Gaming industry had been in "boom" when high-end smartphones was created and when android applications came out. Game creators found another chance to redeem themselves because it will easier this way rather than making a full PC applications that will take a lot of time.
With blockchains help they can even stretch the possibilities and can even offer rewards in game that will be appealing to their audience.
It just got bigger this year thanks to cryptocurrencies.
The game developers have figured to use blockchain than full PC application, a major shift for the industry and they are not going to be found in the torrent/file sharing sites anymore.
The blockchain games before these play to earn and NFTs games didn't make it though. You can see that the marketing of these games still plays out in making the project successful. Old games like the Reality Clash or the Crypto Dynasty which I think have been around for more than 2 years actaully didn't make it. I'm not sure if you have heard of these games but the newer projects of NFTs have gotten more success than these two. And I can agree that the games today are not actually graphic-rich but still has tokens of good value.
I used to play online games without graphic-rich, LOL, that was like 15-20 years ago.
But times have change, yes, I agree that there are games like Reality Clash who has a lot of hype but didn't make it, unfortunately as at that time blockchain base game is still in the nascent stage that's why it didn't get any support. But it has evolved already, now players earn tokens and can make money out of it, which is the motivation that's why games are now very successful.