New Opportunities and Challenges in the Gaming Industry

1. Introduction

The game industry has surpassed the film and music industries in scale, but is facing severe challenges. In 2023-2024, the industry is experiencing a wave of layoffs and consolidation, with development costs soaring and investments significantly reduced. Game publishing and distribution are becoming increasingly difficult, and new projects are struggling to stand out.

However, there are still huge opportunities in the industry. The generation of digital natives will continue to drive market expansion. The "Global South" market is experiencing explosive growth and will become an important incremental market in the next decade.

This report will explore the latest challenges in game publishing, analyze the high-growth opportunities of the "Global South", and focus on KGeN, a blockchain-based gaming platform, assessing its potential to reshape the incentive mechanisms between publishers and players.

2. Challenges Facing Issuance

One of the biggest challenges in the current gaming industry is distribution. Changes in consumer habits, adjustments in regulatory policies, lower market entry barriers, and content saturation make it extremely difficult to successfully promote new games.

Players tend to spend most of their time on familiar games. In 2023, the top ten games by monthly active users were all released over seven years ago. In 2024, new games accounted for only 15% of the total gaming time of players.

The adjustment of mobile advertising policies has a significant impact on user acquisition strategies and business models. Small teams face greater competitive pressure.

AI lowers the threshold for content creation, exacerbating content oversupply. UGC platforms face challenges in content filtering and promotion.

Web3 games still need to overcome additional obstacles, such as stricter policy restrictions and certain market bans. The Web3 gaming market size is still relatively small, with about 6-7 million active wallet addresses.

The emergence of new networks and ecosystems has intensified the competition for player liquidity. Web3 projects are competing around a limited user base, lacking effective methods to achieve scalable growth.

Some Web3 companies are exploring new user acquisition models based on blockchain, leveraging innovative incentive mechanisms and on-chain reputation systems to gain a competitive advantage. Companies that demonstrate significant product-market fit in emerging markets may have tremendous opportunities.

3. Global South(Global South)

The Global South refers to countries and regions with relatively low levels of economic development. Due to improvements in internet infrastructure, the proliferation of smartphones, and income growth, these areas are becoming potential game markets with tremendous potential.

India (

India is rapidly emerging as the largest gaming market in the Global South. The market revenue is expected to grow by 13.6% in 2024, reaching 1.4 billion USD by 2028.

Characteristics of the Indian market:

• Mobile games dominate 77.9% of the revenue )
• Real money gaming is the largest segment with a revenue of $2 billion in (.
• Casual and hyper-casual games follow closely with a total revenue of 700 million USD )

( Southeast Asia ) SEA (

Southeast Asia is one of the most mature gaming markets in the Global South. In 2023, gaming revenue is projected to be $5.1 billion, expected to reach $7.1 billion by 2028.

Features:

• The highest mobile game downloads in Indonesia
• Thailand's in-app purchase revenue is the highest
• Community and competitive culture are common characteristics.

) Latin America ### LATAM (

Brazil is the largest gaming market in Latin America, with 101 million players and generating $2.7 billion in revenue in 2022.

Characteristics of the Brazilian market:

• 60% of players prefer mobile games
• 43% of players have in-game spending behavior
• Officially recognize game development as a profession and provide tax incentives.

) 非洲###Africa(

The African gaming market is expected to surpass $1 billion in revenue by 2024.

Features:

• Mobile games account for nearly 90% of the market share.
• 92% of players use mobile phones to play games
• High data costs are the biggest obstacle)42%###

( Middle East and North Africa ) MENA (

MENA is the fastest-growing gaming market in the world, with a revenue growth of 4.7% in 2023, reaching $7.1 billion.

Features:

• Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt are core markets.
• A high proportion of the young population drives market activity.
• Widespread adoption of new technologies

![Let gamers prove: How KGeN redefines user acquisition])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-d3de399cfffbeb740364dfae15a2686b.webp###

4. Introduction to the KGeN Platform

KGeN is a blockchain-driven gaming platform that leverages on-chain and off-chain data, an incentive-based task platform, and a decentralized reputation system to promote user engagement across different games.

Core Components:

• Decentralized Player Data Network
• "Player Proof"(Proof of Gamer, PoG)Engine
• Cross-chain Player Reputation Layer

The KGeN ecosystem is gradually decentralizing, protecting the PoG engine through a distributed oracle network and providing greater transparency for core stakeholders.

