The new year has arrived, and with it many retrospectives on the year behind. For us, we have one last look at the weekly top games and NFT collections for 2022. This final week saw some surprising changes!
The final week of the year saw some significant activity in the larger NFT markets, with post Christmas buying surges pushing millions of dollars around in exchange for NFTs. And while some of the gaming activity seemed to decrease a bit, the overall gaming scene showed some surprise alpha announcements from both Axie and Illuvium!
Things have certainly changed a lot in the blockchain scene since the beginning of 2022. And I imagine that we will see an equal amount of change over the next year — some good, some bad. But overall, the legitimacy of NFTs and web3 gaming continues to grow. Stay with us as we continue to report and comment on the latest news and events from the web3 ecosystem!
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Read on for a look at the most active web3 games and NFT projects for the week. And be sure to keep an eye on our website and Twitter feed for the latest developments in the web3 gaming space!
Top play-to-earn games by active users this week
| Game | Active Users 7 days | Change |
| 1. Splinterlands | 273.72k | -0.28% |
| 2. Alien Worlds | 272.56k | -27.4% |
| 3. Farmers World | 88.7k | +0.58% |
| 4. Benji Bananas | 86.82k | -24.42% |
| 5. Planet IX | 82.4k | +7.59% |
| 6. Upland | 65.59k | -1.31% |
| 7. Tiny World | 41.47k | +14.76% |
| 8. Era7: Game of Truth | 39.35k | -6.42% |
| 9. MetaApes | 37.87k | +0.66% |
| 10. Axie Infinity | 33.65k | -3.56% |
This final week of the year saw a major drop in active users for Alien Worlds — over 25% in fact! This allowed Splinterlands to claim the top spot, despite also seeing a small drop in active users. Now certainly some of this can be attributed to the holidays and people traveling, but it is still surprising, nonetheless! Is this a changing of the guard, or just a momentary data anomaly?
We also saw a flip this week between third and fourth spots, as Farmers World continued trucking along and Benji Bananas saw a large dip in active users. Our other newer entries into the top 10, Planet IX, Tiny World, Era7, and MetaApes all held on this week as well.
Top 10 NFT collections by volume traded this week
| Collection | Volume traded 7 days | Volume Change |
| 1. Bored Ape Yacht Club | $13.94M | +3.57% |
| 2. Otherdeed for Otherside | $8.85M | +5.74% |
| 3. Mutant Ape Yacht Club | $7.9M | -20.16% |
| 4. CryptoPunks | $5.91M | +107.9% |
| 5. Azuki | $5.91M | +87.2% |
| 6. Bored Ape Kennel Club | $5.42M | -46.93% |
| 7. Pudgy Penguins | $4.61M | +366.33% |
| 8. DeGods | $4.31M | +182.37% |
| 9. ASCIIBirds Genesis | $3.03M | +9.32% |
| 10. Clone X | $2.76M | +39.61% |
The renewed fervor for the Bore Ape franchise has cooled off a bit, though they still hold the top 3 spots and 4 out of the top 10. And though two of the Bored Ape projects saw drops this week with a correction from last week’s hype, overall, the NFT market is up significantly!
Pudgy Penguins saw a huge boost this week. As did DeGods, which prepares for their move to a different blockchain!
ASCIIBirds Genesis is still on the charts. But as I pointed out last week, it seems like someone is wash trading this otherwise un-notable NFT collection. Perhaps for tax purposes? Whatever it is, it’s sketchy!
