Dialogue with the head of AXIE Infinity: Blockchain games for fun and for money

This article is from Token Damo, authored by Zoro.

After years of persistence, the game AXIE Infinity has gradually become popular in the blockchain gaming community. It is a digital pet game built on the Ethereum blockchain, and currently, the trading volume of game NFTs on the platform ranks among the top in the market.

Two weeks ago, Token Damo (the token "Axie Infinity" will be translated into Chinese in due time, but it is not yet ready to become mainstream) also published a brief research article. Damo Research: The First Most Active Blockchain Game Axie Infinity (AXS) Launches on Binance

After the article was published, many community members expressed a desire to learn more about the AXIE Infinity project.

To this end, we, in collaboration with AEX Anyin, Black Diamond Wallet, and Safu Custody, invited AXIE Infinity's COO Aleksander to share with the Token Damo community.

Aleksander is a seasoned player in the gaming field. Before joining Axie Infinity, he worked as a manager in Norway and engaged in game content creation and competitive gaming in his spare time. In Warcraft II, he was one of the top 200 players in Europe and represented Norway in both Warcraft III and Warcraft II.

Here is the full AMA transcript

Question 1:

Aleksander, as a seasoned traditional gamer, when did you start paying attention to blockchain games? What aspects of blockchain games deeply attracted you? What led you to choose to join the Axie Infinity project team?

Aleksander: My background is in esports, and I have always loved competition. However, in traditional games, it is very difficult for ordinary players to actually make money. The money always flows to the top 0.0001%. In gaming and earning economies, if done correctly, more people can earn money.

I also really enjoy truly owning my game assets and keeping them forever. A lot of my gaming history has been lost, but when items and game characters are stored as NFTs, I can keep them even if the game goes down. This is part of my digital identity, and that is important.

When I met the other founders of Axie Infinity at the end of 2017 while playing CryptoKitties, it was a moment of instant alignment. We all believed in the same vision and set out to create a magical game.

Question 2:

Axie Infinity has successfully launched on Binance and AEX Anyin. Can you briefly introduce Axie Infinity and its current development status?

Aleksander: Axie Infinity is a digital pet battle adventure game where players earn money while playing and jointly govern the game universe. With the support of Ethereum, Axie Infinity has ushered in a new era for gamers, where players can own, trade, and earn unprecedented profits from their hard-earned game assets. Collecting, breeding, battling, and trading, Axie Infinity makes honing skills for glory both fun and valuable!

Question 3:

The launch of the CryptoKitties NFT token in 2017 made the entire industry aware of the value of blockchain games. Over the past three years, we have seen frequent changes in the blockchain gaming space, with many projects disappearing from the market. What do you think the Axie Infinity team did right?

Aleksander: From the very beginning, we focused on continuously building and caring for our community. We believe in creating a sustainable economy, which we think is one of the key aspects of blockchain gaming. If you just keep making items and selling them, everything will ultimately become worthless. Everything needs to scale with the growth of the user base.

Things have taken much longer than expected, and many projects have gone bankrupt due to poor financial planning.

Question 4:

What is the current funding situation of the entire project? Can you provide details on both equity financing and token financing? Additionally, could you discuss the project's financial expenditures? For example, expenditures related to R&D, marketing, operations, etc., and the sources of revenue?

Aleksander: We are well-funded and can support several years of development! We conducted a $1.5 million equity financing in mid-2019 and have also generated over $2.6 million in revenue from Axie Infinity itself. This does not include the Binance launchpad token sale.

So far, we have spent almost nothing on marketing; the game has grown through word of mouth. When players can earn money from something, they tell their friends, so there’s no need to spend on marketing.

Last month, our revenue exceeded $150,000, considering we only had about $70,000 in expenditures, which is amazing.

Question 5:

In terms of token distribution, community players noticed that the team holds 21%, advisors 7%, private investors 4%, players 20%, staking rewards 29%, ecosystem fund 8%, and Binance launchpad 11%. Why adopt such a token distribution plan? Why do players, who are the main contributors to the game's value, only account for 20%?

Aleksander: 17% of the team allocation is locked for several years and will be staked to ensure our commitment to building Axie Infinity.

Players can earn AXS dollars both by playing the game and by staking. We see this as a huge opportunity and a significant incentive for players to start playing the game. Additionally, players who stake while playing will receive higher staking rewards each week than those who do not play. This is a reward for players, more than anyone else. The ecosystem fund will be used to develop the game, so we are not keeping this for ourselves.

