Exploring Telegram-Based Clickers and Tap2Earn projects

Research Topic

The market of clickers and Tap2Earn projects that based on Telegram.

Methodology

Our study analyses data collected from mentions of the following games and apps. We also analyse community and other media channels (over 500,000 mentions, over 100,000 community members):

• Blum
• Hamster Kombat
• Pixelverse
• Musk Empire
• Notcoin
• The Yescoin
• Dotcoin
• MemeFi
• GAMEE
• Seed Coin
• Yescoin Ø
• Simple Tap
• Wormfare
• Spinner Coin
• PocketFi
• BBQCoin
• Pocket Rocket Game
• The Baboon Token
• Ponchiqs
• Firecoin
• Notmeme
• Chickcoop
• Tom Coin
• Mappasaurus
• Thing io (Nothing)
• YumiFi
• Wmclick
• Dragon Bot
• NobbyGame
• Luma Coin
• Mingle
• IOGreed
• WinkToken
• PaperCoin
• XZ Coins

Key insights

• The potential market capitalisation is estimated at $27B. The listing and launch of the $HMSTR token will predetermine the market's future trend. The expected CAGR is 10%. Now, the market includes several areas that offer services to users.
• The audience size is 197M users. The central regions are the CIS (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan), the Middle East, and Central Asia.
• The key driver of growth is the community's high interest in clickers. The main risk factor is potential fraud by project creators. 
• Marketing is organized through a native platform (Telegram). Projects use small communities first, then dot the big channels to create virality. Communities of 100,000 to 500,000 people drive audience growth.
• The central part of the audience is users interested in cryptocurrencies.
• Clickers often use psychological techniques to keep users engaged during the onboarding phase and maintain their interest with the help of rewards and bonuses. Integration with Web3 exploits users' desire to earn money (70% of such games' audience are focused on this). 

Market

Market size

Currently, most clickers do not have direct monetisation, except for individual projects. However, they tend to create their tokens. For example, coins for projects such as Notcoin and Pixelverse are already available. Also, there is a pre-sale of $HMSTR. The current market capitalisation of Telegram clickers is estimated to be between $20B and $30B. The current CAGR is 10%, but if the most prominent coin, $HMSTR, is successfully listed, it could increase to 20%-30%.

The overall market is estimated to be worth $27B. The clicker market is now focused on several areas of development: 

• Gaming Coin Market (Capitalisation Estimate: $26B);
• Accounts and bonuses exchange market ($122M);
• Advertising market ($70M);
• In-game purchases market ($390M).

The major drivers for the current growth  of the clicker market are:

1. Significant interest by:

• Users who want to earn money;
• Businesses interested in cheap mass traffic;
• Funds interested in investing in projects that are snowballing;
• Other clickers to build hype;
• Crypto projects interested in a new form of customer acquisition/development and project monetisation;

2. The growing popularity of the native platform (Telegram);

3. External support by the Telegram team;

4. The growth of the TON ecosystem;

5. The increasing popularity of the Web3 trend and the cryptocurrency market.

The risk factors  for the market are:

• Regulators;
• Fraud and Ponzi schemes within apps;
• Changing the mechanics of the native platform.

Audience

The aggregate audience size of such applications is 350M users. According to our survey, users are involved in 2.3 projects on average. Thus, the audience estimate for Telegram clickers is between 163M and 197M users as of August 2024.

User traffic is generated through integrations in mainstream media channels:

• In Telegram through mentions and direct advertising (70%):
  • Advertising traffic brings in up to 30% of the entire user base;
  • The rest of the traffic is generated through subscribers of channels and groups that mention clickers;
• Through paid publications on YouTube and Twitter (up to 25%);
• Through other publications (up to 5%).

Based on data as of August 2024, the aggregate external traffic for all clickers is estimated to range from 0.8B to 1.2B. About 68% of the traffic is associated with Telegram channels, groups, and chats that mentioned one or more of the analysed clickers. 

All communities have a different range of ER (user engagement rate). Small communities can reach 60%, while the largest ones have 0.05%. The average value of the ER indicator is 1%. 

Most clickers are mentioned regularly in the media.  

• Mentions of the largest projects reach between 3K and 7K per month;
• Medium-sized projects – 500 to 3K;
• Minor projects – up to 500.

Most projects generate initial traffic from small and medium-sized channels. Then, they use large platforms to build virality. The primary user inflow comes from communities with 100,000 to 500,000 subscribers.

The ratio of channels and chats is 55% to 45%. The dominant types of communities are those dedicated to cryptocurrencies (project reviews, drop hunting, listing announcements, etc.) and news.

Product Concept

History of Clicker Genre Development

The concept of clicker games is nothing new in 2024. Games whose mechanics allowed players to interact directly with the interface emerged at the dawn of the first game applications for devices. Among the most famous examples is the game "Minesweeper," which came as part of Microsoft's software package. 

The game's simple mechanics allowed users to get involved and have fun faster.

The most successful MMO games of the 2000s-2010s existed on a subscription system. It was vital for these projects to keep users engaged. One way was to explore the game world (lore, characters, story, locations, etc.). 

