My guest today is Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games or YGG. In 2020, Gabby and his co-founders built YGG around the growing “play-to-earn” economy within blockchain-based games. Based in the Philippines, YGG effectively backs players - who might not otherwise be able to afford to play - in exchange for a share of their profits. Today, YGG is paying out over a $1m US dollars a week to players within its community - largely concentrated in their home country of the Philippines. The play-to-earn model has seen its most rapid growth in the popular NFT-based game “Axie Infinity”. Players earn tokens within the game which can be exchanged into local currencies or be used to purchase more digital assets. For a sense of how this market has expanded, Axie Infinity has already reported over $1.5b in sales over its history- and nearly $900mn over the last 30 days. The speed at which these games and the ecosystems around them are growing is remarkable. In our conversation, Gabby explains YGG’s decentralized structure, the unit economics of their business model, and how he deals with the volatility of crypto assets when trying to build a durable, long-term business. We also discuss the broader metaverse landscape, how it might evolve, what might derail it, and the technicalities of building a token-based, as opposed to equity-based, business. I hope you enjoy this wild conversation with Gabby Dizon. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes[00:03:34] - [First question] - What Yield Guild Games is and what they do[00:04:30] - The growing popularity of play-to-earn games in the metaverse [00:06:07] - Major categories of digital assets that exist today [00:08:11] - How players can earn money playing Axie Infinity[00:10:47] - The business model of YGG and what they offer to players[00:12:42] - Potential earnings of playing Axie Infinity[00:15:03] - Possible risks to demand and what the Axie economy could be in a few years[00:17:54] - Evaluating games that are worth investing in[00:19:55] - The kinds of things that will be most valuable across games in the future[00:21:37] - Differences in value between cosmetic and utilitarian in-game purchases[00:23:04] - Key focuses of YGG over the near future[00:29:02] - Ways DAOs are better or worse than traditional equity tables[00:30:11] - The state of YGGs economics today[00:31:16] - The Guild’s player retention and growing their scholars[00:32:54] - Barriers to entry for building a competitive DAO like YGG[00:34:14] - What made Gabby so interested in crypto originally[00:36:38] - His personal journey to crypto games[00:37:53] - Jobs that may carry over from the real world into the metaverse[00:39:36] - Companies that will arise focusing solely on in-game item creation[00:41:18] - Base layers of infrastructure needed to create the best future for crypto gaming[00:44:32] - Shared qualities between games that have a high replayability rate[00:46:40] - Good and bad tokenomic ecosystem designs[00:48:17] - What the biggest risks are for the future success of crypto gaming  [00:49:26] - What factors will ensure the future growth and adoption of crypto gaming  [00:50:25] - How much fiat flows through Axie and the growing value of in-game assets[00:52:05] - Whether or not we’ll see purchasable utility items in the future[00:53:21] - What he’s most excited about for the future of the metaverse[00:54:52] - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for him

Yield Guild Games is the DAO that invests in virtual world and blockchain games. Gabby Dizon talks about YGG's Origins in Axie Infinity "Scholarship" program, Governance mechanics in the DAO, and their game of up-and-coming blockchain games.

In today's episode we’re talking about an emerging model of gaming called play to earn, in which players can make actual money based on how much time and effort they put into a game. Play to earn is also part of broader trends — the changing relationship between players and platforms, new incentives for participants in blockchain-based networks, and the new internet era that is coming to be known as a web3. The top play-to-earn game is called Axie Infinity, operated by a Vietnam-based company called Sky Mavis. Players of the game acquire unique digital pets called Axies, and battle other teams of Axies. These NFT Axies can be created and sold using the game’s in-game currency, SLP, which can be traded for traditional currency. Think of it as Pokemon on the blockchain, with a social network built-in, and an actual economy, and even companies built around the game that help players onboard and loan them money to get started playing. The game has made more than $3 billion in total sales since launching in March 2018, with much of its early growth in the Philippines. (As a reminder, none of the following should be taken as investment advice, please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information.) Our guests today are Jeff Zirlin, the cofounder of Sky Mavis; Gabby Dizon, the cofounder of Yield Guild Games, a play to earn gaming guild that gives players the resources to start playing; and a16z crypto general partner Arianna Simpson. They talk to a16z's Zoran Basich about the tech trends that enabled the emergence of play to earn, why and where it caught on first, and the role of community, as well as the challenges, which include onboarding and scalability, and the economic sustainability of this model. The panel also discusses what the play-to-earn movement say about the future of work.