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Author: Max Parasol, Cointelegraph Translation: Shan Ouba, Bitchain Vision World
The game guild has accumulated huge amounts of funds in the blockchain game bull market inspired by Axie Infinity in the previous cycle.But how did they survive in the painful bear market and adjust their treasury funds to welcome the bull market?
More importantly, which is the most important opportunity to seize the expected this year?
Game Club -a group of sponsored gamers -is the popular Web3 business model in 2021.Their appearance is because of popular blockchain games, especially Axie Infinity, which requires expensive NFT to play, and “scholarships” enable gamers to obtain resources to learn and play through game guilds.
The game guild is considered a cash cow in 2021, a trick to attract customers, and attracts players in developing countries who have unemployed due to the blockade of the new crown epidemic.
The guild becomes very favorable.Including micro -guilds, it is believed to be more than 20,000.There are 800 meetings in the Philippines alone.In 2021, the Merit Circle Association raised $ 100 million and the Avocado Association raised $ 45 million.In November 2021, Merit Circle raised more than $ 100 million and YGG’s valuation of more than $ 10 billion. This concept shows that revenue will continue to increase indefinitely.
Then “Axie Infinity” -the most guilds rely on the establishment of an economic game -collapse.
Mitch Penman-ALLEN, co-founder of the Perion Game Association, tells us:
By the end of 2022, we are convinced that the Axie ecosystem will not be able to develop sustainable.We reduced investment in Axie and realized the diversification of business models.We also began to formulate strategic and planned roadmaps in the future, but the collapse was faster than we thought -the AXIE ecosystem suffered a $ 620 million hacker attack to accelerate the collapse.”
Therefore, the guild has left huge wealth and needs to be transformed.But for what?
As the bear market destroys the user base, income and interest, some guilds have shifted to production and investment in new games to find new popular games.Other companies, such as guilds in this story, Perion, CGU, and YGG have started various efforts to focus on building game community infrastructure through huge financing.Some people die.
As the new Bitcoin ETF -driven bull market is coming soon, has the hit and scarred gaming association formulating a clear and distinguished strategy to use it?
At least one clear theme, the game guild has shifted to online reputation in various forms.
But first of all, how did we get this step in just three years?
Original and imitator: How did the game guild start
Gabby Dizon founded YGG in 2020, which is the first Web3 Game Association.He told the magazine “The important lesson of that period was that although some guilds focused on earning as much money as possible. My ultimate goal was to expand my user group.”
Before the emergence of cryptocurrencies, Dizon was the pioneer of the Philippines game industry. In 2003, his team released the first Philippine manufacturing game “”Anito: Defending Angry Land “And since 2014, he has run his own game studio Altitude Games.
Sustainable token economics
He understood the blockchain and liked the fact that “smart contracts can transfer value, Ethereum can program value in virtual economy”.But the financial application of the blockchain made him feel cold.When he saw Cryptokitties to promote NFT’s idea to the game application, he began to be excited.He discovered Axie in 2018, which is a blockchain -based online game launched by Vietnam Studio Sky Mavis.As the new crown epidemic swept the world, “in 2020, the idea of the community of amateur enthusiasts began to make the currency through the game to earn the currency.”
When playing with Axie Infinity and cultivating Axies, he found that he could borrow Axie NFT without leaking the private key.This is the basic concept of YGG and the first large -scale guild concept.It quickly raised $ 1.25 million seed funds, led by Delphi Digital.
The guild has become a way to make a profit through leased assets, but it depends on community managers, especially in the Philippines. Axie first takes off and has the largest user base.
“Axie Infinity” became the most successful game in 2021. This is to a certain extent to a large number of Philippine player communities. They borrowed Axies from the guild to play games and earn additional income during the new crown epidemic.
DIZON limit its tokens’ upper limit to $ 12 million.He told the magazine that imitation will be inevitable -the height of the market and the crazy raising funds of the market make him scared.
Although some people raised $ 100 million for their guilds, reality is that people have great expectations for this money.”
Now, everyone is scrambling to prove that they are building something valuable for Web3 games and their academic communities.
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The focus of the guild is to establish a user reputation?
Dizon initially used YGG’s funds to reuse it to cultivate Axies (Create a new NFT) and purchase other NFTs to invest in other emerging games.Now, he has focused on the same mission since the first day: improving the game player’s game experience.
At the end of 2021, he began to use YGG’s funds to establish a task and accomplishment platform.It allows gamers to achieve achievements in different games and build their chain reputation.He told the magazine that reputation will be one of the most valuable things in Web3.
YGG’s guild progress plan (GAP for short) is an activity. Players can complete the tasks in the game and community -based tasks to prove their abilities and their contribution to a wider community.
