🧞 Web3 gaming made cool with TonTon Games

Web3 games in 2025

Epic Web3

Jan 13, 2025

Gm and happy Monday frens🖖

Let's start the year with something interesting and quite controversial - Web3 games.

Many see these games as just a way to drop tokens on users and live with a bags of money.

But there is a view that games can actually be the main gateway for retail adoption of Web3.

Scroll down to find out how this can be done and what good Web3 games look like:

🎉 Your plans for the February
🏋 TON gaming 101
🧵 Chain abstraction in 2025, AI & DeFi, Web3 gaming
📰 News

🔮 Epic Web3 this year

Our first stops are Hong Kong & Denver!

In Hong Kong we'll be hosting our next Telegram Builders Day (Feb 17th) with topics like user acquisition for Telegram apps, successful viral case studies and how to build successful Telegram games!

And in Denver we'll be hosting 3 events:

🥩 Restaking & Infra Day (Feb 25th) - expect a day packed with keynotes, workshops, and panels diving deep into the latest in the restaking space.

🧩 Modular & L2 Day (Feb 26th) - side event for web3 developers, tech founders, and enthusiasts seeking in-depth of modular stack and layer 2 scaling solutions.

👾 Agents Day – AI x Web3 (Feb 25th) - where visionaries, innovators, and pioneers will gather to explore the powerful convergence of AI and Web3. Together, we will push the boundaries of what’s possible in building a decentralized, transparent, and equitable future for AGI.

🛠️ Deep-dive: Web3 games in 2025

TonTon Games is a leading publisher in the Telegram ecosystem. Inspired by platforms like WeChat and Kakao, the company focuses on integrating Web3 usability into games while prioritizing accessibility and long-term value over trends.

The company collaborates closely with developers to refine gameplay mechanics, optimize monetization, and improve design, ensuring polished products. They also handle marketing and user acquisition, focusing on metrics like retention and revenue conversion to drive success.

Key strategies

TonTon Games has established several strategies that helps Web3 gaming companies to succeed:

Focusing on Quality Over Trends
Many developers in the Telegram gaming space rely on trends like "click-to-earn" mechanics, where players perform basic actions to earn tokens or rewards. TonTon Games deliberately avoided these trends, which often fail to sustain long-term user interest. Instead, they emphasize creating polished, meaningful gaming experiences that provide lasting value. This approach ensures their games appeal to broader audiences and maintain retention beyond initial hype cycles.
Careful Token Strategy
TonTon Games adopts a cautious approach to token integration. Instead of launching a token prematurely to generate short-term interest, they focus on building games with robust monetization, loyal audiences, and sustainable unit economics. Token launches are considered only when they add meaningful utility to the game and its ecosystem. By delaying token generation events, they avoid the pitfalls of speculative hype and create more stable, engaging products.
User-Centric Monetization
A key component of their strategy is respecting users. Rather than bombarding them with intrusive ads or exploitative monetization tactics, they focus on creating experiences where users feel encouraged, not pressured, to spend money. This transparent and respectful approach has earned them trust and engagement from their player base.

Challenges in marketing

The Telegram gaming ecosystem is still in its infancy, presenting marketing challenges that TonTon Games has had to navigate. One major issue is the lack of mature performance marketing and analytical tools tailored for Telegram’s mini-apps. The ecosystem’s rapid growth has outpaced the development of tools that are standard in more established markets, forcing developers and publishers to rely on bespoke strategies.

Daniil highlighted the ineffectiveness of "task traffic," where users are incentivized to complete simple actions like app installs or brief gameplay. While this strategy can deliver large numbers of users quickly, it often results in poor retention and engagement. He shared an example where a partner app acquired 500,000 users through task-based traffic but retained only 1% as active participants. This highlights the importance of focusing on quality over quantity when acquiring users.

In TonTon Games experience they found effective marketing strategies. For Drifty Party, they identified successful channels such as collaborations with key opinion leaders on X, promotions within meaningful Telegram apps, and targeted in-app marketing.

Future plans

To address the gaps in the ecosystem and foster the development of high-quality games, TonTon Games is preparing to launch a game accelerator in 2025. This will provide developers with the tools, resources, and guidance they need to create sustainable games. The accelerator will focus on game design and mechanics, and accessible resources.

Beyond supporting individual developers, the accelerator aims to benefit the Ton ecosystem as a whole. By promoting high-quality games, the accelerator will attract more players to Telegram’s gaming platform, driving broader adoption and engagement.

Broader goals

It is important to expand beyond Telegram’s niche Web3 gaming audience to engage its broader user base of nearly 1 billion people. Currently, most Web3 games cater to a small subset of users familiar with blockchain technology. However, TonTon Games believes the key to true adoption lies in appealing to casual and hyper-casual gamers who are not necessarily Web3-savvy.

The company’s strategy is to create seamless, intuitive games where Web3 mechanics—such as NFTs or tokens—are secondary to the gameplay experience. By prioritizing engaging gameplay over blockchain integration, they ensure that all users, regardless of their familiarity with Web3, can enjoy their games. This approach lowers barriers to entry and widens the potential audience for Telegram’s gaming ecosystem.

Company sees this as a pathway to mainstream adoption of Web3. By providing fun and meaningful experiences, casual gamers can gradually become familiar with blockchain technology without feeling overwhelmed.

Learn more about Web3 gaming with our new podcast!

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