The era of blockchain gaming guilds, reviewing representative projects YGG, Guild Fi, and Avocado Guild

Original Title | Blockchain Game Guild: The Hub Between Games and Players

Author | Tang Yuan

Since the explosive growth of the GameFi sector, there have been continuous financing news regarding blockchain game guilds. In November, there were two cases of blockchain game guilds securing funding. First, the Thai blockchain game guild Guild Fi raised $6 million, led by the crypto investment firm DeFiance Capital, with participation from well-known investment institutions like Coinbase Ventures; later, the Southeast Asian blockchain game guild Avocado Guild raised $18 million in Series A funding, led by the venture capital firm Animoca Brands in the metaverse gaming space.

A "guild" is an online player organization that developed after the popularity of internet games, aiming to share members' cooperative experiences and enjoyment in games. A "guild" not only provides a place for players to exchange gaming experiences but also serves as a platform for players to team up and tackle challenging tasks in games. Some game guilds even offer resources to players, including game guidance, equipment, and game strategies.

A "blockchain game guild" has evolved from the "Play To Earn" business model of blockchain games, also known as "gold farming studios." It connects on-chain game players, seeking opportunities to Earn (generate income) based on social interactions, and can even influence game order.

Why do game player organizations attract capital attention?

In fact, some blockchain game guilds have already formed their own business models, providing players with on-chain game NFT asset leasing, training in gaming skills, and disseminating knowledge about on-chain transactions, among other services. Due to the direct Earn attribute of blockchain games, "blockchain game guilds" have richer profit-making methods compared to traditional online game guilds, with some even becoming direct investors in blockchain games.

The relationship between guilds and blockchain games has generated commercial value, resembling the relationship between investment institutions and the projects in their portfolios, complementing each other. Industry insiders compare the relationship of "blockchain game guilds --- games --- players" to that of "Moutai --- distributors --- channels," indicating a sense of industrial development.

Some blockchain games have become popular due to the involvement of KOLs from game guilds, leading to significant sales, and the guilds have gained recognition. The guild Yield Guild Games, which gained fame alongside Axie Infinity, is one such example. It can be said that the commercial effects generated by the mutual growth of guilds and blockchain games have attracted capital attention, with sufficiently strong consensus game guilds becoming a traffic entry point, attracting not only potential players but even members of official game teams to join.

The strong user stickiness of blockchain game guilds attracts capital investment, and the new blockchain games they collaborate on have become the next targets for venture capitalists. This issue of DeFi Hive will review the representatives of "blockchain game guilds" and their operational situations.

Leading Blockchain Game Guild Yield Guild Games (YGG)

Introduction

Yield Guild Games (YGG) is a blockchain game guild formed as a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). This guild brings players together to generate real cash flow by acquiring NFT assets from "Play To Earn" blockchain games, monetizing the time players spend in games as they grow.

Yield Guild Games Official Website

Operational Situation

Yield Guild Games initially developed as a game guild based on the blockchain game Axie Infinity, investing in and earning NFT assets within the game, optimizing these assets based on the strengths of its internal members to maximize value.

In July of this year, Axie Infinity became a blockbuster blockchain game. Yield Guild Games launched the "Axie Scholarship Program," providing the necessary NFT assets for players who want to enter the game. Joining the program is akin to working for the guild, after which players share the earnings.

The prerequisite for participating in Axie Infinity is to purchase three Axie creatures (important character assets in the game), which were valued at several ETH during the game's peak popularity, creating a high financial barrier for entry. If players do not have sufficient funds, they can borrow three Axies from Yield Guild Games to participate in the game, eliminating the initial high cost.

The three borrowed Axies serve as the player's initial production tools in the game, allowing them to earn game rewards in SLP. If players wish to cash out their earned SLP, Yield Guild Games automatically activates a smart contract to recover these SLP, with profits split 70:30, where 70% goes to the player and the remainder to the guild and community.

This program is one of Yield Guild Games' earliest business models. Currently, Yield Guild Games has established a comprehensive service for player recruitment, training, and game asset lending.

Yield Guild Games is no longer limited to just Axie Infinity; guild members can now participate in dozens of games simultaneously, even forming sub-teams for each game. To facilitate this, the guild has created a DAO and sub-DAO structure, where the main guild and sub-guilds interact. The "sub-DAO" replicates the main DAO's governance functions but has a narrower scope, typically focusing on a specific game or direction, such as esports.

