The Future of Axie Infinity with Philip La, Game Lead at Sky Mavis - The Metacast by Naavik

[Music] gm friends and welcome to the metacast crypto corner brought to you by navik i'm your host nicola reyke or nico for short and today i'm joined by philip la philip is the game product lead at sky mavis best known for building the play-doh urn super hits axi infinity and before this philip was a product manager at niantic working on pokemon go in our discussion today we'll touch upon the axi infinity economy and its sustainability we'll talk about axi origin the the game that just came out in early access then the axilan gameplay and then we'll talk about the future of actually infinity web 3 gaming etc thank you for joining us philip thanks for having me honored to to be on metacast uh yeah a huge fan by the way is it philip or phil what should i call you uh either either phil's shorter so

easier can go with that either i'll go with phil that's that's generally so by the way to set the stage we have at navi and at the metacast we have made some interesting observations and research into x-infinity and its economy but i just wanted to have it on the record that at the start of this year i actually made the prediction that by the end of this year actually infinity would be low if i had to put money on one company or one game to be the most successful by the end of the year it would be actually infinity just setting the stage here um um um i i've had my thoughts about what what's like the the the previous economy um and we can go into that but i still think that you guys are doing a great job so um so yeah let's let's dive in um [Music] before this you worked at niantic um who's also already working with blockchain technology were you already involved with the web3 3 tech there or is this your first time diving into the rabbit hole yeah uh no at niantic i was purely focused on pokemon go which has not

gotten into the blockchain space yet so yeah this has been my my first rodeo into the space and yeah it's been it's been a whirlwind yeah i think everyone that jumps in gets that and has that feeling what made you um what convinced you to actually make the jump in the end yeah so the story behind it was you know i was you know happy at night pokemon go was you know a dream job for me i love the pokemon franchise and everything uh around it so um yeah it was it was awesome to work on that but uh i started getting into acting infinity was actually how i got into web 3 and blockchain gaming as a whole and i started playing last year um and yeah at some point it just clicked i was like the the ownership of assets and you know the ability to you know have it on a on the blockchain and immutable and all that was like okay this is this is gonna be uh

super fun for gamers uh to have you know this type of experience um so i just felt like i needed to get in and learn more and work on it and build it out for everyone else um so uh that's what ended up kind of moving me into the space and you know axe infinity was a was the easy choice in terms of you know their leadership and and the learnings that i could have but also just opportunity um and everything they've set up to to grow into the future i've actually spoken to other people building within the web 3 gaming space and they told me that they were very sad that you didn't join them and that you ended up at sky mavis so you were very desired um in the web 3 gaming space when when you were you know actively exploring um i guess you know where where to end up and where to actually start getting involved here yeah i chatted with with a bunch of different uh projects and companies and i don't know they were all awesome i was i was excited for all of those uh uh there were definitely tough choices

made but uh yeah no by the end of it it was it was clear like axe infinity was um really the the place where uh yeah i'd be able to thrive and really contribute a lot what what excites you most about x infinity is it the community is it is it the team or a bit of both uh yeah it's a combination of everything right um so the games themselves obviously you know becoming in a big focus for me was you know i want to make fun games like i love the blockchain side obviously that's a huge component but you know i think they had that mindset of you know we really want to make sure that we focus on fun first we want to make sure that everything we create is is going to be an awesome experience and so that's kind of the the number one and then the community um so i was part of the community before i even joined and yeah it's where i learned a lot about web3 and the uh and people are super supportive and helpful and um really uh just

loyal i think to tax infinity and everything it's uh it's created um and then i think the the last part is just the bigger ecosystem right so axe infinity is one thing but now you have ronin um you have you know builders program we want to uh build out way more games and uh for acting infinity but also on the chain so that's just a huge you know canvas um for us to paint on um to create you know really interesting things outside of you know just one specific battle game for for instance it's it's a huge array of things what were um some of the biggest surprises that you or things that you needed to overcome or what and what did you underestimate and underestimate before you actually joined and made the dive into web 3. so what were some of the things i needed to to overcome to make the drive well yeah or what did you underestimate when making the switch in terms of maybe i know community involvement in in

