Gaming has been undergoing a seismic shift for many years now, moving away from console games towards mobile, drawing in larger audiences, albeit with shorter attention spans and shallower pockets. However, the current trend for minigames takes things to another level. What does this trend mean for the future of gaming, and how can on-chain gaming platforms like Funtico and others leverage the changes in consumer gaming preferences?
Gaming is now a predominantly mobile activity, with 60 percent of Gen Z and 64% of millennial gamers regularly playing on their phones. In contrast, less than half of both demographics say they use a console or PC for gaming, cementing mobile as the format of choice among the largest groups of gamers.
However, even within mobile gaming, consumers are showing an increasing preference for minigames, such as the globally popular Legend of Mushroom or Doodle Magic. With simple, casual, and highly compelling gameplay, these games are proving to be a hit with the new generation of casual gamers.
China, in particular, is currently a huge market for minigames, where around two-thirds of mobile gamers – or 650 million people – engage with minigames on a regular basis. The rise in popularity has been rapid. In 2021, minigames represented around $1.5 billion on the Chinese market, whereas in 2024, revenue is expected to have exceeded $6.8 billion, led by titles such as Century Games’ Whiteout Survival.
What’s driving the shift towards minigames?
Analysis of this trend reveals that there is unlikely to be any single factor at play, but rather a multitude of cultural, technological, and societal changes that have led to users preferring mobile over console and minigames over long-form content. While mobile screens are more accessible and available, they are smaller, which makes it more challenging to stay engaged in detailed gameplay over a long period of time. Therefore, the format is better suited for shorter, snappier, simpler gameplay.
Furthermore, the minigame trend mirrors how we increasingly use our phones when engaging with apps such as TikTok or Instagram, which now favor short immersive reels over longer-form video.
The social factor could also account for another pattern. Minigames are often based on chat platforms, playing into the powerful connection between real-time communication and social gaming. Chinese consumers are predominantly playing minigames via the country’s biggest chat platforms, such as WeChat or Douyin. While these platforms aren’t widely used outside China, Telegram, which has 450 million global users, is one chat platform that’s maximizing the minigame opportunity.
Telegram benefits from integration with the TON (The Open Network) blockchain, significantly upgrading its capabilities from mere messaging platforms to include payments, crypto trading, and on-chain gaming transactions. In 2024, several minigames based on TON infrastructure and the Telegram interface became viral hits among users, including Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, and Catizen.
The allure of these games is the super-simple, accessible gameplay, based on straightforward tapping gestures that are directly linked to earned rewards.
Exploring the Web3 Minigame opportunity
The emergence of this “tap-to-earn” genre has ignited the touchpaper of creativity in the Web3 sector, with a slew of platforms and titles jostling to tap into the appetite for minigames and become the next big hits of 2025.
One early frontrunner is Funtico, a Web3 gaming platform that hosts several titles, including Lucky Funatic. It’s an energy-based, fast-paced tap-to-earn that allows users to generate FUNZ tokens and increase the strength of their taps with each level up. The game incorporates additional elements such as boosters, one-off events and tournaments, and rewards giveaways to boost engagement, keep users incentivized, and enhance gameplay.
Being based on a platform such as Telegram or WeChat brings a considerable advantage to game studios such as Funtico since these platforms offer a ready-made base of potential players who are already using the app regularly.
However, since Telegram has the advantage of being underpinned by the TON blockchain and ecosystem, it is uniquely placed to bridge the gap between everyday chat app users and minigame players and the world of Web3 gaming, where rewards aren’t just on-screen coins; they’re real tokens of value. However, unlike previous iterations of Web3 games, which have had high financial and technical barriers to onboarding, anyone can play Telegram’s minigames and enjoy the same fast, simple, yet compelling user experience as in Web2 games.
The growing user appetite for minigames represents a real opportunity for Telegram and the projects developing on TON to penetrate a segment with a substantial product-market fit. Furthermore, the introduction of on-chain rewards, combined with access to a global user base, could provide the new generation of Web3 games with the edge needed to achieve mainstream success.