This structure provides flexibility for the expansion of the guild's DAO. The "sub-DAO" primarily manages specific game assets and activities, with assets owned by Yield Guild Games' finance department and controlled by the main DAO. Interestingly, each "sub-DAO" of Yield Guild Games can be tokenized.

A recent example of tokenization in a "sub-DAO" is the issuance of the YGGLOK Token. Yield Guild Games acquired land NFT assets in the "Kingdom Building Game" League of Kingdoms, which are stored in Yield Guild Games' wallet and controlled through multi-signature by the main DAO. This wallet will be tokenized into a "sub-DAO," and the generated YGGLOK Tokens will be distributed to the community, allowing holders to vote on adjusting the reward distribution methods within League of Kingdoms.

The main DAO of Yield Guild Games has also issued its governance token YGG, with a total supply of 1 billion, primarily used for community voting governance.

Blockchain Game Industry Hub Merit Circle

Introduction

Merit Circle (MC) is also a "gold farming studio" structured as a DAO organization. It lowers the entry barriers for players wanting to enter blockchain games and the metaverse by providing the necessary NFT assets and skill training, generating income. It was incubated by the crypto venture capital fund Flow Ventures.

Merit Circle Official Website

Merit Circle aims to maximize the value of NFT assets in blockchain metaverse games, becoming a hub platform connecting capital, blockchain, game experts, and players. Here, blockchain game developers can not only connect with players but also reach capital providers, offering a full range of services from the birth of new blockchain games to their market entry. Currently, Merit Circle has established partnerships with games like the space strategy game Star Atlas and the RPG adventure game Illuvium.

Operational Situation

Merit Circle evolved from the "Axie Infinity 420 Scholarship Program," which aimed to "enable users from low-income countries to afford Axie Infinity," earning praise from Southeast Asian players upon its inception.

Subsequently, the "Axie 420 Scholarship Program" transformed into a DAO and was renamed "Merit Circle," expanding its focus from Axie Infinity to more popular blockchain games and investments in crypto assets, exploring more potential opportunities within the metaverse concept.

Similar to Yield Guild Games, Merit Circle also focuses on investing in "Play To Earn" games and sponsoring game players, but their DAO structures differ.

The similarity lies in that Merit Circle also consists of a structure where the "main DAO" manages "sub-DAOs," with each sub-DAO representing a game and deploying corresponding strategies, including maximizing game asset profits and purchasing NFT collectibles.

The difference is that Yield Guild Games allows "sub-DAOs" to be tokenized, while Merit Circle shares a single token, MC, between the "main DAO" and "sub-DAOs," concentrating the empowerment of the governance token to the greatest extent.

The total supply of MC is 1 billion, and holders can vote on Merit Circle's strategies.

Comprehensive NFT Game Platform Good Games Guild

Introduction

Good Games Guild (GGG) is a blockchain game guild located in Southeast Asia, focusing on the metaverse and Play to Earn ecosystem. By sponsoring millions of game players, investing in related games, earning game assets, and optimizing its own assets for maximum returns, it aims to create a comprehensive gaming experience.

Good Games Guild Official Website

Good Games Guild's goal is not only to invest in "Play To Earn" games and game assets but also to build tools for blockchain games that help players manage their assets scattered across various games, becoming a game hub that provides a full range of services from game entry to asset liquidation after gameplay.

Operational Situation

The main source of income for Good Games Guild comes from the efficient utilization of game NFT assets, such as:

• Leasing ------ If the NFT game assets owned by the guild are characters in a blockchain game (like the Axie creatures in Axie Infinity), the guild will lend these characters to guild players, who use these assets as tickets to participate in the game and earn rewards, with a portion of the rewards shared with the guild; additionally, if players have NFT assets but lack time to play, they can rent them out to other players in the guild who need them, efficiently utilizing these idle assets.
• Renting ------ If the NFT assets owned by the guild are similar to land in the metaverse Decentraland (MANA), the guild can rent them out to third parties, who must pay rent to conduct activities on that land.
• Selling ------ If the NFT assets owned by the guild are collectible assets, it can choose to sell them during periods of rising NFT asset prices to achieve maximum returns.

Good Games Guild also plans to develop a game asset management dashboard and NFT trading platform for players, which distinguishes it from other blockchain game guilds.