actually designing the game or things like that yeah uh i would say yeah kind of what you you mentioned really is uh has been a big uh learning area for me but it's it's a double-edged uh i guess that there's there's good and bad basically like i actually love being able to uh you know work with the community and get ideas from them and balance ideas um and i do that a lot on on twitter and people will see that i talk to the community a lot about the decisions that we make and it informs um a lot of what we do but on the other side yes the the community is uh a force to work with um and uh it can be overwhelming i think for anyone in the space where you know people care a lot like you know emotionally financially they spend a lot of time on it so everyone cares a lot and they want to be heard and we we should be listening and so that's definitely been a big area where

you know myself and the whole team has been working on getting better at over time and you know i think jiho has been one of obviously the greatest you know community managers and and builders um around and so learning a lot from him and um yeah just evolving as we go because yeah a lot of this still hasn't been done yet yeah i think that community aspect feels like everyone knows it's important and still people tend to always underestimate it i've i've made some investments in in companies and i've seen some some young companies start up build some pretty cool stuff and then you know just noticed that they didn't approach the community in the right way um where they have to make some adjustments there so um yeah i can imagine that it feels at least for my side that actually infinity was the first to really crack the community nothing and really did a great job and um yeah i feel like uh from from browsing twitter and and seeing what gets posted under the most of the axis stuff um it's it seems like you know people are very very

involved yeah and i mean you can see it right like we've had ups and downs and you know uh and the space as a whole but people are still around like uh you know we launched origin there was you know instantly even if it though it was just on desktop there was almost 300 000 people on the first day um just testing out origin there's no tokens nothing they they just love the game and they love being part of the community so um yeah that really shines especially in uh you know when markets dip and all that you know people are still around right um i'm curious to to um to have your thoughts on some of the learnings you took from pokemon go and niantic that you feel like are very relevant now that you're building out the axi infinity gaming ecosystem can you share a bit more about that uh yeah i mean so i worked on the economy on pokemon go um so i let up you know all of our sinks and sources and um i mean all of that's super relevant to axe infinity um and really any any

game um and so that's that's how i look at a lot of you know how we design axiomfinity is through you know just game design and economic balancing um to me um they're the token kind of aspect of you know external investors and all these things can can purchase token as well outside of just players makes a difference but at the end of the day you know to me it's it's definitely supply and demand you know if you have a certain economy you need to manage how much people are getting if they want it once they have it what do they do with it and then you know how do certain resources get sunk and so just balancing all of that and having a very clear idea of what that economy looks like um you know that's a lot of what i worked on at pokemon go and now that's you know just applying that at 1950 as well so that's one thing and then i think the other part is um you know uh looking at uh the community and research a lot of what i did at

pokemon go was you know player research and interviews and looking at data and you know doing uh different studies to really understand you know what we should build that uh will be fun and and make sense for the community as well and so that's you know very much transferable to um in terms of working with the community looking at our data at x infinity and making decisions through all that um and yeah you know over the past decade my career has always been in growth and product and so a lot of those are are transferable across the board in terms of you know now we want to grow through you know some ua methods or uh we want to do more you know creator programs with marketing side and so i can you know advise and help out on that and then also on the product side is just building out our product management practice um internally um and i'm i'm the first product hire basically so you know they've done a killer job so far and so now i'm just helping to to

kind of accelerate and upgrade kind of our uh our skills there it's um when we record this it's the end of april and it's almost exactly a year ago when we saw the astronomical growth in the user base of actually infinity uh when everyone was talking about play to earn and you know you can quit your job and play this game um and so you know a few months later uh navic we we did the reports um and then you know things have settled down a bit a lot of our listeners are still i i feel like when talking to them um under the impression that you know the axi gameplay loop hasn't changed or at least not the economic loop hasn't changed since you know we we published that report um could you share a bit more about you know what the game that the traditional axe infinity um original game itself looks like right now what has changed what decisions have you made for what reasons uh so the original as in the the game that's been running you know for the past two years or the or the new origin

