YGG SEA AMA: Harnessing the Power of SubDAOs in Southeast Asia

In this Discord AMA, Gabby Dizon of YGG explains the mission of YGG SEA and the critical role it plays in contributing to the economy of countries in Southeast Asia.

Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia, also known as YGG SEA, is the first regional subDAO under YGG. YGG SEA has raised US$15 million across two rounds of fundraising to support the adoption of play-to-earn gaming in Southeast Asia. The guild will initially focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand before expanding throughout the region.

YGG SEA maintains the core values of the main YGG DAO and strives to build the most extensive and sustainable play-to-earn virtual economy in the region. Notably, YGG SEA is also a founding member of the Asia Blockchain Gaming Alliance.

To celebrate the launch of YGG SEA, YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon joined YGG SEA’s Irene Umar and Evan Spytma in conversation about YGG’s first-ever subDAO.

Irene is a co-founder of YGG SEA and the Indonesia Country Manager. She previously spearheaded the gaming-focused venture capital firm, Nusantara Capital.

Evan is also a co-founder of YGG SEA and its CEO. He is a veteran of the video game industry with a career spanning more than 20 years in executive positions across SEA within Unity Technologies, Electronic Arts and PopCap Games.

Alongside Irene and Evan, Gabby explains the core motive behind YGG SEA and its plans to introduce a whole new segment of the Southeast Asian population to the play-to-earn gaming model to ultimately bring about lasting economic change.

The following is an excerpt from the discussion. Listen to the full AMA recording here.  

YGG AMA: Presenting YGG Southeast Asia

Irene (23:14): Now, when we talk about play-to-earn, what kind of economic impact do you think play-to-earn can bring to Southeast Asian countries? 

Gabby (23:34): We were looking at some stats earlier this year, and if you look up these play-to-earn economies like Axie Infinity and the amount that people are earning via SLP, it was already greater than the amount being remitted by overseas Filipino workers from Singapore and Hong Kong to the Philippines.

Remittance had always been one of the top sources of revenue for the Philippines, so to have play-to-earn as one of the top remittance centers or countries — if you think of Lunacia as a digital nation, it's now maybe the seventh or sixth country that is remitting money to the Philippines, and that is insane.

So you have a level of income that is flowing to the Philippines that is brand new, and it is not just flowing to the rich people in the cities from Cabanatuan, to Davao, Iloilo, Bandung, Phuket — it’s flowing everywhere to just regular people around the region. And this is quite remarkable, because usually when you have huge businesses, it's the rich business centers and investors that win, but here you see the gamers that are winning and the value flowing. And the gamers that are part of YGG and YGG SEA, they are learning how to use DeFi, their own NFTs, they are buying digital land, and suddenly they are the most sophisticated people in crypto, and that is really amazing.

Irene (25:14): I am going to move to Evan, but when we started YGG SEA on November 1st, it is only fitting if I ask you, as the CEO of YGG SEA, what have we done in the first few weeks? It seems we have been on stealth mode.

Evan (25:41): So, we started on November 1st, hit the ground running thanks to Gabby and his team. They were able to provide the backend technology and assets to really get us up and running and then the country managers, and we established offices in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and we hit the markets pretty quickly, and then we started to invest in a lot of mobile games as well as international games, in preparation for, essentially, when these games launch, to give our players, guild members, the ability to earn more and not just centered around Axie Infinity.

So we already had this feeling that we need to prep for at least Q1 to have some games lined up, and I think it was great that we were able to make that investment locally and then start to build the community and have the weekly meetups, and we still maintain the core that Gabby established, with the industry leading, 70% revenue share going back to the players for their gaming efforts — in addition to that, the rounds of financing, which we will go into later. I would love to hear how Gabby feels about it. Did you expect so much to be done in a month and a half?

Gabby (27:56): No, the pace at which things have been moving has been really great, and you can see what we can get done just in the first few months of next year. 

Irene (27:56): What can the community expect, though, Evan, for the YGG strategization in the coming weeks?

Evan (28:30): So let's go back and start talking about economic change, because I think this is really important. I think it is economic change and psychological change, I think that we are almost into 2022, and largely 2021 has been the year of NFTs, and most people would say that, but I do truly believe that 2022 is going to be the year of play-to-earn. And we are going to be pulling out of Covid, and Covid has been devastating to economies, to the families, and as Gabby said, there is real money now flowing into people’s hands all across the nation.

I think, from a player perspective, it is great, but there are other segments of the industries we can target like employees, governors, students, and Gabby was of course at the forefront of this, with employers being able to transition their labor costs into sales from play-to-earn and inactive employers were able to turn their employees into scholars instead of firing them, and with governments, I think it's going to be the same thing where we can eliminate unemployment by providing scholarships to the unemployed. And I know you are focused on this as well, Irene.

Even the student population, during this time, have felt like they have had to stop going to school and start supporting their families, with as much as they can do. But they are making very little, and that comes at a high cost where they have to drop out of school, so pushing the play-to-earn model into the government, into the schools, is very important.

You can check out the full recording on YouTube. 

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Know more about YGG SEA through their website, Discord, Medium and Twitter.

Check out Evan, Irene and Gabby’s Twitter to know more about their projects.

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