’s first tap-to-earn game, SonicX, has gone places since its launch in October. After amassing more than a million players with its simple and addictive gameplay, it has blown up wildly. This new genre is in foundations similar to clicker games of yore, but with the additional blockchain component that allows players to actually produce some crypto value through gameplay. Most of the games of this kind are hosted on Telegram, but SonicX has successfully used the popularity of TikTok and the encouragement to play in short bursts, without complicated mechanics.
Now, the developers have announced that they will airdrop SONIC tokens through the Solana layer-2 network that is specialized to host blockchain games. This will be a founding brick in the plans for the first TikTok chain and a possible integration for many more future games. Tokens will be added to the players’ wallets sometime in January so we can expect another wave of new players coming soon to Sonic the Hedgehog’s first blockchain incarnation.
Final thoughts
It’s hard to predict the future, especially in a dynamic industry like game development, it’s easy to see the shifts towards decentralized technologies like blockchain. The initial bad rep seems to be wearing off and more developers are trying to innovate and implement this tech in interesting new ways. While there are a lot of potential hurdles in reconciliation between gaming and blockchain, there is also a lot of space for both of those worlds to grow and develop in new ways.
