Every story begins with a memorable scene or a singular setting.
For Web3 gaming within the Philippines, that scene performed out in numerous Filipino properties throughout the pandemic: college students and staff, confined by lockdowns, found they might earn and construct worth collectively.
What began as a curious mix of gaming and crypto would later explode right into a cultural phenomenon.
However this was simply the proverbial testing floor. Quick ahead to late 2024, the scene has matured far past these early play-to-earn days.
Whereas the preliminary gold rush could have cooled, one thing extra substantial has taken root. The Philippines, which served as floor zero for this experiment in digital economies of scale, has maintained its place because the world’s most engaged marketplace for Web3 gaming for 3 consecutive years.
Pioneers by way of the years
Now, Yield Guild Video games (YGG), which pioneered the guild mannequin that mobilized 1000’s of players into communities, is scaling its imaginative and prescient past gaming.
In an unique interview with Decrypt, Yield Guild Video games’ CEO Gabby Dizon spoke with the simple confidence of somebody who’s watched a wild concept develop right into a motion.
“We have at all times had guild communities as a part of YGG since day one,” explains Gabby Dizon. “First we began with Axie [with] the scholarship program, then we expanded to different video games and added questing and status on high of that.”
It’s with this early mannequin that YGG conceptualized Onchain Guilds, a platform that permits collectives to construct and handle their status by way of verifiable information of their work and achievements on the blockchain.
Whether or not you are a gaming workforce, an artist, or a bunch of content material creators, the platform supplies instruments to trace contributions, handle shared property, and entry alternatives throughout YGG’s community of companions.
Consider it like LinkedIn meets Discord, however with precise proofs of what you have achieved.
“The status is onchain for everybody to see,” Dizon notes, explaining how teams can now construct trackable histories of their accomplishments. “It is inscribed in your pockets, so that you personal it, not a social community or every other platform.”
House base
The Web3 guild protocol introduced at present on the YGG Play Summit that its Onchain Guilds platform will launch on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer-2 community.
Designed to reinforce transaction pace and cut back prices whereas sustaining the safety and decentralization of Ethereum, Base was developed utilizing the Optimism Stack.
The L2 permits builders to deploy decentralized functions extra effectively whereas permitting customers to work together with the Ethereum ecosystem at a considerably decrease price.
This issues notably within the Philippines, the place Web3 gaming is not only a interest—it is a severe financial pressure and a life supply for these incomes a mean yearly earnings between $3,000 and $12,000.
The nation has been on the high of worldwide rankings for web3 gaming curiosity for 3 years, with a staggering 96% crypto consciousness charge, based on analysis from ConsenSys. By way of YGG Pilipinas alone, the group counts 1.2 million members throughout social platforms.
And that is rising quick as a result of YGG’s imaginative and prescient extends past gaming, it informed Decrypt. Earlier this yr, YGG launched its Way forward for Work division, exploring how these similar instruments may assist freelancers, content material creators, and even AI knowledge labeling groups set up and construct status collectively.
“Persons are beginning to do issues like knowledge labeling for AI corporations, contributing knowledge for deep finish networks that can permit them to earn cash,” he explains. “I believe that a whole lot of the transactions on-line will ultimately transfer onchain.”
Base’s determination to wrap up its international tour in Manila—after stops throughout Latin America, Africa, and India-–showcases the Philippines’ position as a Web3 frontier market. The platform’s “buildathons” have been making a buzz in rising economies, the place digital possession and verifiable credentials are touted as recreation changers.
Digital sports activities
For group members actively taking part in its widespread Guild Development Program, YGG gives staking as a method to increase questing rewards, with plans for broader participation mechanisms tied to informal gaming by early 2025, Decrypt was informed.
Repute, Dizon notes, is a core characteristic of human interactions. Whether or not again in Web2 and even offline, when one speaks of or interacts with an individual or a bunch, how they arrive to be identified, based mostly on what they do or have carried out, usually opens how others understand them.
Drawing an analogy to conventional sports activities groups, Dizon explains how status works for Onchain Guilds.
“For those who consider the L.A. Lakers, they’ve a sure status. They’ve had totally different members over the many years, however the workforce itself maintains its status: they’ve gained championships, they’ve a win-lose report collectively.”
In a means, the launch of Onchain Guilds on Base feels much less like a product launch and extra like a coming-of-age second for Web3 communities. As Dizon aptly places it, with the attribute optimism of somebody who’s seen the longer term arrive forward of schedule: “That is only a pure evolution of our mission.”
This, Dizon believes, is what YGG’s Onchain Guilds is constructing for digital communities—a platform the place they might earn and construct worth collectively leveraging blockchain know-how.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
GG Publication
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