Axie Is Back and It’s Better Than Ever!
At W3GS, Jihoz joined Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler to share how Axie’s Part Evolutions and a renewed focus on Axie Classic create nostalgic game experiences.
At the inaugural YGG Web3 Games Summit (W3GS), Sky Mavis co-founder Jeffrey “Jihoz” Zirlin took center stage for his keynote, commanding the attention of a roaring crowd of gamers. During his talk, he announced the return of Axie Classic, the much-loved title that fueled web3 adoption in the Philippines. After being taken down for maintenance a few days earlier, Jihoz relaunched the game in the middle of his talk with a snap of his fingers. The launch introduced two new game modes, Cursed Coliseum and the Grand Tournament, offering players a chance to secure a Mystic Axie, one of the rarest in the collection, alongside Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Axie Experience Points (AXP) rewards.
He also joined Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler for a fireside chat, reflecting on Axie Infinity in 2020, when players initially thought to be bots turned out to be real people in the Philippines. This is also seen today with Pixels, where over 80% of its 100,000 daily active users are also from the Philippines. Jihoz explained how Pixels shares a similar culture and values with Sky Mavis, which has contributed to their game being the most popular on the Ronin network alongside Axie.
The following excerpt is from Jihoz’ talk at W3GS. He describes how Sky Mavis is introducing Axie Part Evolutions through dynamic NFTs to make digital pets thrive in an increasingly online society. They discuss how games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft are going back to their roots to revitalize their player base and how Sky Mavis has always stayed committed to its original north star, that is, to introduce innovative products that leverage blockchain technology to gamers through fun, accessible and nostalgic games.
Watch the full recording on Facebook.
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Leah (1:42:59): When you were talking about Part Evolutions and your passion for Axies to become real digital pets, I remember in our first conversation, I was very interested in Filipinos making money out of Axie, but you really wanted to tell the story of how digital pets would become our amazing companions in the future. And I just love how you've still stayed on that narrative. Is that still super important to you today, to see people have a real emotional relationship with their digital pets?
Jihoz (1:43:29): I really believe that one of the reasons that Axie works is because we live in a very nostalgic and also lonely society in a lot of ways. For me, when I moved to Vietnam, I left my friends and family and my dog behind. So that first summer when I moved to Vietnam, my Axies were companions to me. And I really do think that emotion, that relationship with your NFTs, that's needed for us to be able to get to the next level. So I think that Part Evolutions really plays into that.
And you're able to put your time, your effort and your love into an NFT and see it change over time. So that's basically using dynamic NFTs where the NFT metadata backing that NFT can actually change over time. And so far, we've only really seen that rolled out and experimented with very small projects and NFTs that nobody has ever heard about right? So we're actually about to embark on this grand experiment of dynamic NFTs with the largest NFT collection of all time, the NFT collection that broke the Guinness Book of World Records.
Leah (1:44:39): Amazing. I love it. And still in the Philippines, I love this renewed focus on Classic. You mentioned in your talk that it was the game that we always really loved here in the Philippines. The renewed focus on that, is that a little bit like harking back to your roots?
Jihoz (1:44:57): We're calling everybody home, the things are starting to percolate again. And you also see that there is a nostalgic bent in society. I think the crazy thing about Axie is, it's the only web3 game that's old enough for people to feel nostalgia over. So you also see that with Fortnite OG doing well, Blizzard is putting a lot of attention into World of Warcraft (WoW) vanilla. I think it's also a theme in gaming, that people want to go back to the classics and the things that worked.
Leah (1:45:35): Yeah. 100%. Well, Axie is really where it all began. But since then, you've done a whole lot more in terms of building infrastructure tools. There’s the Katana DEX, Mavis Market, Ronan Wallet, and Ronin. If we go back to 2018 when Sky Mavis was formed, has your north star shifted in some way since then?
Jihoz (1:45:59): I think the north star has always been the same, to introduce the world to blockchain technology through games that are fun, nostalgic and accessible right? I think that's always been the North Star to basically bring property rights and economic freedom to everyone. But starting with gamers, because gamers are the generation, the members of society that are most familiar with digital currencies already. I think that the north star has been pretty steadfast, to be honest.
I think, in the beginning, we were very experimental. “How can we find ways to get people to use this technology? Maybe this is an industry that could take off.” For our generation, to be honest, we were looking for technologies and products that were new and that the world hadn't seen before, because we didn't want to start like an e-commerce or scooter startup. So it was about what new technologies have the potential to change the world where there hasn't been a lot of fundamental product innovation.
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