哪个游戏公会最适合牛市？

时间：2024-01-05|浏览：208

游戏公会在上一个受 Axie Infinity 启发的区块链游戏牛市周期中积累了巨额资金。

但他们是如何度过痛苦的熊市并调整其国债为牛市做好准备的？更重要的是，哪一个最有能力抓住今年预期的重大机遇？

游戏公会组织赞助的游戏玩家群体是 2021 年热门的 Web3 商业模式。它们的出现是因为流行的区块链游戏，尤其是 Axie Infinity，需要昂贵的 NFT 才能玩，而奖学金使游戏玩家能够通过游戏公会获取资源来学习和玩游戏。

游戏公会被视为 2021 年的摇钱树，是吸引客户的绝招，吸引了因新冠疫情封锁而失业的发展中国家的玩家。

行会变得非常有利可图。

包括微型行会在内，据信其数量超过 20,000 个。

仅在菲律宾就有 800 个行会。

2021 年，Merit Circle 公会筹集了 1 亿美元，Avocado 公会筹集了 4500 万美元。2021 年 11 月，Merit Circle 筹集了超过 1 亿美元，YGG 的估值超过 100 亿美元，这一概念表明收入将无限期地持续增加。

然后《Axie Infinity》——大多数公会赖以建立经济的游戏——崩溃了。

Perion 游戏协会联合创始人 Mitch Penman-Allen 告诉杂志：

到 2022 年底，我们确信 Axie 生态系统将无法可持续发展。

我们减少了对 Axie 的投资，并实现了业务模式的多元化。

我们还开始为未来制定战略和规划路线图，但崩溃来得比我们想象的要快，因为 Axie 生态系统遭受了 6.2 亿美元的黑客攻击，加速了崩溃。

因此，公会留下了巨大的财富，并且需要进行转型。

但为了什么呢？

随着熊市摧毁了用户群、收入和兴趣，一些公会转向制作和投资新游戏，以寻找新的热门游戏。

其他公司，比如这个故事中的公会，Perion、CGU 和 YGG，已经开始了各种努力，专注于通过巨额融资来建设游戏社区基础设施。

有些人死了。

随着新的比特币 ETF 推动的牛市即将到来，饱受打击和伤痕累累的游戏协会是否已制定出清晰可辨的策略来利用它？

至少有一个明确的主题，游戏公会都以各种形式转向在线声誉建设。

但首先，我们是如何在短短三年内走到这一步的？

原创者和模仿者：游戏公会是如何开始的

Gabby Dizon 于 2020 年创立了 YGG，这是最初的 Web3 游戏公会。他告诉杂志，那段时期的重要教训是，尽管有些公会专注于赚尽可能多的钱。

我的最终目标是扩大我的用户群。

Long before crypto, Dizon was a pioneer in the Philippine game industry as part of the team that released the first Filipino-made game in 2003 called Anito: Defend a Land Enraged and since 2014 ran his own Manila-based gaming studio, Altitude Games.

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He learned about blockchain and liked the fact that smart contracts can transfer value around and Ethereum could program value inside virtual economies. But financial applications of blockchain left him cold. It was when he saw CryptoKitties popularize the idea of NFTs for gaming applications, he began to get excited. He discovered Axie in 2018, an online blockchain based game from Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis. As Covid got a grip on the globe, in 2020 things started moving from a hobbyist community to the idea of earning tokens from gameplay.

While playing Axie Infinity and breeding Axies, he discovered it was possible to lend Axie NFTs without giving away your private keys. This was the foundational idea for YGG, the first guild concept to scale. It quickly raised $1.25 million in seed funding, led by Delphi Digital.

The guilds became a way to profit from renting assets but relied on community managers, especially in the Philippines, where Axie first took off and had the biggest user base.

Axie Infinity became the most successful game of 2021, thanks in part to a big Filipino community of players borrowing Axies from the guilds to play the game and earn additional income during Covid.

Dizon capped his token sales at just $12 million. He tells Magazine the copycat guilds were inevitable and the height of the market and the insane figures raised scared him.

While some people raised $100 million for their guilds, the reality is that there are now huge expectations of that money.

Now everyone is scrambling to prove they are building something of value for web3 gaming and their scholarship communities.

Whats next for Web3 gaming? God let is know! Image: YGG Web3 Games Summit, hosted by Yield Guild Games (YGG) 18-25 November 2023 in Metro Manila, Philippines. (YGG) The guilds pivot to user reputation building?

Dizon initially used YGGs treasury to re-invest in breeding Axies (creating new NFTs), and bought other NFTs to invest in other up-and-coming games. Today, he is still focused on the same mission since day one: improving gaming for gamers.

In late 2021, he started building a Questing and Achievements platform using YGGs treasury funds. It allows gamers to earn achievements in different games and to build up their on-chain reputations. Reputation will be one of the most valuable things to build in Web3, he tells Magazine.

YGGs Guild Advancement Program, or GAP for short, is an exercise where gamers can complete tasks in-game and community-based quests in order to provably demonstrate their capabilities, as well as their contributions to the broader community.