yeah original yes yeah original was a bad word of me yeah my apologies yeah we call it classic um but too so a lot of different names okay um but uh yeah we um yeah for that game uh we actually haven't made that many changes to it um you know there's been balancing changes and updates and season rewards and um but really the focus has been to to migrate over to origin um which is kind of the you know all the the brand new gameplay and graphics and you know basically the future of kind of our battles game so yeah in terms of that that part the economic loop is still the same you know people can can earn slp within the game and it exists if you make it to the leaderboard and then slp and axs can also be used for breeding more axes and so that that's all still the same but that's also um what is uh going to get a lot of changes through origin

and some of the new features we're working on all right let's talk about origin i'm curious um maybe first the strategy why did you decide to to make a new game instead of of changing the the the classic one um and then you know maybe in some more detail what big changes you made um and why as well yeah so i i wasn't around when you know the actual decision was made but um definitely the the team felt that um you know v2 just uh and the classic game just wasn't good enough um you know it was solid but you know the graphics weren't there the the gameplay didn't have as much progression um and so they felt you know we really needed to level up and origin was kind of the answer to that um and so with origin uh you know we're in alpha right now early access a lot of people are testing we're balancing we're tweaking um and uh yeah there's just a lot more to it uh there's a whole you know charms and

ruins power up progression system uh there's a lot of changes to adventure mode there's uh free to play now so you don't need to you know spend x you know dollars to just start the game um and yeah i can dive into a lot more of that but that's kind of the thinking is you know this is the game that will be able to cater more to the masses with that free to play with the better you know graphics more progression and uh yeah be more sustainable ultimately in the future and so the the gameplay itself is still very similar where you have you know your team of three axes that battles against another team of three axes um you know with some additional layers on top um you know and then if you win or if you do well you earn a slp and access is that's like these principles still there yeah so that that basic game loop is still the same um uh the uh the main difference is going to be or the one of the biggest differences is going to be power-ups you can use

outside of just your three axes like in in the classic game um but yeah other than that yeah slp axs all of that will be there um there might be you know tweaks and exactly how they're distributed and um and how it all works now that we have free axes as well you know we have to manage the economy against those um but uh yeah the basics are still the same how did the choice to also allow people to play with free axes um influence your design around you know the the the scarcity of nfts and and these kind of things are these you know these free nfts are they also um like is there a difference between the ones you can get for free and the ones you can actually get on the blockchain yeah so the free ones are actually not on chain um so they are you know basically like a you know your web 2 version of uh of assets um so they're in game uh and you earn them as you go through the adventure mode um you can get more of

them um and you learn the game through them right you can try out different combinations and it really helps people you know get a grasp of like different things they can do in the game before they you know need to make that first purchase of an nfd axi but the biggest difference will be that uh you know there will be you know obviously less variety in the types of you know combinations and and uh and metas that they have access to but also um they won't be able to earn the tokens um so if using you know just free axes in arena mode then you wouldn't be able to earn you know slp and axs and all that so um that's kind of the and you know if you're you're not able to earn those you're not able to breed axey so um there's kind of this evolution that we want to take people through of you know come in just enjoy the game um you know learn about different combinations you know try cool stuff and then slowly transition them to learn about the blockchain and understand it and eventually be able to to get their first axi and and with the new system

you actually don't need to have three uh nft axes um to to get started earning right you can get one nft axiom and two free axes um so the barrier to entry is much lower now and ultimately we we just want to introduce you know blockchain gaming to more people um and and to get them into the space um in a way that is uh is friendly to them and not too overwhelming um and so that whole flow is still gonna have to get optimized a lot over time you know we want to make improvements to our wallet and um and all these areas that people need to go through when they on on board to the blockchain uh space so um yeah that's a lot of kind of thinking behind the the free axes is the current you know on chain on boarding to get your first axi is it still the same as it used to be where you have to get an exchange get some eth um you know bridge that over to the ronin chain then you know in in the um in the axi marketplace then finally purchase your first actually is that still the case and how are you thinking

