Dressed to Gamble: How Poker Drives the Dynamics of Wearables and Visits on Decentraland's Social Virtual World

TL;DR

This study analyzes how the ICE Poker game within Decentraland influences user engagement, showing that a small area of the virtual world attracts a large share of activity due to blockchain-based gambling mechanics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of blockchain transactions and user behavior, revealing the significant impact of play-to-earn gambling on virtual world dynamics.

Findings

ICE Poker drives 33% of daily unique visitors

ICE Poker accounts for 20% of time spent in Decentraland

Wearable transfers are heavily influenced by DG activities

Abstract

Decentraland is a blockchain-based social virtual world where users can publish and sell wearables to customize avatars. In it, the third-party Decentral Games (DG) allows players of its flagship game ICE Poker to earn cryptocurrency only if they possess certain wearables. Herein, we present a comprehensive study on how DG and its game influence the dynamics of wearables and in-world visits in Decentraland. To this end, we analyzed 5.9 million wearable transfers made on the Polygon blockchain (and related sales) over a two-year period, and 677 million log events of in-world user positions in an overlapping 10-month period. We found that these activities are disproportionately related to DG, with its ICE Poker casinos (less than 0.1% of the world map) representing a remarkable average share of daily unique visitors (33%) and time spent in the virtual world (20%). Despite several alternative initiatives within Decentraland, ICE Poker appears to drive user activity on the platform. Our work thus contributes to the understanding of how play-to-earn games influence user behavior in social virtual worlds, and it is among the first to study the emerging phenomenon of virtual blockchain-based gambling.