YGGs Guild Advancement Program rewards players for good on-chain reputation. (YGG)

So for example, if an individual is able to pass certain quests, it can be proven on-chain with a non-transferable NFT, which is called a Soulbound Token, or SBTs. These are proof of their achievements in web3. A combination of all of these SBTs tell a story about the individual. And based on that, the holders are able to access, for example, other games or communities, explains Dizon.

The non-transferrable nature of an SBT is very important as this means that the minted record of achievement cannot be bought or traded, it can only ever be earned through the wallet holders demonstrated effort.

Another core part of YGGs questing program is Superquests which launched earlier this year in a partnership between YGG and Axie Infinity. It allows gamers to develop new skills in a learning program delivered through short form video content created by top community influencers and YGG esports champions. And while its for members of the guild community, its not a closed shop and new members are welcome.

10-15 years from now I want people to match their skills with virtual economies. In crypto, reward for effort is a crucial currency.

Dizon suggests that the ERC-6551 token standard or Token Bound Accounts (TBAs)will be influential to blockchain gaming, and developers are already starting to use it to thread AI into games.

TBAs are a byproduct of the standard which allows NFTs to own other NFTs. So you could have a TBA that is also a Soulbound Token (SBT) that cannot be transferred.

In future metaverses, Dizon says, virtual economies will one day rival small countries in terms of GDP. The emergence of AI will send us there sooner than you think and reputational tools will be even more important.

On-chain reputation for quests in virtual worlds can be checked via wallet history, proof of contribution along with SBT achievements and associated metadata. These Web3 tools display what someone actually did and who they are.

This is really important because I think the next phase of crypto will be all about peoples web3 reputation. In things like yield farming, we didnt really segregate between useful people or people who were just there to extract money. I think reputation will go a long way towards separating who is most useful in guilds and in other communities, noted Dizon.

What have you contributed to a community if you are just a wallet address?

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Perion DAO has also built a gamer reputation tool, along with a bunch of other stuff in the bear market using their hefty treasury. Theres 2-state, a platform that would allow users to trade and redeem NFTs backed by limited sneakers. ZBET is a prototype platform that allows users to wager social bets on web3 games that will become its own entity that will get licensed and go-live in January.

They also previously invested part of their treasury in gaming VC plays, meeting with 200 gaming firms, and investing in 15, a mix of equity, tokens, and NFT deals. Theyve since ceased investing in games in 2022, they have deployed multiple Delta-neutral strategies (a hedging strategy) to net solid returns on DeFi, more than doubling their runway to around 5 years, with 90 per percent now allocated for internal product development.

YGG Web3 Games Summit, hosted by Yield Guild Games (YGG) 18-25 November 2023 in Metro Manila, Philippines. (YGG)

Co-founder Mitch Penman-Allen notes the climate facing the guilds as the bear market emerged in 2022.

This is not the death of the web3 gaming market. We were certain that Axie was just an early experiment of applying blockchain to gaming that had failed in a market where experiments explode in popularity overnight, and die just as fast….and a $620mm hack didn’t help. The hook was there, wed seen the potential. We just needed to find the long term use-case.

He says the guild still believed gaming would be a massive on ramp to consumers into crypto, but the games werent there yet.

We knew strong teams were working on AAA games with blockchain applications, however building a good game takes time. Hence, we decided to go back to what our experience was: Building high growth products. We decided to focus on introducing, often skeptical Web2 gamers, to the value of web3 applications in gaming.

Another issue was mainstream gamer skepticism over blockchain games being just another way for companies to screw players out of money.

Gamers had seen it cost $1000s of dollars to play Axie Infinity. They considered the financialisation of gaming sacrilege. And this came after years of predatory monetisation tactics such as micro-transactions, subscriptions and increasing game prices from non-web3 gaming studios.

So if financialisation wasnt the hook, what was? Rewards for a job well done. Like YGG, Perion is also focused on online reputational building, but for gamers in general, targeting highly popular games like Fortnite.

They are working on XP, which is a sort of Strava for gaming referring to the fitness tracking app for boasting to your peers about how fast you run or complete a mountain bike trail etc. Early market testing looks promising. The guilds gaming reputational leaderboard, XP.gg, means that gamers can see how they stack up against their favorite gamers or just their friends. Localized leader boards can provide a new spin on poker nights.

Perions XP, a strava-for-gamers. (Perion)

Penman-Allen explains, XP is a logical step for us. The merging of the traditional gaming ecosystems with proven models for rewards, incentives, competition and ultimately real benefits to the end user.

Penman-Allen says they have no plans to play for money as we dont want to be relegated to a dark corner of the internet.

This product could be a natural evolution for Play-to-Earn guilds. Before, particular NFTs were the entrance ticket, like a poker buy-in, to get a seat at the gaming table. But they were pricey, so guilds emerged to rent out NFTs for players. Now gaming leader boards might offer studios a different mechanism to incentivise gamers.

