The Web3 Answer to Steam's 3 Billion Gamers

The collapse of Play-to-Earn gaming left a graveyard of failed projects and disillusioned investors. Axie Infinity, once valued at over $40 billion, saw its token plummet 94% from peak to trough. Billions in capital evaporated as the fundamental flaw became undeniable: these weren't sustainable economies, they were Ponzi schemes dressed as games.

Yet the underlying question remains relevant. Gaming platforms extract enormous value from user activity while players receive nothing beyond their purchases. Steam, the dominant PC gaming platform, takes a 30% cut on every transaction. Players contribute reviews, create mods, build communities, and generate network effects that make the platform more valuable. They receive no ownership stake in return.

9BIT, a platform launched by NASDAQ-listed The9 Limited, proposes a different model. Rather than building blockchain games from scratch, it adds a value-sharing layer to existing gaming infrastructure. The approach is less revolutionary than evolutionary, attempting to redistribute platform economics without disrupting the core gaming experience.

Whether this model can succeed where Play-to-Earn failed depends on execution, market adoption, and whether the underlying economics can sustain themselves without relying on speculative token appreciation.

The Unlikely Comeback of The9

The9 Limited (NASDAQ: NCTY) was once a giant in Chinese gaming. Between 2005 and 2009, the company operated World of Warcraft in China, generating over 2 billion yuan in annual revenue at its peak. After losing the Warcraft license to NetEase in 2009, The9 spent more than a decade searching for its next act. Self-developed titles flopped. New licensing deals failed to gain traction. The company even dabbled in crypto mining hardware.

In 2025, The9 launched 9BIT, a platform that aims to do for Web3 gaming what Steam did for digital distribution: create infrastructure that benefits from network effects while redistributing value to users. This time, The9 isn't trying to be a game operator or publisher. It wants to set the rules of how value flows through gaming economies.

The Play-to-Earn boom of 2021-2022 attracted significant capital and millions of users, particularly in Southeast Asia and Latin America. The model promised to turn gaming into income generation, with players earning tokens by completing in-game activities.

The economics were structurally unsound. Most P2E games required upfront investment in NFT characters or staked tokens. Players earned returns by extracting value from subsequent entrants. When user growth plateaued, the system collapsed. Axie Infinity's daily active users fell from 2.7 million in November 2021 to under 700,000 by mid-2022.

The fundamental problem was revenue source. P2E games generated no external income. The money players "earned" came from other players, not from advertising, subscriptions, or game sales. This made them zero-sum systems dependent on perpetual growth.

9BIT's model differs in structure and revenue generation. The platform functions as a game distribution channel, similar to Steam or Epic Games, but adds a rewards layer for user activity.

The user experience is deliberately conventional. Registration requires only email and password. Payment options include credit cards and stablecoins. After purchase, users receive activation codes for Steam or Epic Games. The actual gaming happens on established platforms.

Behind the scenes, 9BIT generates a non-custodial wallet for each user via Particle Network, but this remains invisible to the end user. Every purchase generates points based on transaction value. These points can be redeemed for in-game items, platform discounts, or converted to 9BIT tokens when the token launches in Q4 2025.

The platform calls this "consume-to-earn," though it more closely resembles traditional loyalty programs with token conversion optionality. The critical distinction from Play-to-Earn is that users are not investing capital hoping to earn returns. They are making purchases they would make regardless, with platform ownership as an additional benefit.

The value proposition depends on whether the underlying business generates sufficient revenue to support token buybacks and user rewards without relying on new capital inflows.

Revenue Structure and Sustainability

9BIT claims multiple revenue streams, each with varying degrees of scalability and market validation.

Game Distribution: The platform earns 10-15% margins on game sales. A $89 Resident Evil bundle generates approximately $8-13 in revenue. The platform currently offers titles from Capcom and other publishers, though the full catalog remains limited compared to established competitors.

The challenge is competitive positioning. Steam has 120 million monthly active users and decades of network effects. Epic Games has invested billions in exclusive titles and free game giveaways. Convincing users to switch platforms for modest token rewards requires either significantly better economics or exclusive content.

Mobile Game Top-Ups: This represents the most substantial near-term revenue opportunity. 9BIT partnered with Vocagame, an established Southeast Asian digital goods platform, to facilitate in-game currency purchases. The platform takes a 5-10% commission on each transaction.

Southeast Asia generated over $6 billion in mobile gaming revenue in 2024. Games like Genshin Impact, Mobile Legends, and PUBG Mobile drive significant top-up volume. If 9BIT can capture even a small percentage of this market, the revenue becomes material.

The platform reports over 5 million registered users and $1.8 million in revenue since launching August 1, 2025. These figures, while modest, represent actual transaction revenue rather than token sales or NFT drops. Most GameFi projects launch with zero organic revenue.