( 4.1 Grassroots Growth

The core of KGeN's growth lies in grassroots tribes and the network of tribal leaders. Tribes represent micro-communities that join the ecosystem, such as colleagues, e-sports organizations, influencers, and gaming social groups.

The tribe is the core way KGeN promotes user acquisition based on recommendations. Tribe leaders earn points by inviting members to complete tasks, which are counted in the leaderboard.

The largest market for KGeN is India, but over 30% of active wallets and transactions occur on the Kaia blockchain of the LINE messaging app, indicating strong growth potential in Asia.

![Let gamers prove: How KGeN redefines user acquisition])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-d5024d3244e8e06eb832353ce147bd10.webp(

) 4.2 KGeN Play

KGeN Play is the front-end interface for player participation, where all reward tasks are published. Users earn rewards by completing tasks and building their PoG reputation score.

The task activities are divided into K-Drops and K-Quests:

• K-Drops: Provides automatic real-time verification via API
• K-Quests: Through manual verification process

![Let gamers prove: KGeN how to redefine user acquisition]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-0edfaf9accefa4de93c0fa72feaa027c.webp(

) 4.3 PoG Engine

The PoG engine is a decentralized player rating system, composed of five core pillars:

• Human Proof ### PoH (
• Game Proof ) PoP ###
• Skill Certificate ( PoS )
• Commercial Proof ( PoC )
• Social Network Proof ( PoSN )

The PoG engine currently includes over 270 million data attributes, covering more than 13 million registered accounts.

( 4.4 Token Economics

The KGeN economy consists of two core assets:

• KCash: Off-chain reward currency
• KGEN Token: A utility token that drives ecosystem growth

KGEN Token Allocation:

• Community Allocation 40%
• The team and investors have a four-year lock-up period.

![Let gamers prove: how KGeN redefines user acquisition])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-238d7cd2ae2476494e3b286b5e1f8c37.webp(

) 4.5 Oracle Network

The KGeN oracle network is a distributed network composed of permissioned nodes, forming the backbone of the PoG engine. The oracle is responsible for storing data, calculating scores, and submitting them to the blockchain.

The decentralization of the oracle network is a gradual process that is expected to take at least three years.

![Let gamers prove: how KGeN redefines user acquisition]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-1bbf9a79a3f9f248f26bc4a103343da8.webp(

5. Competitive Landscape Analysis

) 5.1 Web2 Advertising Technology Giants

Facebook and Applovin are two Web2 cases worth learning from for KGeN:

Facebook:

• In-depth user profiling and behavior analysis
• Social features provide a natural growth channel for games

Applovin:

• End-to-end data integration advantages
• AXON machine learning engine predicts user behavior

Mystplay:

• Indie Game Discovery App
• AI-driven recommendation engine
• Social features increase user engagement

![Let gamers prove: KGeN how to redefine user acquisition]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-e8095eedec89550374d875044adc7f91.webp(

) 5.2 Web3 Competitive Landscape

Web3 competitors can be mainly divided into two categories:

• Publisher Ecosystem: such as Ronin, Immutable, etc.
• Task platforms: such as Zentry, YGG, etc.

KGeN serves as a task discovery platform, competing for user attention with other Web3 task platforms. Its strong community base in India and Brazil has given it a first-mover advantage.

![Let gamers prove: how KGeN redefines user acquisition]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-198dbe74f4481de6eb6598db203ce74a.webp(

6. Future Opportunities

KGeN Future Development Suggestions:

1. Optimize the incentive mechanism to avoid excessive reliance on external financial incentives.

2. Enhance monetization capabilities and build unique datasets.

3. Improve the KGeN Store to promote on-chain transactions

4. Strengthen data analysis capabilities and establish competitive barriers.

5. Develop the AI technology stack, optimize user matching and delivery effectiveness.

![Let gamers prove: how KGeN redefines user acquisition])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-98e48f3a64aa006604c6b5674effb711.webp###

7. Conclusion

KGeN is the largest player data repository in the Web3 gaming sector, with a first-mover advantage in global southern markets. Its PoG engine creates composable on-chain game ratings for players and provides publishers with highly engaged users.

Future Key Challenges:

• Maintain continuous growth after token issuance
• Become the preferred UA solution in the Global South market
• Enhance monetization ability
• Optimize UA model to provide ROAS calculation capability
• Accelerate AI and data tool development

If these challenges can be overcome, KGeN is expected to maintain long-term competitiveness in the Web3 gaming UA field.