This dashboard allows players to visualize costs, achievements, rankings, rewards, and earnings across various games, helping them monitor and manage their NFT asset expenditures and returns scattered across different games. The NFT trading market will allow players to buy and sell game assets directly through the platform, even converting them into fiat currency, with the NFT trading platform charging a certain commission based on the value of the assets.

Good Games Guild has also issued its governance token GGG, with a total supply of 100 million, allowing holders to vote on community governance proposals.

Guild Aggregation Platform Guild Fi

Introduction

Guild Fi (GF) aims to be the entry point for metaverse infrastructure, attempting to provide one-stop services such as onboarding, skill training, and value-added services for players, guilds, games, and investors. By connecting the infrastructure of games, NFT assets, and guilds, it establishes a systematic platform that optimizes players' time and efforts for cross-game experiences and maximized earnings.

Guild Fi Official Website

Operational Situation

Although many guilds have set up "scholarship programs" to lower the financial barriers for player participation, the varying conditions of each guild's scholarship program have led to a dispersion of scholarship funds, creating challenges for players in "how to choose a guild."

Moreover, due to the explosive growth of public chains, the types and numbers of blockchain games on each public chain are increasing exponentially. Inexperienced players can only try games one by one, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the NFT assets obtained in games are isolated from each other, with multi-chain assets not being interoperable, which discourages players from trying new games.

Guild Fi can achieve interoperability across the metaverse, maximizing player earnings while enhancing the activity of game guilds and creating a one-stop platform that rewards active players. How does it achieve this? Guild Fi has decided on account integration.

First, Guild Fi has set up GuildFi ID, defining it as "the identity ID of players in the metaverse." This ID account records players' achievements in the blockchain game world, displaying rankings and scores obtained in games, accumulating performance rewards.

By integrating game and player data and analyzing the performance of ID accounts, Guild Fi plans to provide additional benefits for players, such as NFT asset rewards for players with outstanding ID account performance; ID accounts with footprints in multiple games may directly become whitelisted users for participating in new games…

To this end, Guild Fi will collaborate with game developers to provide early investment opportunities for new game NFT assets or tokens, determining allocation amounts based on players' levels and engagement in Guild Fi.

In this way, Guild Fi becomes a hub that not only helps players discover new games but also assists game developers in finding suitable player groups. Guild Fi is no longer just a guild for a specific blockchain game; it resembles an aggregator of guilds. It also plans to provide management tools for individuals capable of creating guilds, while allowing players to choose suitable guilds on Guild Fi.

Guild Fi's governance token is GF, with a total supply of 1 billion.

Blockchain Game Education Guild Avocado Guild

Introduction

Avocado Guild's mission is to provide players with the NFT assets required to enter the "Play To Earn" (P2E) model of blockchain games.

The guild refers to players who borrow NFT assets as "scholars," who can save significant costs through this borrowing method, only needing to share a portion of the rewards earned in the game with the guild to "repay the debt."

Avocado Guild Official Website
Similar to Yield Guild Games, Avocado Guild invests in NFT assets and leases them to community players for participation in various blockchain games. However, Avocado Guild places greater emphasis on community education, teaching players methods to Play To Earn, assigning specific roles to guild members, researching game strategies and mechanics, and encouraging and guiding players to improve their gaming skills, organizing training exchanges periodically.

In addition, Avocado Guild aims to disseminate knowledge about blockchain, crypto assets, and DeFi to every participant, allowing players to learn in the community while playing. It hopes to have a positive impact on the lives of every scholar.

Operational Situation

Avocado Guild has proposed three new concepts for "P2E."

• Play To Educate ------ Learning crypto knowledge through gaming, including trading and decision-making, encouraging players to discuss how to use crypto assets and learn related applications.
• Play To Enrich ------ Avocado Guild hopes that P2E games can improve the livelihoods of some economically disadvantaged groups, diversifying their income, which is a new lifestyle brought by games and crypto assets. Therefore, one of the guild's goals in collaborating with more blockchain games is to improve players' livelihoods.
• Play To Empower ------ Empowering new players while playing, encouraging veteran guild players to actively share experiences with new players, fostering mutual growth.

Avocado Guild builds an educational channel for crypto knowledge for guild players, emphasizing education, training, and empowering scholars in their gaming skills, enabling the crypto industry to empower their lives. The guild recently completed a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands, raising $18 million. It is important to note that Avocado Guild has not issued any governance tokens.