about that evolving in the future yeah uh we've introduced new ways for people to basically you know purchase uh tokens directly um through uh through ramp uh which is kind of the service we use um so that's a way for for people to not have to necessarily go through that whole flow and then um i think there's still another big barrier for you know just wipe through as a whole in terms of the the whole secret phrases and um all of those things with you know a wallet that you know people haven't dealt with before um so those are the areas that we're really trying to dive in to figure out you know how can we make the ronin wallet even more friendly and easier for people to get onto yeah it makes a lot of sense um and so essentially now you have a bit of a freemium model where you get people in a very like free and easy way to get to play your game and then when they want to like really start diving in um then you give them the option to purchase their first nfts and and get them involved that way is that fair yeah exactly and i think this this goes towards um just the overall

uh narrative um in the space as well of focusing more on the fun and you know playing earn or play and own and you know getting people to just enjoy the game and have fun like any traditional game and yeah you can you can earn stuff along the way and own the things that you uh you obtained and you know if you ever stop playing one day you can sell them if you want you can trade them along the way but the whole idea is to really have people focus more on the game itself um when they when they get into it so that you know even when they uh kind of on board to the economic side it's still about you know the game itself and progression in that what is the the current thinking of the sky mavis team around you know play to earn play and earn play and own and all these types of words and essentially you know making money playing games yeah i mean i think um the you know the right wording is is still tbd i think we we have kind of embraced the plain earned uh

uh type wording i think oh people on the podcast have probably talked about i think i've talked to ryan about it a lot at delphi so so shout out to him um and uh i think for us like we i think we see it as uh other games out there too right you know even in traditional where there are people who want to really progress faster in the game and there are people who you know are willing to grind and get resources and and there's kind of this trading system and so i think all of that continues to exist in terms of people being able to um you know grind and other resources that someone else might want um but all of that you know ultimately has to be driven uh by people who want to play the game who need resources who want to progress who want to collect things um and so that's really the the big focus is if you have people who want to progress and want to collect you know assets and whatever it is in your game then all that earning stuff is is uh is actually the easier part um right because uh you just have people who want to

uh who want those things yeah at the the end of of these you know conversations i i like to have a little a little bit of philosophizing going on so maybe then we can talk about you know play the urn and having a job in the metaverse and all of that stuff um before that i'm curious to to understand a bit of the um the next steps or maybe the vision behind actually origin um it feels like it's it's its own thing right it's it's this you know this this battle game loop 3v3 um and i'm curious to to understand how that fits into the broader axiom finishing infinity universe vision uh yeah so in terms of the broader axi ecosystem you know we have origin we have bland game we're working on there's going to be many other games but uh yeah origin is definitely kind of the the premiere battle game we have um and you know we are you know going to be putting more and more resources into it to evolve it um i think esports is definitely a big focus that will become more and more uh

important for it as well as we uh look to make it more competitive that's actually one of the the big things we're focusing on now we know v2 has certain components that a lot of players like that you know haven't necessarily directly translated to v3 um in origin so those are some things we're adding in but um it's actually it's also where you know a lot of uh features that you know we haven't we've held off until now because we were waiting for origin so things like cosmetics and things like upgrading and so all of those will basically further expand the progression and you know the expression that people can do within the game to get to a point where you know it is uh you know this just awesome fun game that you can play express yourself uh be competitive um and you know running live ops around that right and that's not even something we've done yet is having kind of live ops and events and um and uh yeah excited to do more of that

that's a lot of what i did on pokemon go too was you know live ops like that that game lives off of it uh every you know month there's tons of events um and i think uh a lot of our players uh for on axi would love those yeah i still remember when there was the month that pokemon go came out it felt like we were the closest to world peace that we've ever been in yeah that was a magical summer everyone just in the streets yeah that was good um i'm curious to to understand a bit better your and skye mavis's vision behind the axi universe um is this an ip centered universe is this an asset centered universe is your vision that you can you know you own your axes and you can use them to play origin and do battles but you can also use them in other games is that a bit uh how are you thinking around this yeah so uh yeah it's it's a full you know uh franchise for sure that the way we're looking at it is uh you know your axes

