a16z: Why We Invested in Axie Infinity
The game has been completely redefined by the "play-to-earn" model.Author: Arianna Simpson
Compiled by: Moni, Odaily Planet Daily
"Your profit is my opportunity" ------ Jeff Bezos, founder of global e-commerce giant Amazon.
This famous quote from Jeff Bezos refers to how Amazon increases its market share by lowering prices and eating into competitors' profits. In the transition from Web2 to Web3, a similar trend is emerging, but this time, the entrepreneurs' opportunity lies in the excessively high usage rates of Web2 platforms. In Web3, thanks to innovations like NFTs, ownership and control are decentralized, meaning that the value created by the new generation of internet services and products built in Web3 can be directly shared among builders, creators, and users of those services and products, without the need for platforms (the so-called "middlemen"). As we know, this trend is rapidly changing the web, especially evident and exciting in the gaming industry.
For years, crypto games have not been embraced by mainstream players, and their niche nature has been seen as designed only for a small number of early adopters. Theoretically, applying the values and spirit of Web3 in the gaming industry—reclaiming power and wealth from some "value-extracting" platforms and redistributing it to those who genuinely participate in these ecosystems—makes a lot of sense for the entire industry.
However, in practice, the scalability issues of blockchain present certain challenges. After all, as an emerging technology, blockchain's speed and cost issues seem unable to meet the development needs of gaming applications, not to mention the highly volatile crypto cycles. Therefore, for quite a long time, it has been difficult to build a decentralized game that more people can participate in.
What sets the Sky Mavis team (the developers of Axie Infinity) apart is their ability to create engaging and interesting consumer experiences while also having the capability to scale infrastructure to support extraordinary growth. Axie Infinity, the game that is the culmination of the team's hard work, has experienced astonishing growth this year. Like many building in the cryptocurrency space, even during this unpopular emerging phase, the Sky Mavis team remains committed to bringing economic freedom to people around the world through fun, accessible, and empowering means.
They also realized that to recommend blockchain games to millions, more usable technological solutions need to be developed to support large-scale growth. Thus, the Sky Mavis team successfully developed the Ronin sidechain. From a traditional perspective, the crypto industry generally favors users with some technical knowledge; if you are not familiar with this field, the experience can be "very intimidating." Compared to other blockchain services and products, Axie Infinity introduces a completely new way of experiencing gaming, allowing anyone to convert their time into money through Play-to-Earn (P2E), a mechanism that enables gamers to turn their skills and time into tokenized in-game item income and distribution rights.
Axie Infinity is a digital pet world and a player-owned economy, including breeding games, battle games, and land-based games in a tribal conflict style. The consistent and unified main storyline of this game is its NFT characters, Axies, which can not only be used in the game but also traded on secondary markets. Players earn SLP tokens by winning battles in Axie Infinity, and they use a combination of SLP and AXS governance tokens to breed new Axies NFTs. Thanks to the persistence, effort, innovation, and steadfast commitment to their mission by the Sky Mavis team, Axie Infinity has now become one of the fastest-growing games in the world.
It is no exaggeration to say that Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity have brought the Play-to-Earn (P2E) gaming model into the mainstream, during which the game—a traditional industry category—has been completely redefined.
The growth story of Axie shows us the power of the P2E gaming revolution and resonates with many people around the world, transcending the native environment of cryptocurrency. Frankly, Axie has now developed into the largest NFT gaming ecosystem, gathering over 1.8 million daily active players globally. Additionally, Axie Infinity's daily trading volume has reached $33 million, with a total trading volume exceeding $2 billion. Given that Axie has not yet been listed on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, these numbers are even more impressive.
In the Web2 era of the internet, the economic benefits of gaming did not flow to players, even though players spent a lot of time building their game characters, acquiring assets, and creating game worlds—when the game ended, there was nothing to gain except the feeling of having fun. Axie Infinity solves this problem, allowing players to enjoy their favorite games, have fun, participate in the community, and earn economic income. "Play-to-Earn" is a powerful idea: it means that gaming is no longer purely entertainment but has entered the realm of "revenue generation." Axie Infinity is changing gaming communities around the world and may even replace traditional forms of employment, as gamers help each other, transforming people's lives.
Axie Infinity fully embodies the potential of the new generation of games, where game creators do not have to worry about being suppressed by monopolistic entities. As an open and free market economy, the games they develop allow players to enter and exit freely. As blockchain gaming becomes more successful and popular, this new model of "Play-to-Earn" enables gamers to truly own all aspects of the game and benefit from their contributions. As Axie Infinity demonstrates—by giving players freedom and ownership in the gaming experience, players will bring immense loyalty, which is significant for the future development of the entire gaming industry and opens up infinite possibilities for the internet as we know it. (Source link)
