Sustaining a Play-to-Earn Economy - Axie Infinity - [Web3 Breakdowns, EP. 10]

My guest today is Axie Infinity co-founder, Jeff "Jiho" Zirlin. The Colossus team covered the Axie origin story through Business Breakdowns in September of last year but we felt it was an ideal time to revisit the "play-to-earn" pioneer. Jiho and I cover his involvement with the Axie ecosystem including gameplay, the economic model, and creating a sidechain. Please enjoy my conversation with Jiho.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

[00:02:02] - [First question] - His history and what lead him to work on Axie Infinity

[00:05:26] - The arc of gaming and its evolution leading up to today

[00:07:12] - A high-level overview of Axie Infinity and how you play it

[00:08:21] - The size, scope, and user base of Axie today

[00:09:10] - Thoughts on onboarding and educating their player base 

[00:10:53] - What he thought Axie could become in the early days

[00:12:42] - Difficulties of creating a sustainable game with an economic structure

[00:15:26] - Why there was such huge adoption in the Philippines 

[00:16:53] - The guild’s scholarship model and endorsing Web3 literacy

[00:18:06] - Whether or not the game has always been designed to be a window into crypto

[00:19:41] - Thoughts on how Axie could impact the real world 

[00:21:37] - Why build their own chain, wallet, and ecosystem and how he’d build it today

[00:23:46] - Challenges scaling their business with their own unique ecosystem

[00:25:46] - Internal politics and user mentality around Axie and Sky Mavis

[00:26:46] - Managing and aligning user expectations and how many employees they have

[00:29:51] - Deciding which levers to pull on and which to retire for the sake of the project

[00:32:45] - Understanding how changes made positively impact Axie

[00:33:31] - Inflation and deflation cycles of in-game currency and native tokens

[00:34:24] - Changing player dynamics and public response to them

[00:35:38] - How the structure of the game rewards the builders and what having an Axie unlocks for players

[00:37:19] - Future developments, the builder program, and plans for the future

[00:39:01] - Why play-to-earn is different than play-and-earn gaming

[00:40:55] - How Ronin works and unique characteristics compared to other L2 chains

[00:49:55] - When we may see another game developer build on Ronin

[00:50:36] - What he’s most excited to see built over the next six months and six years

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