are your ticket to all these experiences it's kind of what we always say and so you know big part is uh we released even the uh some helping run the builders program right now as well which we're actually allowing you know community members to to build new experiences using the xcip which to me is just you know amazing because we can empower people but one of the requirements is that the games should require people to have either nft axes to start playing or there's you know some premium experience that requires nfd axes even if it's free to play to start um so that that's kind of the way we think about it like every game will need axes in some way um and if you want to make it more accessible i think having free to play part of it makes sense to us but nft actually should be a core part um of the overall game play and um and yeah we we want there to be obviously like very polished fleshed out games um

with things like origin and land and and you know that we might you know work with other studios to build too but also there will be some of these mini games that that our community builds or maybe we put out um that people can use them to to play like axey snake or i don't know all different types could you um because this dies into my next topic uh what i'd like to have some more thoughts on and that is you know your land gameplay that you've you've mentioned a few times um could you tell us like from the start what what that is um how it works and the vision behind it yeah so lan gable has definitely evolved uh through the years um and uh the the latest kind of iteration of it which is what we've really kind of leaned into and are focused on is um it's actually quite a few things it's uh number one a very uh very ambitious project um it's kind of this multi-year thing that we are investing into um but the base kind of alpha that we're

looking at right now is uh kind of a farming simulation game um so you know you're able to to use axes to collect resources and build up structures and um and uh and complete tasks uh but the idea is um like overall when i look at the space there's kind of two big buckets of land there's kind of the very metaversy type which is you know you go around you can build things you you know hang around with people um and then there's you know land with with actual games um on top and so we have uh very much been focusing on on the latter which is we want a real game we want a full game loop we want all of that on our land um but after that we also want to add in the metaverse component so that's kind of what's really unique about axeland is it's kind of everything that we want to do on it obviously the game will be the foundation but people should be able to take their axis and walk around and you know hang out with people as well and um and do mini games or whatnot together

so that's kind of uh overall what we're looking at as in terms of the vision is you know this place that people can go to play the game to build up structures to you know battle chimeras all of that but also hang out with their friends socialize show you know show off their land and all that um so yeah that's that's kind of the thinking behind land um right now and for these gameplay experiences do you um will that be user generated content will you provide like tools for that yeah so uh we'll we'll provide uh we'll be providing a lot of it so i would say you know i i think the the parallel that we've looked at is everdale um was kind of an inspiration for it but you know farmville and all of those obviously the precursors um that's the type of game that we're looking at where yeah we we have you know structures and resources and all of that will be provided for people to play that game part um but you know in the future yeah we'd love to do more ugc things as well um as we go and you know we've talked about sdk

and ways for people to build new experiences on land that's something we still definitely want to do in the future but that's that's a bit further out yeah makes sense so you have a battle gameplay with that people can use to battle their axes you have a metaverse style or mini mini games you know a place where people can take their axes and hang out um what other game experiences are you envisioning within your your the axe ex-universe honestly uh like everything um i think uh we've we've uh we have a you know bd team now and uh they have been just talking to a lot of different studios out there and you know us internally we have a lot of ideas ourselves but um you know i can say our community is has has brought up a lot of ideas too from tower defense to mobas to you know some of these are obviously bigger projects than others to merge games

and a lot of the builders program uh uh kind of participants and applicants have have come up with super uh cool demos already from uh also racing games um and uh and platformer um we have uh one project i think uh yeah called across lunacia that literally just community members building and it's a platformer you know you can use all your different axes in it and yeah it looks looks awesome um so yeah it's it's going to span across everything that's really awesome um [Music] one of the things that gets me excited and what i see a lot of companies and studios building towards it is a sort of shared economic layer where different games and experience are built upon so as far as like understand what you're doing is this shared economic layer is more based on the axiom of these where you you just you get a set of axes and you can use your axes in different games

