Tap-to-Earn Telegram Games: Why it's Trendy, and What's Next?
Tap-to-Earn Telegram games have become a new trend in the cryptocurrency market. Projects offer rewards for simple game actions. Do tappers have a future?
Tap-to-Earn Telegram Games: What are they?
Tap-to-earn games are simple mini-games that have gained a lot of popularity in the Telegram messenger this year. The essence of such games is a simple, repetitive clicking on the screen in order to earn in-game bonuses. In fact, clicker actions in games are needed not only to earn coins, but also to improve characters, collect resources necessary for gameplay, unlock game items, etc. But still the greatest popularity gained T2E games, where users can earn coins by simply tapping on the screen.
From a browser extension to a Telegram mini-app: the history of tap-to-earn
Such crypto games fell under the new category of tap-to-earn. However, the concept of T2E can not be called innovative. Clicker games existed before. This genre belongs to Erik Fredriksen. Back in 2002, he created the first clicker game, Progress Quest, which formed the basis for other popular games such as Flappy Bird and Dinosaur Game in Google Chrome.
With the advent of cryptocurrencies came the genre of play-to-earn games, which then evolved to introduce the updated tap-to-earn genre. This year, Telegram transformed and popularized the genre of tap-to-earn games.
Features of Telegram tap-to-earn games
Tappers in Telegram has a simple gameplay. Players are only required to perform simple actions in the form of taps or swipes on the screen. Unlike play-to-earn games, T2E do not require investment and NFT purchases at the start.
Most T2E games have automated gameplay, a social aspect, and the ability to earn profit for in-game actions. In addition, Telegram games have a low entry threshold for Web3 gaming.
Notcoin, Hamster Kombat and Durov: Where did it all start?
It all started with Notcoin. The game's team offered its users to earn NOT tokens, whose market capitalization is now estimated at $1.2 billion, for simply tapping a coin in its game. The project quickly attracted attention with its concept of earning money from uncomplicated gameplay. And after a couple of months of its existence, it distributed about 80 billion NOT tokens.
The success of Notcoin decided to repeat Hamster Kombat. And by some indicators, the game even managed to significantly surpass its ancestor. For example, by the number of players or the speed of growth of the user base. In this regard, Hamster Kombat claims a place in the Guinness World Records. Despite the fact that Hamster Kombat has not yet released its token, it remains the most popular game among Telegram users.
The hype around the two successful tap-to-earn games led to the launch of hundreds of similar mini-games in the messenger. And Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, celebrated the success of some of them. And then the messenger released a couple of updates, making its platform favorable for the emergence of mini-apps, including games. Thus, hundreds of new tappers have flooded into the market, trying to attract Telegram's multi-million audience to the Web3 world.
Mass insanity
A simple game concept and a successful precedent in the form of Notcoin has been a booster to the development of a new trend in the current bull market. Hamster Kombat, Blum, Yescoin, TapSwap, PixelVerse, Catizen are some of the many such games in the huge list of tap-to-earn analogs. Some of them managed to come close to the hype and gain an audience, while others failed or scammed entirely.
Some projects have gained the support of The Open Network, which has also benefited from the new trend. The network's native token, TON, reached an all-time high of $8.24 in June. The network's TVL has repeatedly set records, and user activity has been growing.
Telegram also got it. The monthly audience of the messenger exceeded the mark of 900 million users. Still, it is unclear whether the popularity of tap-to-earn games affected Telegram or new updates in the messenger influenced the popularity of T2E games.
Developers of popular tap-to-earn games cleverly play on the utopian desire of players to earn millions. But it is not the players who earn millions. From the latest innovations in the same Hamster Kombat, it is clear that users will receive a negligible share of rewards for a huge amount of time spent. The game has added new criteria for airdrop, but they wouldn't be difficult to achieve if Hamster Kombat hadn't intentionally made the gameplay more stressful.
Other tappers that have already released tokens, such as PixelTap, have also failed to live up to their community's expectations.
The end of the tap-to-earn era?
Interestingly, it's not Notcoin, but Hamster Kombat that has set the bar for the rest of the tap-to-earn world in Telegram. The success of a hundred similar games depends on the success of Hamster Kombat's upcoming airdrop and the further development of tap-to-earn games. But that may not happen.
Record chasing and overly ambitious plans have ruined Hamster Kombat. The game made bold promises about its airdrop, and its white paper lacks transparency. The multi-million user base that the game was so eager to reach is already skeptical of the developers' promises.
The game is focused on attracting new users rather than creating a sustainable project. Users have repeatedly complained about excessive social pressure, with Hamster Kombat asking to invite more and more friends, as well as questionable advertisements for betting agencies. This raised suspicions among players that Hamster Kombat was selling its user base to questionable advertisers.
Different names, same essence
If we take a look at other tap-to-earn analogs that have had a chance to gain popularity, they are not all smooth sailing. TapSwap repeats Notcoin's approach. The game did not have a proper technical document and tokenomics, airdrop was repeatedly rescheduled, raising suspicions of scamming. In addition, TapSwap does not boast any prospects for the future.
Aggressive marketing tactics and lack of sustainability have shaken the confidence of PixelTap players. Other TapSwaps that are gaining popularity right now, such as Memefi and Musk Empire, suffer from the same thing: lack of technical documents, tokenization, and sustainable development plans.
All of these games have the same game mechanics: complete a task for in-game coins, invite friends, get a bonus. But nevertheless, tap-to-earn games continue to attract an audience of many millions who blindly trust it, especially after the praise of the same Durov. Although all of his praise is not really directed towards tap-to-earn games, but towards the extent to which his messenger is suitable for the existence of such games.
Do tap-to-earn Telegram games have a future?
The growing popularity of tap-to-earn games in Telegram lies in aggressive marketing. Developers are busy creating hype around their project instead of focusing on long-term and sustainable development. Such projects lack transparent technical documentation, and players' attention is directed towards flashy promises for simple actions.
Such tactics may work for a while, but soon interest in tap-to-earn games starts to wane. Players don't see the proper return on the project they spent their precious time on. And with the lion's share of tap-to-earn games on Telegram adhering to the tactic of creating hype with minimal and unfair returns for players, the T2E industry is threatening to disappear.
If tap-to-earn games continue to adhere to the concept of aggressive marketing to attract users only for their own gain, then the trend of T2E games on Telegram will cease to exist. And such games will fade into oblivion, like NFT once did in the past bull market.
However, Telegram's tap-to-earn games did introduce a simplified concept of P2E games aimed at lowering the threshold of entry into the world of cryptocurrency and Web3 games. The future fate of tap-to-earn depends on whether developers will make the games more complex and add utility to keep the community alive.
Notcoin's founder, Sasha Plotvinov, was once the first to talk about this. After the successful listing of the coin, the game began to gradually rethink its concept towards sustainability. The importance of sustainability was also emphasized by Inal Kardan, Head of Games at TON Foundation, who saw the need to change game models.
