In December of last year, only 1% of Telegram users played games on the app monthly. This figure has now risen to approximately 20%, according to Inal Kardan, head of gaming at the TON Foundation, in an interview with The Block.
In July, the number of messenger users approached 1 billion, largely due to games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat.
Kardan noted that most games currently focus on community building and enhancing engagement.
“All these games, their monetization model is not about in-app purchases, but about traffic and its monetization in various ways. You cannot monetize traffic the same way [some projects] do now, after the TGE. Therefore, after the token release, the model must change,” he added.
Among the major “clickers,” only Notcoin has reached the token launch stage so far. Meanwhile, Hamster Kombat, Catizen, and Yescoin are preparing for their genesis.
According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing, NOT’s market capitalization stands at $1.2 billion. The coin is trading at $0.011, down 58% from its all-time high.
“They are launching companions, they are launching marketing campaigns, they want to launch new games. They even launched an incubation program. It’s about finding a way to retain the existing audience. You already have millions of users, and you need to offer them something interesting,” Kardan commented on Notcoin.
In a white paper released on July 30, the developers of Hamster Kombat described their potential airdrop as “the largest in cryptocurrency history,” yet did not specify even approximate timing for its execution.
Meanwhile, the game received support from Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who announced the release of its token HMSTR on the TON blockchain. The Bybit exchange opened a pre-market for the coin, and developers promised a second distribution.
Kardan is optimistic about Hamster Kombat’s chances to “survive TGE” and establish a sustainable gaming ecosystem.
“They already have a huge audience. They can try to turn these users into players of the new project. If it is mid-budget, where people are more likely to spend money on purchases, they will have a really good source of income,” noted the TON representative.
Kardan believes that mid-level games will play a significant role in the development of gaming applications on Telegram. As an example, he cited the Gatto project, where users care for pets like in “Tamagotchi”:
“We see that [mid-budget games] have started attracting many users and generating good revenue. Over the next six months, more games similar to Gatto will be launched on TON and Telegram.”
On July 31, Telegram developers introduced new features in the messenger, including a browser supporting Web3 sites based on TON and a mini-app store.