um do you see a world where there's more than only axes that get shared between um between experiences and games and i'm thinking about you know you maybe there's a different token like than slp that you can farm within the farm gameplay and you need that token to partake in like a city builder game or whatever is that something you're thinking about yeah um so in terms of uh yeah so primitives wise i would say yeah axes are like you know a very base level you know nft that can be used across games but um number one we can we can look at land as primitives too um i think like we have obviously our major land gameplay but that we're building but you know if a builder um and a community member wants wants to create a minigame for for land uh and say like all land holders will have access to this um using their land in some way um yeah land our uh land nfts are also primitives um and there will probably be many experiences built on that

um and then uh yeah in terms of you know tokens and nfcs being used across even more games uh i think we definitely want to do more of that and explore that uh a lot of that comes down to game balancing too though right so you know for example a big question from the community has been like will slp be used in land game um and so the the tough part on the game design side for that is you know now we if we're using this token to be you know part of the core game loop of progression um now you have an external kind of factor that affects how people can progress right so you know if if the price or if you know the supply and demand changes externally from the land game suddenly it might be super easy to progress or super hard to progress the land and so we want to make sure that we we create economies that make sense and and make sense for the progression of the game uh but there are ways integrated in ways that aren't as disruptive right so if slp is needed for you know more advanced

you know structures or cosmetics and all that that's very much possible and things we're looking at so that's kind of the thinking behind you know tokens and nfts being used across games um and same with you know uh the land items you know sure they they can be used on in our land game but they can also have a different meaning in another game and i think that's you know up to every different game in in the axe ecosystem to figure out yeah it makes a lot of sense um the so when i look at xe and and everything surrounding it you have you know actually infinity the core game and then origin is maybe next to it then you have the brother axe universe and then you have ronin how do you see um like are you involved in in what is going to be built on ronin or you're only mainly or are you mainly focused on the the the smaller axi universe uh i help out uh it's definitely you know uh got a lot on my plate already with axey so don't don't dive in as much as i'd want yeah um

yeah the ronin universe is you know basically we want it to be the the premier you know gaming blockchain um and uh the whole idea is you know we have this huge audience already um and we are really um careful about what we want to put out there for them and so you know anything we do put on the chain and that we do um you know really really promote is you know our endorsement right to our our millions of of players um and so it's not something that we just want to open up and allow anyone to come in and and start you know building whatever experiences and you know obviously there's uh we want to make sure like block space and all those things go to the best experiences too so it's very much focused on being a premier kind of uh platform where we are curating kind of the best things we can for our audience and you know over time as as we figure out new processes it might become a little bit more open but definitely

earlier on um you know we are looking for the best of the best um and yeah if anyone wants to is interested on being on the chain definitely reach out um but uh yeah that's kind of thing behind ronin but it will be yeah a plethora of different ips games experiences everything on the chain so if i put on my critic or cynic hats that sounds quite a lot like what apple's doing we have a bunch of users that are within our ecosystem and now we're building this platform there's walled gardens you need to come to us if if if you want to you know access our users um what are your thoughts yeah i i think um in the longer term we probably will want to open it up more but yeah right now we we definitely feel like we want to make sure there is some curation in the space especially given you know the amount of you know the the the large spectrum of types of things you get and you know

there's bad actors out there there's you know obviously people trying to you know attack others in malicious ways um and so that's something that we want to really just be careful about earlier on um and we don't want to be uh be in a situation where you know our chain is affected uh negatively because we had some bad actor that just came and started you know stabbing the the chain or things like that um so yeah that's something we're just careful about but i think the goal is to be more open um as we as we progress as much as i am a crypto bull i've been in the crypto space for a while and i think you know everything should be permissionless i totally get what you're saying because it feels like you know there are probably more scam projects out there right now than there were non-scam projects and i can all so very much imagine that your audience so the players that actually are onto ronin um that many of them actually only own axes do you have any numbers on that uh i don't have the numbers on that um