Creating a rich and engaging game world requires effort. One approach is using a simple quest system that offers quick rewards. This is how grind mechanics started appearing in games. They maintain players' interest by focusing on repetitive tasks that help "level up" their characters, making the gameplay cyclical without drastically changing the game experience. 

In MMO games, this often involved tasks like "collect 10 X items." Once completed, the player would receive a reward, but the tasks would gradually become more challenging, such as "collect 20 X items." Grind mechanics are often cited as a significant factor in game addiction.

A key goal of these games is to set up an action-reward cycle with progression, increasing the time it takes to get each reward.

Bright representatives of such grind games are EverQuest (1999) and FarmVille (2009). Some elements of such mechanics were implemented in popular games like World of Warcraft and Clash of Clans.

As the technology of mobile devices and game applications began to evolve, the format of player interaction with games started to change: the innovation of touch screens made it possible to reduce the distance between the game interface and players. 

Mobile devices in the 2010s were characterised by low computing power, so games created for such devices were often more casual in terms of graphics, mechanics, lore, and game world. The emergence of commercially successful games such as AdVenture Capitalist (2014), Candy Box (2013), Cookie Clicker (2013), Clicker Heroes (2013), and Sandcastle Builder (2013) signaled a trend toward incremental game development. 

These games' peculiarity was that they combined simple game mechanics with a progressive action-reward cycle and did not require the player's active presence. The target resource could be accumulated without the user's direct involvement. Such games became known as idle games or incremental games.

The first idle games in Web3 started to appear in 2017-2018, with the emergence of the P2E narrative and its popularisation in 2020-2021. From the end of 2023, the first Telegram apps with clicker functionality started to appear, and in 2024, the Web3 clicker narrative was outlined.

One key reason for the current success of Web3 clickers is that they have enhanced the interaction between the player and the game itself. By adding Web3 mechanics and a monetisation system based on Blockchain technologies, Web3 clickers increase users' motivation to participate, as it makes the reward for participating or mining more tangible and real.

Psychological aspects of clicker virality

Many such games and apps are created according to Skinner's box principle, which constructs a neurological feedback loop. It is particularly effective in games with simple and repetitive mechanics, making them highly addictive. (1) An important role in player retention in such games are various cognitive effects and distortions.

The sunk loss effect plays a key role: the effort expended to make progress increases the value of returning to the game. The feeling of losing progress becomes a strong incentive to continue gameplay, significantly when boosters and bonuses enhance progress. (2, 3)

The possession effect encourages players to return to the game by taking care of the purchased items they have become attached to. This mechanism makes game assets more valuable in players' eyes, which motivates them to keep playing. Often, in such applications, developers resort to shadow design techniques. For example, one of the alternatives is listed as the default choice in a multiple-choice situation. Such an effect increases the likelihood that the player will choose that option. Players are constantly reminded of their current progress status, new quests, and returned to game sessions. (4)

In addition, the game reminds you of the current status of progress and new tasks, which helps to keep you engaged. The set of tasks does not change meaningfully regardless of the players' levels; only the benchmarks change. This sets a pace of play that users can understand and creates stable reward expectations that keep them returning to the game repeatedly. (5)

The effect of starting progression is manifested through the mechanism of referral programs. Telegram clickers actively use these mechanics to expand their audience by providing a welcome bonus, allowing players to enter the game more comfortably and more likely to stay in. (6)

The increase in difficulty, as described, is non-linear. The difficulty and reward increase in a stepwise manner. The game design is set up so that the reward always seems achievable despite the effort required. The goal gradient effect plays a key role here: the closer the player reaches the goal, the stronger his reluctance to leave the game. (7)

Sometimes, games do not require active participation; turning on the screen is enough. Buying boosters allows the player to comfortably continue playing, reducing the anxiety associated with the fear of losing resources. Even if it has no meaning, watching progress brings users enjoyment and is a valuable gaming experience.

The integration of Web3 mechanics and the coin listing announcement stimulated interest from players here to earn money. According to internal BDC data collected through interviews with users of P2E games, over 70% of players participate with the primary goal of making money. 

Playing games with such effects allows developers to create products that make users want to return to the game repeatedly. The introduction of Web3 technologies and the use of economic incentives only reinforce this trend by providing players with additional motivations to participate with a low threshold of entry. Understanding these mechanisms is important not only for developers, but also for users themselves to understand the impact of such games on their behavior and decision-making.

(1) R.Carlson, Neil (2009). Psychology-the science of behavior. U.S: Pearson Education Canada; 4th edition. p. 207

(2) Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decisions under risk. Econometrica, 47, 313–327

(3) Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35(1),124-140.

(4) Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J., & Thaler, R. (1991). The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias: Anomalies. Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, 5(1), 193-206

(5) Camerer, C, F., Babcock, L., Loewenstein, G., & Thaler, R. (1997). Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers: One Day at a Time. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111, 408-41

(6) Nunes, J., & Drèze, X. The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort. Journal of Consumer Research, 2006, 32 (4), 504-12

(7) Hull, C. L. (1932).The Goal Gradient Hypothesis and Maze Learning. Psychological Review, 39, 25-43