Base Layer: Finding Scaling Solutions to Onboard Scholars with Gabby Dizon
This week we throwback to a podcast from June 2021, where Gabby Dizon, co-founder of YGG, spoke to David Nage of Arca about the way that games are shaping the future of work in the Metaverse.
Base Layer is a podcast committed to educating investors and family offices about digital assets and blockchain technology. It is hosted by David Nage, a strong advocate for cryptocurrencies and NFTs who has personally invested in The Defiant, a platform that covers news-related to DeFi, as well as Syndicate, a decentralized investing protocol and social network. Nage is the Managing Director at Arca, an asset management firm that builds financial instruments utilizing digital assets. Arca was also a participant in YGG’s Seed Round led by Delphi Digital.
In this episode of Base Layer, recorded back in June 2021, YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon touches on the future of work and automation, other games that are heading towards the play-to-earn model, and the growing scholar base of Axie Infinity. They also talk about the funding received from the Series A round and the development of the Ronin sidechain, which, in turn, accelerated the onboarding process for YGG scholars.
Base Layer - Gabby Dizon, Co-Founder of Yield Guild Games on building the employment agency of the Metaverse - Episode 213
David (13:15): So it started with Axie — for those that don’t know, we are very big fans of Axie Infinity over at my firm [Arca], and for full and fair disclosure, we are investors in Axie Infinity, we have been for over a year and are very proud of that and what we have been talking about today, with the work they are doing with YGG.
So talk to us about how this grows. You have Axie Infinity, which is obviously the first game that was the linchpin. What other games are out there, or what is the plate, if you will, where we had the appetizer — so what’s the dinner, the dessert? What else is out there, in the course of the next six to 12 months that furthers this? And I know you also have expansion plans, and I believe you [YGG] are already in Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, and looking for partners in Thailand and a few other places — so talk to us about the games and the growth.
Gabby (14:18): Firstly, I would like to zoom out and talk about how we look at it philosophically. We really believe that the Metaverse — which means these games and virtual worlds that people will be visiting online that have an economic backbone which is backed by a digital ledger or the blockchain — we think that this is not only the future of games, but also the future of work. There has been this dystopian future being created where there will be a lot more jobs in the real world that are going to be lost to AI and automation. If this happens, what do you think people are going to do? They are going to go online and look for jobs and games where they can actually make money.
And this is already starting, and Axie has been the powder keg for play-to-earn, but we started investing in assets, in different games which we think will provide play-to-earn opportunities for people in the future. Like F1 Delta Time, developed by Animoca Brands, which is officially licensed to Formula 1 Games, and we have an esports team that is competing for leaderboards and REVV token rewards. We have The Sandbox, which is a blockchain version of Roblox. And it is not just about being a player — there is a lot of leeway for artists, level designers, content creators, avatar creators, too. There is also leeway for creativity and people who are not just gamers, where people can come and create something that other people can find value in. We have also invested in Star Atlas, a science fiction game; Illuvium, an auto battler, which is coming out later this year; Guild of Guardians which is an action RPG, with a guild-like structure.
This is how we think the world is going to evolve, in that a lot of value that people are going to get in digital assets are going to be received by cooperating with each other in the form of games and virtual worlds. And we want to be the aggregator on two ends: one, the NFT assets that we invest in, we want to invest in these assets as a guild and provide them to our members so that they don’t have to bear the upfront cost of buying these assets. Second, we want to onboard millions of people to the Metaverse.
We are like the employment agency of the Metaverse, if you will, because to buy these assets, we need people to work in these games and earn an income, to generate value, so we are also recruiting people from around the world, who can earn money via digital assets, who may not be able to afford them. And that is what we are doing at Yield Guild.
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