but yeah totally yeah i agree there's there's a lot of uh yeah not uh yeah scam projects or bad projects out there and yeah we're doing what it is um but yeah we're doing full due diligence on anything we put on right and so that's kind of the you know the promise we'll give to our players yep great um next i i'd like to have your you this this is the time where i put on my philosopher hat um and uh we can talk a bit more about that i'm curious to have your views and thoughts on um so you told me before you're you were very strongly involved with game economies um now you've had the time to experience what it is at uh how it is at sky mavis actually infinity um do you see a world where um there are games of which a significant part of the player base and for me significance means more than let's say 20 um makes a living of playing or being

involved within a game ecosystem i think it's i think it's possible um uh if if the game itself uh is is designed in a way that allows for it really um and is is fun enough to drive so when you think of you know web 2 right like all the revenue coming in uh which comes from usually the top you know especially free to play the top you know maybe five percent ten percent of players right like all of that's going to developers um and so um when i look at you know web3 models where for example next infinity 95 of it goes back to players the rest goes back to players in a way too because it goes to the treasury um but uh if you take all that revenue that these free to play you know games games bring in and just redistribute it out to players yeah it's very possible the economics can work for that right especially if you have you know people who are down to spend a lot to get that super rare item and super rare

um you know achievement and and and progress so um yeah i think it's possible but yeah back back to uh the fundamentals it's just like you got to have a good game people want to spend on like that's it um and uh you know people bring up the kind of world of warcraft gold mining and all that like you know it works um it didn't necessarily i think uh doesn't necessarily break the economy if you kind of structure it properly yes i think that's that's important a lot of people um that are critical about blockchain and games bring up the example of the diablo 3 um real money markets that basically they had to shut down after a few weeks because it was just breaking the game um and that for me is an example of you know a game that was not designed for having an open economy where you could just pay money to finish the game suddenly um yeah where just destroyed the gameplay loop um that made it yeah unsustainable yeah so i think that's the you have to be

careful around what you make into a token and tradable right because yeah people can literally just pay and and win the entire game um which in diablo case was was you know getting a rare item and having uh yeah the strongest items then uh yeah it breaks the whole game um you you want to be careful around making sure that the things that people can buy and trade you know contribute to you know progression and achievement and you know getting ahead but it isn't the thing that once you get it you're literally you know done the game so um that's something uh that yeah people definitely need to be careful about in this space with that i'm curious um you know building a strong engagement loop is easy when you have pvp right because new players will always provide a new sense of achievement and and challenge um do you plan on building out more around pve as well yeah we actually want to do a lot more you know pvp is not for everyone i would

say you know i i love playing games but i've never been that good at pvp um i just don't uh don't get into like the nitty-gritty as much in terms of like optimizing all the use i just want to play and have fun a lot of times right and i think pve is good for that um so yeah we want to do a lot more than that like we've talked about it and it's in our kind of public road map of um you know a lot of our game we took inspiration from slay the spire which is a full p uh uh uh uh p versus e game and so we could introduce you know different modes that uh might be more uh pve friendly um in terms of you know battling different monsters roguelike experience um all of that um we want to do in the future as well um to cater to you know different types of uh gamers the non-die-hard competitive ones yeah yeah exactly makes sense so um

i you know my job is i'm a venture capital investor and so i see a lot of decks i speak to a lot of teams um each day um i see a lot of play to earn gaming guilds at my my desk you know i get a lot of a lot of calls with them um and you know they almost always own a significant amount of axes and that they rent out to the scholars to scholars that actually like that that play the game that generate slp of which they take a cut um i'm curious curious to have your thoughts on the sustainability of the guild model the the you know the owner of the asset the scholarship model um you know in games you know being sustainable um we'd love to have your thoughts on that on that yeah seems to be a hot topic lately actually i haven't uh personally actually even put as much structure thought into it as i'd like yet um but i think overall um it actually goes back to the other point we had right around you know is it sustainable to earn um from games uh