Mobile first? (Perion) Gaming guilds and Work-to-Earn

Elsewhere some gaming guilds are staying true to their Axie guild roots by building gaming products or creating pathways for developing countries to Play-to Earn or Work-to Earn, says Raman Nambiar founder of gaming guild CGU.

Axie created a community that could engage and find these jobs and then suddenly theres no pathway ahead for enabling an effective workforce.

CGU has pivoted from Play to Earn, to Work-to Earn in developing countries, notably Africa. Another name for work to earn is a job. We pivoted by staying true to our original mission getting people in developing countries employed and using crypto to pay people for their work, he says.

CGU also has a user reputation building system in the form of a Talent Management System (TMS). This evolved from our player management system that originally tracked a players earnings and engagement and became a ‘skill mapping’ system where we can identify what skills our community has and tailor the work opportunities presented to them based on their skills, the courses they have completed and the previous tasks they have completed, he says.

CGU pays mostly-African Internet users for micro tasks. Before this meant playing games, now it is writing posts, following social media, data labeling and data cleaning tasks. They have progressed to teaching ChatGPT as well as social media AI tools. For Nambiar, this is true to the original gaming guild mission. Although probably not as much fun. So CGU is now a microtask service provider, often providing services to feed AI models.

When it started there was one employer Axie, then Axie got chopped and the mission was to find alternative employers. All games crashed with the crypto markets, so we have been trying to find the right employers for these guys, but they need to understand AI to do these jobs.

In Africa, crypto payments make sense. There are millions of un-banked without accounts or who face high transaction fees and internet services can be hit-and-miss. So for CGU, another revenue stream was figuring out mobile money and how they get paid, paying at scale in those countries.

Internet is hard to access or configure in places like Africa or remote islands in South East Asia. We stumbled across internet services as a business by trying to provide possible workforces a way to connect with the digital economy.

CGU is launching Alteera a metaverse for learning, upskilling and earning. (CGU)

Nambiar is also providing web3 services to web2 companies such as creating NFTs, wallets and Metaverses on mobile and laptop.

By providing basic social media skills, software development and design basics combined with exposure to AI tools we are able to help workers compete in the digital workforce.

One of the big reasons blamed for Axies failure was its unsustainable tokenomics, and various projects are trying to learn from its mistakes.

After starting out as a guild in 2021 (and raising US$5.6 million in token sales) Balthazar DAO and then experimenting with NFT asset management and a marketplace, Balthazar is now designing its own games.

Join the War to defend cryptos reputation. (walletwars.io)

They recently created Wallet Wars, a Space Invaders like-game where you can shoot cryptos biggest wallets. Its a play on the idea that gamers can be the good guys in a world full of cryptos bad actors.

Through Wallet Wars, we aim to reignite faith, unity, and hope in a community that has faced adversity, creating a rallying point for those who have encountered the trials of crypto with unwavering resilience. Balthazar DAOs Co-founder John Stefanidis tells Magazine.

To showcase our technology, we developed a heavily financialised, web3 arcade-style shooter, that combines a variety of win mechanics that gamers can share in a prize pool. Its called Wallet Wars, as a tribute to those who have weathered setbacks and challenges, encompassing the scammed, the rugged, the hacked, the misfits, the underprivileged, and the weary.

Stefanidis says the game was originally designed to showcase web3 technologies, however it developed into a whole new financialisation model for NFT gaming. It has resonated with the crypto community, as the first mint sold out within minutes on October 19, and its inaugural season launches in early December.

Wallet Wars offers two tokens. The raW Pass NFTs, are an ERC-721 NFT on the Ethereum blockchain and include unique DAO benefits such as refer to earn, governance through factions and BZR points (a reward system). The second token is raW Ships, on zksync, which are needed to play the game. Stefanidis explains the sustainable tokenomics model as follows:

Players need a code from one of the raW Passes to purchase a raW Ship NFT, which gives raW Pass holders a commission for every sale using their code. The majority of revenue goes into the prize pool, and it will never be more than the revenue coming in, which maintains sustainability.

要玩钱包战争，您将需要拥有原始船舶要通过钱包战争农场 zkSync，您将需要拥有原始船舶为了最大化您的生态系统奖励，您将需要拥有原始船舶 pic.twitter.com/ysno9UnMqo

- WalletWars.io (@WalletWarsGame) 2023 年 11 月 13 日

重要的是要记住，代币经济学的一部分只是冷酷的、客观的纯数学。

对人际互动的零考虑。

因此，从理论上讲，原始代币可能没问题。

除非 DAO 开始为代币添加实用性或重新利用它，但这是很难做到的。

或者如果企业的运营成本增加。

因此，虽然代币经济学在数学上可能是可持续的，但这并不意味着业务还没有实现。

但如果 Balthazar DAO 能够为 web3 游戏实现可持续的代币经济模型，这可能会成为 web3 游戏行业的先兆。

Web3 游戏会超越 Axie Infinity 的高度吗？

行会是一个很好的客户获取工具，它利用了新冠疫情和发展中国家失业所创造的机会。

他们在 2024 年的新方向让我们深入了解 Web3 游戏及其奖学金俱乐部将通过声誉构建明确的主题走向何方。