Question 6:

To enhance the gaming experience, according to the roadmap, Axie Infinity will migrate game assets like land and items to the Ronin sidechain. What are the technical advantages of the Ronin sidechain? Additionally, will this operation affect the interaction of game assets with other DeFi tools?

Aleksander: To allow Axie Infinity to reach our second, third, and fourth-degree connections (friends and family of our friends and family), Axie needs a long-term solution to make the process of participating in the Axie game and economy fast, cheap, and seamless. We need to make it fun and simple.

Ronin will feature:

Fast and seamless transactions with almost instant confirmations.

Significantly reduced gas fees. Additionally, gas fees can be retained by the community for competitions and bounties, rather than paying Ethereum miners.

The ability to withdraw Axie assets back to the Ethereum Mainnet (eventually).

A simplified login process for new users through a customized wallet solution.

A blockchain explorer focused on transparency and data accessibility.

We may also add support for DeFi tools in the future, but that is not a priority; initially, it can be addressed through bridging with Ethereum.

Question 7:

The Axie Infinity community has also produced many creative works, and we seem to see a grand game ecological kingdom in the white paper. How do you govern the blockchain gaming community? What are the differences compared to general blockchain community governance?

Aleksander: Our users are very passionate, with some even tattooing Axie Infinity on their bodies! We believe this is because they truly own Axies, which brings a stronger emotional connection. It’s like a snapshot of time when you are very active in the Axie community.

This is also because the rarest Axies have not been overly inflated.

Question 8:

According to the roadmap, the AXS ecosystem will begin to be built in 2021. Can you describe the final plan for building the AXS ecosystem? What will the entire game ecosystem ultimately develop into?

Aleksander: Axie Infinity Shards is the ERC 20 governance token of the Axie universe. Holders will shape the future of Axie Infinity by indicating their support for ecosystem upgrades and guiding the use of the community treasury.

AXS will be used for:

Staking

Players will be able to lock their tokens to receive newly created AXS. Stakers will also need to vote and play to receive rewards.

Payment

AXS will be accepted as currency in the Axie NFT marketplace. AXS can also be used to determine eligibility for certain sales/auctions conducted by the Axie team.

Governance

At the beginning of 2021, the community treasury will go live and start collecting revenue generated by Axie Infinity as well as a portion of staking rewards. Once the network becomes sufficiently decentralized, this treasury will be managed by AXS stakers.

You can learn more through our white paper, please click:

https://www.theblockbeats.com/news/20479.

Question 9:

Aristotle once said: "Games are a form of rest and recreation after labor, an activity that does not carry any purpose." Currently, many blockchain games have added many financial attributes, attracting many players not only for fun but also for profit. What impact will this have on a blockchain game project?

Aleksander: I’m not sure if this is related to blockchain. It’s more about player motivation. Why do they really do something.

We believe Axie Infinity is not just a game. It is a social space, a community. People gather to play games and "work" together. Some buy AXIES because they have external motivation from earning money, like those who are less fortunate. Others spend a lot of money on expensive Axies but may not see much immediate return on investment.

We believe this is due to intrinsic motivation. They recognize that something unique is happening and take pride in owning some of the most expensive Axies.

Question 10:

Axie Infinity was created in 2017, at a time when the market's understanding of blockchain games was generally insufficient. After more than three years of development, what stage do you think the entire blockchain gaming market is at now? How long until it reaches mass explosion?

Aleksander: I think we are just beginning to see the early stages of true blockchain gaming and its impact on humanity as a whole. I expect all games to have some features that allow players to own some game items and keep them in their wallets. Maybe not in the same way we do in Axie, but some form of "game proof."

When it comes to mainstream, I think there are still some issues to resolve, such as infrastructure, login usability, UI/UX. We are already very close in Axie and have seen the effectiveness of tokens as a growth mechanism, but it is still too early.

Before we are ready to truly become mainstream, games need to become more fun.

Finally, there’s the issue of incentives. Can we provide a FUN game that is easier to play than traditional games, with more benefits? If so, we will become a hit game, and everyone will know Axie Infinity.

Below are Aleksander's responses to community user questions

Q1: During the development of AXS, did you consider community feedback and needs? How do you assess the long-term market for AXS as positive? What difficulties did you encounter during this period? What proactive steps did you take?

Aleksander: We worked with a professional team from Delphi Digital to design the $AXS token. It takes into account all the different stakeholders and merges them together so that everyone moves in the same direction.