at you know a certain level um and the game needs to support that so it actually uh matters more on the game side if they're able to balance their economies in a way that allow for these skills to you know be able to to earn and um and stimulus and i think guilds will evolve too right so in um you know in web 2 guilds were literally like you work together to do something um in the game and i think guilds will will have components of that in the future too where it's not just about uh you know we come in and we're trying to get as many tokens as we can it's you know we want to work together to progress in some part of the game together too and so that's actually some of the uh you know more interesting fun parts of it um but on the kind of uh earnings side uh yeah if the games if we have enough games out there um that are is driving enough you know uh input and new players and um and kind of economic growth in the area then uh yeah guild skills can

continue to sustain if there's demand for what they do right um ultimately it's you know they're providing a value um of mining some and earning some token that people might want to to save time um or save whatever they want yeah totally um final question i'd like to have your thoughts on is the backlash that in general you know blockchain and games gets from traditional gaming crowds you've come from the traditional gaming world um i'm i'm assuming you've heard maybe some ex-colleagues tell you like what the hell are you doing why are you joining all these scams um how do you think we as an industry what do you think we we can do obviously like we can make cool games right um what what can we do better to onboard um some of the the critics and and get them on our side yeah um i think it's it's definitely going to take time uh my you know ex-colleagues or people i know in kind of the industry

or have definitely been relatively kind to me uh no one's really you know attacked or called me out or anything so i think people have been good about it um but yeah i think uh education's a big part um i think you know there's you know these fundamental things that need to be figured out in the space right because there are a lot of scams so there are a lot of you know bad projects and bad actors that they will point to that and just use that as you know the go-to example or whatnot right and i think you know slowly getting better um with with uh figuring out security and all these things in the space um and then also just uh yeah what you mentioned really is making really good games um that bring people in um that they want to play regardless of the the kind of blockchain component and then having them feel the value of you know getting an nft here and there or or being able to to earn something and really having them experience it i

think is a big part of it because until you do it it can be hard to understand you know the value of like you know i'll just play normal games why do i need this and what's the difference right um so there's that um and yeah i think just patience and and you know not uh and being understanding of of people and you know not necessarily attacking them or saying you know you're ridiculous for not not understanding this like um you know i think everyone should uh should be able to have an open conversation um in good faith hopefully all right awesome you um before a bit before you mentioned that you know if any teams are building a blockchain game have not decided on what you know blockchain to build on um and and you know maybe the audience would be a good fit to build on ronin um they could contact you yeah is there anything else you want to plug people that people can help you with yeah i mean we're we're always hiring uh

we are uh you know constantly growing team looking looking for the best um so yeah definitely reach out if uh if you're interested in uh sky mavis and working on axe infinity and getting into the space definitely looking for good people all the time yeah well one other thing was just the builders program so i actually wanted to i can explain a bit more about it but with the builders program it's kind of you know one of the first times you know a gaming ip is allowing people to officially you know build on top of vip and you know generate revenue and to build out their audience um and actually officially sanction and encourage um and so uh no other really gaming uh ip has done this um and so i definitely encourage everyone to check that out if you are looking if you want to just build out an axi mini game start you know getting players getting revenue all that you can just do

it now and we uh you know happy to to talk more with anyone who's interested in that too you know we we allow it openly but we are also taking people into our builders program um which is where we provide even more support um to those who are really serious about it and have a full team and uh really want to create something uh special in in kind of the axe infinity ecosystem so all of that is is available um now for you know any developers and you know people who wanted to try creating a game uh that's available to check out awesome and where can people find you phil uh i'm on twitter um at phillip law uh and uh yeah on linkedin as well um so can can hit me up on any of those all right fantastic well uh phil this was uh really great we've talked a lot about axe infinity it's been amazing to finally get some facts because in the end like we're just hypothesizing about what you guys are doing what plans are

um and so it's been it's been amazing to to have you on and get to ask you some of these questions yeah totally um yeah thanks for having me i was an honor to be and uh yeah great great chat cool all right well um phil thanks for joining listener thank you so much for listening this has been the medicals by navik um if you wanna talk more about this kind of stuff we hang out in our discord you can come join us there um and then with that we're out and we look forward to speaking to you in the next episode cheers [Music] you