On Chain Gaming | Host Jake Bowatzke with Jiho - Is Axie Infinity still worth starting?
Primer: Jack Bowatzke from On Chain Gaming interviewed Jeff 'The Jiho' Zirlin, the co-founder and growth lead of Axie Infinity, to answer this important question to all newcomers: Is Axie Infinity still worth starting? Jeff also shares some of the upcoming updates to Axie Infinity that will be sure to excite the community.
Intro to Axie Infinity and Jiho
Axie Infinity
It's a blockchain game that epitomizes the play-to-earn phenomenon
Players buy little monsters called Axies to form a team of 3
They will battle against each other and win in-game currency called Small Love Potion (SLP). This is an NFT that can be exchanged for fiat
Each Axie is also an NFT that can be traded on exchanges outside of the game
Sky Mavis is the developer behind this game and very recently raised more money with Andreessen Horowitz
Jeff 'The Jiho' Zirlin
Co-founder and growth lead of Axie Infinity
Helps to spearhead strategic growth initiatives like a partnership, fundraising and user acquisition
Third time on the show
The first was when there are less than 20k daily players
The second was when Axie Infinity was going viral and the servers were breaking down
Sky Mavis
The mood at Sky Mavis
Very excited about the future - preparing to gear up with a series of new launches
Added a lot more people to their team to launch new things
Currently have 70 people
Averaging around 10 new employees per month
Hiring across engineering, product game design, business growth
Also busy making adjustments to the earnings system due to lots of feedback on that
Had a big round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz so that they have the firepower to produce more content
AXS governance voting
AXS voting on treasury spending
A huge treasury had been accumulating
AXS holders can vote to decide how best to spend the treasury. This will happen sometimes around 2022
Staking rewards for AXS is quite high currently, so if the staking rewards drop over time, they will use the Treasury to offset the drop so that people can continue to stake their AXS
Eventually, this is up to the community once they introduced governance for AXS holders
Explaining the latest update on SLP earning
💡 The Axie Infinity team made an update recently. Any accounts under 800 MMR will no longer receive any SLP from any of the gameplay modes. Players upgrade their MMR by winning battles in the PvP arena.
Reasons for update
The team found out that many gaming accounts were actually bots who were running scripts to abuse the system
The bots will do the PvE but their MMR will drop because the bots cannot make decisions while playing PvP mode
They were just entering the arena hoping to fight against other bots
If this continues, it will cause the SLP to be worthless because it is too easy for the bots to earn SLP
The thinking was that if a human player is trying to improve his game and putting in a good effort to master it, an MMR of over 800 should be easy to maintain
Understands that there will be winners and losers with this update, but the team has to deal with an existential threat to the economy right now
Jake feels that there are many people who enjoy the game but are just not good at it. This update will risk alienating this group of people
Jiho mentioned that the game has to reward skill and mastery more than participation
They are not trying to design equality of outcomes, only equality of opportunities
They cannot guarantee that regardless of skills, each player will get X amount of SLP
"We believe in equality of opportunity, but not equality of outcomes. This is a game, and certain people are going to be better at games and they're going to be able to earn more. If they're not great at games, then maybe, you know, they'll still be able to play for fun."
- Jiho
Jake also wonders with the rise of better AI that can beat professional players at chess, will raising MMR be a long term solution to solve the issue of botting
Building an AI to beat Axie Infinity is going to be way harder than building a bot
Jiho said that they are trying to get rid of the low hanging fruits by raising MMR
The long term solution will be to prove that the account has a human without getting invasive data that can point back to the person. This technology will be helpful for them
The value proposition issue with SLP
Jake mentioned that with this update, the team was trying to decrease the supply of SLP into the ecosystem so that the price of SLP will go up higher
However, this does not solve the underlying value issue with SLP
There is a high Axie inflation rate and SLP is needed to create Axies
The number of Axies is growing too fast and this will cause the devaluation of SLP because you can create something with SLP that is not rare
The long term fix could be to add deflationary mechanics to the game
Jiho said that they have crafting and sinks but they can't be launched because they are in alpha right now
Frankly, he is surprised how they had been around for 4 yrs without this crucial mechanic
Is a mission-critical update that needs to be done soon
The dex will have some way to address this issue too - will keep it as a surprise as to the exact mechanism
Axie inflation rate has been debated forever - good to have healthy corrections so that short term people are replaced by longer-term ones that are also more skilled
Competition from other games
Will new games like Star Atlas and Illuvium crush Axie Infinity?
Jiho said that it's good to have other games enter the ecosystem since they are the only option now
Axie had a headstart - they had knowledge and player base advantage, plus a lot of funding
Other games have amazing graphics but generally, the games are not built for mobile, so it's catered to a different sort of audience
Once other games come in, they will experiment in the space and Axie Infinity can also learn from them. Axie Infinity can grow even faster as they are the only one running experiments with a live community
The whole crypto gaming space will also grow and that can only benefit Axie Infinity because they will be the first play-to-earn game
The next Axie Infinity is... Axie Infinity
Jake mentioned that Axie Infinity keeps innovating and they are likely going to replace the current game with their own new game
There are upcoming updates, listed below:
The upgraded battle system will be released soon
Will include a free-to-play tutorial for people to try out the game
Won't be able to earn anything but will let newcomers know if the game is suitable for them
Or to learn the mechanics of the game by playing
Ronin Dex will be an important launch
Will have a lot more liquidity for in-game resources - AXS and SLP - leading to stability
Makes it easier to breed
Upcoming game mode - Land
Can use it to harvest resources, build structures, fight for control of resources, build alliances
Will have creator links to incentive content creator, similar to referral links, where a portion of a purchase can be credited back to the creator
The team is a bit different from conventional game studios
They will build in public alongside the community, rather than build for 4 to 5 years and release a public beta like conventional studios
They will be in alpha for 5 to 7 years
Next time will have a lot of alternative game modes so that there is more stuff you can do with a team of Axies than what you can do right now
Axie Infinity is a pyramid scheme
People are saying this is a pyramid scheme and the economy is not sustainable
"I'll say that in a traditional game, when you're spending money, you're guaranteed to lose 100%."
- Jiho
Jiho said that their model had cut out all the middlemen that are traditionally taking 70% of the money a game made and sharing it with the community
This new model is better than the status quo where there are no freedom and property rights
Jake said that this is like automobiles replacing horses
Players should not expect everything to be 100%
They should look at the track record of the team in solving difficult problems and decide for themselves
Why people should join Axie Infinity right now
Jake mentioned 3 good reasons:
Prices came down a bit so it's a good time to get in right now
Axie Infinity has a lot of historical significance as the first mainstream play-to-earn game - this will have a strong collective value in the future
First to hit $2 billion in volume for an NFT project
First to hit 2 billion daily active users
First to bring in many people who had not used crypto before to come in
Some of the parts in Axies had been discontinued, so it adds to the collectibility of the Axies
Axie Infinity is the first real community-owned game
Since it is not owned by a gaming company, they will be here to stay, especially since the community will have voting control
"So basically, when you give freedom and ownership to your community, they start to help you in unexpected ways. And Axie is the first game that's really built to leverage the community in this way."
- Jiho
People started building content, raps, tattoos, tools, scholarship models
It is harder to build a community like that now when there are more short term people looking for a quick game to make money
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