Holding AXS assets and building a long-term sustainable economy is key.

This company is called Delphi Digital, and they purchased many expensive Axies because they are very optimistic about the game.

Q2: How do you assess the long-term market for AXS as positive? Aleksander: The value of $AXS is directly related to the success of Axie Infinity. Since all revenue goes into a community pool, everyone is incentivized to work together to spread Axie. If they hold $AXS, all the money they spend will come back to them.

That’s the power of the crypto economy—everyone can participate, just like what’s happening with Bitcoin.

Q3: What difficulties did you encounter during this period?

Aleksander: The team went through many tough times, especially during the difficult cryptocurrency bear market at the end of 2018. Many of our competitors had to shut down their businesses, but we managed to survive because we had a strong community from the very beginning.

This was an important learning experience, and the team became stronger as a result. For us, the key is how hard you work and how much you invest in the long-term vision.

We believe NFT games can change the world.

Q4: What proactive measures did you take? Aleksander: We do not spend money on useless things. Only those that are important for improving the product.

Q5: Recently, there have been frequent hacker attacks in our cryptocurrency world. What is Axie Infinity's stance on this? Does Axie Infinity have its own insurance and guarantees to prevent its platform from being hacked? Will the Ethereum sidechain used by AXIE affect security issues?

Aleksander: Security is one of our main concerns. When it comes to company funds, we have everything in a multi-signature cold wallet to ensure there is no single point of failure. Our smart contracts have been audited by a professional company (Quantstamp).

Does Axie Infinity have its own insurance and guarantees to prevent its platform from being hacked?

Aleksander: So far, we have been running for nearly three years without being hacked, so the platform has undergone considerable battle testing. We cannot guarantee that we won’t be hacked in the future—I don’t think anyone can guarantee that. When it comes to insurance, we separate funds to minimize risk, so we do not spend money on insurance.

Q6: Will the Ethereum sidechain used by Axie lead to security issues?

Aleksander: This is a good and important question.

There will always be trade-offs; our sidechain will not be as secure as Ethereum—that's almost impossible.

However, we believe that with our very good and large partners, we can ensure that the Ronin sidechain is sufficiently good during the PoA phase.

For us, this is acceptable because if the game wants to grow to the extent we need, we need to provide an excellent user experience.

The ultimate goal is to fully decentralize Ronin so that anyone can join as a validator. That said, the benefits of Ethereum and Bitcoin (truly immutable) are impossible to replicate and are not needed for games like Axie.

Those who own the most expensive assets can always use bridging on Ethereum to protect them if they wish.

Q7: The traditional gaming industry in China has always shown a "one super" pattern led by Tencent. What are the main competitors of Axie Infinity in the blockchain gaming field?

Aleksander: Our ultimate goal is to become a virtual world, so we already have some competitors in this space, such as Sandbox and Decentraland.

But our strategy is different.

They rely on other game companies to create content in their virtual worlds to attract users.

We believe in the Fortnite approach, where the game comes first, and then you turn players into residents of the virtual world. Just like in Fortnite, where there are now a lot of concerts and events.

Axie Infinity is not just a game; it is also a social space where people can hang out and "work" together. So far, this is very unique in the world, and I think no one truly understands this like we do.

I expect many large companies to enter this space in the future, trying to imitate us, but we currently have a significant advantage. We have a focused community, and Axies have become a well-known brand.

Q8: What are its advantages and innovations compared to others?

Aleksander: The advantage of playing blockchain games is that at its core, you own game items, and the economy is open for everyone to participate. This replicates what happens in real life.

We do this in Axie, but I don’t think all games will do this.

For example, we are collaborating with Ubisoft on one of their projects. I don’t think all their games will be similar, but perhaps some items will be stored in NFTs so that players can own them in the future—as part of their digital identity.

For us, truly owning something and how important it is for future users in the digital world we are entering.

It’s not about being able to use these items in all games. But at least you can keep them in your wallet as your memories. In the future, I think we will have a metaverse, but it will take some time.

Q9: I understand that the Axie community is mainly distributed in North America and Europe. What are your and your team's main plans for China and Asia in the future? How can Chinese users participate in the Axie ecosystem?

Aleksander: Currently, most of our users are in Europe/USA and Southeast Asia (mainly the Philippines).

We have just started doing some small things with China to prepare for a global launch next year.

Axie Infinity will be translated into Chinese in due time, but it is not yet ready to become mainstream. We have more modifications to make before we release the game.

Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dN802_nIzcLz30KtF0o-Ww