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“For example, if a person can pass certain tasks, you can use the non -transferred NFT to prove it on the chain. This NFT is called the Soulbound tokens or SBT. These are proofs they have achieved in Web3.The combination of these SBT tells a story about personal.
SBT’s non -transfer properties are very important because this means that the achievements of casting cannot be purchased or traded, and they can only be obtained through the efforts of wallet holders.
Another core part of the YGG mission plan is Superquests launched by YGG and Axie Infinity earlier this year.It allows gamers to cultivate new skills by learning plans provided by the short video content created by the influential influencers and YGG e -sports champions.Although it is provided by the members of the guild community, it is not a closed store and welcome new members.
After 10-15 years, I hope people can match their skills with the virtual economy.In cryptocurrencies, hard -working rewards are a vital currency.”
DIZON said that ERC-6551 tokens or token binding accounts (TBA) will affect the blockchain game, and developers have begun to use it to integrate artificial intelligence into the game.
TBA is the standard for by -product, which allows NFT to have other NFTs.Therefore, you may have a TBA, which is also a Soulbound token (SBT) that cannot be transferred.
Di Zong said that in the future virtual world, the virtual economy will one day compare with small countries in terms of GDP.The emergence of artificial intelligence will achieve this goal earlier than you think, and reputation tools will become more important.
The reputation on the chain of mission in the virtual world can be checked through the historical records, contribution certificates, and SBT achievements and related metadata.These web3 tools show someoneactualWhat do you do and who they are.
“This is very important because I think the next stage of cryptocurrencies will depend entirely on people’s Web3 reputation. In terms of liquidity mining, we have not really distinguished and useful people and those who just make money.It is believed that reputation will greatly help to distinguish who is most useful in the guild and other communities, “Di Zong pointed out.
If you are just a wallet address, what do you contribute to the community?”
Strava used for games
Perion Dao also used its huge funds to build a game player reputation tool and many other things in the bear market.There is a 2-State platform that allows users to trade and exchange NFT supported by limited sports shoes.Zbet is a prototype platform that allows users to make social betting on Web3 games. The platform will become its own entity and will be licensed and launched in January.
They previously invested some funds in gaming risk investment, met with 200 game companies, and invested 15, including equity, tokens and NFT transactions.Since 2022, they have stopped investing in the game and deployed a variety of Delta neutral strategies (a hedge strategy) to obtain a stable return on the DEFI, which doubled the runway more than 5 years to reach about 5 years or so90% of them are now allocated to internal product development.
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Co-founder Mitch Penman-Allen pointed out the climate facing the guild when the bear market appeared in 2022.
“This is not the death of the web3 game market. We are convinced that AXIE is just applying the blockchain to a early experiment in the game, but it fails in the market.The 620mm hacker attack is not available.
He said that the association still believes that the game will be a huge way for consumers to enter cryptocurrencies, but the game has not been realized.
We know that a powerful team is using blockchain applications to develop AAA games, but it takes time to build an excellent game.Therefore, we decided to return to our experience: create high -growth products.We decided to focus on the value of web3 applications in the game with a web2 game player who often holds skepticism.”
Another problem is the suspicion of the mainstream game player on the blockchain game. He believes that blockchain games are another way for the company to squeeze money from players.
“Players have found that playing Axie Infinity costs thousands of dollars. They have considered the financial melting of game blasphemy. This is after the non -Web3 game studio has adopted micro -transactions, subscriptions, and increasing predatory monetization strategies such as micro -transactions, subscriptions, and increased game prices.”” “
So, if finance is not a problem, what is it?Reward to complete work.Like YGG, Perion focuses on online reputation, but for general gamers, the goal is to go to popular games such as “Fortress Night”.
They are developing XP, which is a Strava for the game -refers to fitness tracking applications to brag about how fast you run or complete the mountain bicycle lane.Early market testing looks very promising.The guild’s game reputation ranking XP.GG means that players can see their favorite players or friends.The localized rankings can bring new fun to the night of poker.
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Penman-ALLEN explained: “XP is a logical step for us. Combining traditional game ecosystems with verified rewards, incentives, and competition models, eventually bring real benefits to end users.”
Pengman Allen said that they don’t intend to play games for money, because “we don’t want to be dropped to the dark corner of the Internet.”
The product may be the natural evolution of the Play-TO-EARN Association.Earlier, a specific NFT was the entry voucher for entering the game table, just like buying a poker.But they are expensive, so the guild came into being and rent NFT for players.Now, the game rankings may provide a different mechanism for the studio to motivate gamers.
Game Association and work to make money
Other places, some game associations adhere to the roots of its Axie Association, “creating game products or creating money for developing countries to make money through games or make money through work”, the founder of the game guild CGU Raman Nambiaexpress.
