Yield Guild Explains: Play-to-Earn and Scholarships
By: Yield Guild Games
Tags: Games, Earn Money Online, Nft, Cryptocurrency, Community

To understand the decentralized digital economy that underpins all Yield Guild’s activities, it is important to know how play-to-earn games work and how yield is generated from non fungible tokens (NFTs). The role of “scholarships” in NFT games is also explained in this article.

What is Play-To-Earn?

Play-to-earn is a new business model where real money can be earned by playing video games that are centred upon cryptocurrency-based assets, known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). By actively participating in these virtual economies, players can earn rewards such as in-game assets and tokens which can then be traded or sold on an open market, if the player chooses to do so.

This represents an important shift in the gaming world, because traditionally, in-game assets were confined to centralized protocols and players were prohibited from trading or selling their digital assets external to the platform.

Play-to-earn games have been particularly popular in developing countries where local jobs and income earning opportunities are limited, but most people have access to a digital device and an internet connection.

This mini documentary, titled Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines, tells the story of a rural community that played the NFT game, Axie Infinity, to earn money during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Players reported that they were able to earn up to US$400 within their first few weeks of playing, an amount that is two to three times greater than local minimum wage.

Yield Guild’s goal is to accelerate the play-to-earn phenomenon and help more players monetize their time in-game, by investing in NFTs that can be leased to guild members via scholarships.

What is a Scholarship?

The idea was originally introduced by the Axie Infinity player community. Owners of Axies, the NFT pets that are required to play the game, would loan their assets to new players who didn’t own any Axies of their own.

With the rising popularity of Axie Infinity, the price to buy the NFT pets needed to play the game has increased significantly. This has created a barrier to entry for some players, especially those that are new to play-to-earn. Understandably, not all people are willing or able to invest in purchasing their own NFTs upfront.

As such, a scholarship is a popular pathway to onboard newcomers to NFT games. Yield Guild provides scholarships to new players as a profit-sharing model, where the guild invests in NFT assets and rents them to new players so they can start playing and earning in-game tokens without having to invest any money upfront.

The recipient of a scholarship is known as a scholar. The only upfront requirement of the scholar is their time spent playing the game, their enthusiasm and their willingness to learn.

The scholar’s earnings are split between the scholar (70%), Yield Guild (10%), and the Community Manager (20%). The Community Manager is responsible for recruiting, training and mentoring the new player.

Currently, Yield Guild has over 2,500 Axie Infinity scholars that have earned more than 22M SLP — the in-game reward token that can be earned by winning Axie battles and completing quests. The value of these tokens is equivalent to around US$4M.

What does a Community Manager do?

In addition to the NFT assets leased by Yield Guild, scholars also receive training and guidance on how to play the game from Community Managers.

Community Managers are the “boots on the ground” that are key to Yield Guild’s scalability and success around the world. They take Yield Guild’s NFTs and distribute these assets to new players in their local network that have been identified as high potential.

In this way, Yield Guild does not manage any scholars directly, but rather, the guild seeks to work with reputable Community Managers that can nurture up-and-coming talent and play a personal role in the player’s development.

The co-founders of a scholarship program called “Axie University” (AxU) were interviewed in the mini documentary, Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines. AxU is now a “sub-guild” beneath the overarching Yield Guild, and they play the role of Community Managers who recruit, train and mentor Yield Guild’s scholars.

This article published on Bitpinas is an interview with Ken Garancho, John Emmanuel Dela Peña (Pot), and John Carlos (Spraky), the three founders of AxU, which is now part of Yield Guild Games.

Does Yield Guild offer play-to-earn scholarships in games other than Axie Infinity?

Yield Guild scholarships are not limited to Axie Infinity. Besides Axie, Yield Guild also has in-game assets and land investments in League of Kingdoms, F1 Delta Time, The Sandbox, Star Atlas, Illuvium, ZED RUN, Guild of Guardians, Ember Sword, and most recently, Splinterlands.

Yield Guild’s plan is to provide scholarship opportunities across all these games, and more, to lower the barriers to accessing these yield-generating NFTs and help onboard more people to the play-to-earn revolution.

To learn more about Yield Guild, read the whitepaper, key takeaways from the whitepaper, join the YGG Discord or follow us on Twitter.