Advertising: 9BIT has deployed over 50 casual games using incentivized video ads. Players watch advertisements to earn in-game rewards. This is a proven Web2 monetization model, though margins are typically thin unless operating at significant scale.

Planned Revenue Sources: The platform intends to launch a peer-to-peer marketplace for in-game items with an estimated 2.5% transaction fee, staking pool management fees, and esports sponsorships. These remain speculative until implemented.

The sustainability question hinges on whether these revenue streams can support token buybacks and user rewards at scale. The platform commits to using net profits, not revenue, for buybacks. This is a more conservative approach than many crypto projects, but also means rewards will be limited until the platform achieves significant profitability.

The9's status as a NASDAQ-listed company (ticker: NCTY) provides unusual transparency for a crypto gaming project. 9BIT's financials will eventually appear in quarterly earnings reports, creating accountability mechanisms absent in most of the sector.

Tokenizing Community Contribution

9BIT's "Spaces" feature attempts to quantify and reward community engagement. The concept resembles Discord servers with integrated economics.

The mechanism works as follows: A fixed daily allocation of 9BIT tokens is distributed across all Spaces based on activity metrics. More engaged communities receive larger allocations. Tokens earned by a Space are distributed to members based on individual contributions. Fifty percent of earned tokens are immediately liquid, while the remainder vests over 12 months.

The design creates incentives for community building and user retention. Each Space benefits from recruiting active members, potentially making user acquisition self-sustaining. Over time, high-performing Spaces could develop brand value and reputation effects.

The challenges are significant. Preventing Sybil attacks and artificial engagement will require sophisticated monitoring. Balancing rewards between large and small communities to avoid winner-take-all dynamics requires careful parameter tuning. Maintaining engagement after initial novelty fades is an open question.

The concept is theoretically sound but unproven at scale. Whether it generates genuine community value or devolves into token farming will depend on implementation details not yet public.

Token Economics and Value Accrual

9BIT's token has a total supply of 10 billion, deployed on Solana. The allocation is:

• 35% to ecosystem incentives

• 43% to treasury (19% held by The9, 19% by crypto investors, 5% for partnerships)

• 15% to liquidity provision

• 7% to team and advisors

https://the9bit.gitbook.io/the9bit/tokenomics/token-allocation-breakdown

Fifty percent of supply is community-accessible through ecosystem incentives and liquidity provision. This compares favorably to many projects where insider allocations exceed 70%.

The9's 19% stake is subject to SEC reporting requirements and public company governance standards. This creates unusual constraints on token sales compared to typical crypto projects.

Vesting schedules are conservative. Ecosystem incentives distribute over 4-8 years based on daily emission caps. Team and investor tokens lock for 12-24 months. Many projects unlock large percentages at token generation, creating immediate sell pressure. 9BIT's structure suggests longer time horizons.

Value accrual occurs through buybacks funded by net profits. The platform will repurchase tokens using a portion of annual profits, with some burned to reduce supply and others allocated to ecosystem development. This only occurs when the platform is genuinely profitable, not while burning through reserves.

Token utility includes purchasing games at discounts, staking to boost Space mining efficiency, accessing exclusive events, and potentially purchasing The9 stock. The last feature would create an unusual bridge between traditional equity and crypto tokens, though regulatory implications remain unclear.

The token design contains no obvious structural flaws, but design is only part of the equation. Execution, market adoption, and sustained profitability will determine whether the economics function as intended.

A Test Worth Watching

9BIT represents something rare in blockchain gaming: restraint. No upfront investment required. No mandatory crypto wallets. No promises of life-changing earnings. Just rewards for what gamers already do—buy and play games—with optional exposure to platform ownership.

The model's sustainability hinges on execution: achieving scale against entrenched competitors, making token rewards compelling without becoming economically unsustainable, and fostering genuine community engagement rather than mercenary farming.

But the real question transcends 9BIT's individual success. Can blockchain integrate with mainstream gaming without exploitation? Can platforms share value with users while remaining viable businesses? Can an industry burned by NFT cash grabs find a path forward?

9BIT won't revolutionize gaming overnight. But it might demonstrate that gaming and blockchain can coexist—that the technology can enhance rather than extract, reward rather than exploit.

For gamers, it's potential upside on purchases you'd make anyway. For the industry, it's a data point on whether blockchain's second act in gaming can learn from the first act's failures.

The answer won't come quickly. But the experiment is worth watching—and perhaps worth participating in. Sometimes the most important innovations aren't the loudest ones, but the ones that work quietly in the background, proving skeptics wrong one transaction at a time.

Connect with us:
Fast News: t.me/blockflownews
Insights & Trends: x.com/BlockFlow_News