Axie created a community that can participate and find these jobs, but suddenly there is no way to establish an effective labor force.”
In developing countries, especially Africa, CGU has shifted from “playing to making money” to “work and making money.”Another name for making money is “work”.”Our transformation is loyal to our original mission -letting people in developing countries employment and using cryptocurrencies to pay people’s working expenses,” he said.
CGU also has a user reputation construction system in the form of a talent management system (TMS).”This has evolved from our player management system. The system initially followed the player’s income and participation. Later, it became a ‘skill mapping’ system. We can identify what skills in our community, and based on their skills and their own ownThe tasks of the work opportunities provided by them and the tasks they completed before, “said.
CGU pays micro -task fees mainly in African Internet users.This meant to play games, now it means writing posts, focusing on social media, data marks and data cleaning tasks.They have begun to teach ChatGPT and social media artificial intelligence tools.For Nambia, “this is in line with the original mission of the game.”Although it may not be so interesting.Therefore, CGU is now a micro -task service provider, which usually provides services to feed the AI model.
At the beginning, only one employer Axie, and later Axie was cut off, the task was to find an alternative employer.All games have collapsed due to the encryption market, so we have been trying to find suitable employers for these people, but they need to understand artificial intelligence to complete these tasks.”
In Africa, encrypted payment is meaningful.There are millions of people without bank accounts, no accounts, or facing high trading costs, and Internet services may also be good and bad.Therefore, for the CGU, “Another source of income is to figure out mobile currencies and how to get compensation, and pay large -scale payment in these countries.”
“In Africa or remote islands in Southeast Asia, it is difficult to access or configure the Internet. We try to provide a way to provide a digital economic connection for possible labor, thereby accidentally discovering that Internet services as a business.”
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Nambia also provides Web3 services to Web2, such as creating NFT, wallets and metaverse on mobile phones and laptops.
“By providing basic social media skills, software development and design basic knowledge, and combined with artificial intelligence tools, we can help workers compete in digital labor.”
One of the reasons for Axie’s failure is its unsustainable token economy, and various projects are trying to learn lessons from their errors.
Balsaza’s strength
Balthazar DAO was established in the form of a guild in 2021 (and raised $ 5.6 million through the token sales), and then tried NFT asset management and market. Now he is designing his own game.
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They recently created Wallet Wars, a game similar to space invaders. You can shoot the largest wallet with cryptocurrencies.This is a game concept, that is, gamers can become good people in a world full of cryptocurrencies.
“Through the wallet war, our goal is to re -ignite confidence, unity and hope in the community that faces adversity, and create a solidarity point for those who have experienced the test of cryptocurrencies with firm toughness.”John Stefanidis told the magazine.
In order to show our technology, we have developed a highly financial Web3 arcade style shooting game. It combines a variety of winning mechanisms that players can share in the prize pool.It is called “wallet war” and pays tribute to those who have experienced setbacks and challenges, including the deception, the rough, the hacker, the incompetence, the disadvantaged group and the fatigue.”
Stefanidis said that the game was originally designed to show Web3 technology, but later it developed into a new NFT game finance model.It resonated with the cryptocurrency community. The first batch of mint was sold out within a few minutes on October 19, and its first quarter was launched in early December.
Wallet Wars offers two tokens.RAW PASS NFT is an ERC-721 NFT on the Ethereum blockchain, including unique DAO advantages, such as reference income, governance and BZR points (reward system) through factions.The second token is Raw Ships on ZKSYNC, which is needed to play games.Stefanidis’s explanation of sustainable token economic models as follows:
Players need a code in the RAW token to buy RAW Ship NFT, which provides the commission for each sales of the RAW TOEIC holder to use its code.Most income enters the bonus pool, and will never exceed the actual income, which maintains sustainability.”
It is important to remember that part of the token economics is only cold and objective pure mathematics.Zero consideration of interpersonal interaction.Therefore, theoretically, the original tokens may be fine.Unless DAO starts to add practicality or re -use it to tokens, it is difficult to do.Or if the operating cost of the enterprise increases.Therefore, although tokens may be sustainable in mathematics, this does not mean that the business has not yet been realized.
But if Balthazar Dao can achieve sustainable token economy models for Web3 games, this may become a sign of the web3 game industry.
Will web3 games surpass the height of Axie Infinity?
The guild is a good customer acquisition tool that uses the opportunity created by the new crown epidemic and developing countries.The new direction in 2024 let us understand where web3 games and their scholarship clubs will be made clear through reputation.
The guild may still have high expectations for the next bull market, but it is unclear whether there will be games that will provide the same opportunity and attract a large number of players like Axie.
There are still many experiments, but YGG’s Dizon said: “It’s too early for the guild, but we welcome people to build a digital community. This is the pioneer of the future digital economy.”
