Axie Infinity: Infinite Opportunity or Infinite Peril? | Hacker News Reader

Axie Infinity: Infinite Opportunity or Infinite Peril?

naavik.co

22 pointsabush27 comments

NFT games: games where you can actually make money. Like gambling, but there is more strategy and a higher chance of winning.

Normally whenever I try to play video games, I quickly ask myself "what's the point?" I literally get more out of spending hours scrolling social media than spending hours playing a game. So the entire motivation/reward system collapses and I get bored.

But in an NFT game there is a point, because with a combination of luck and skill I can actually make money. Maybe the game has some kind of "jackpot" so if I get really lucky I can make enough money to take a month-long vacation or quit my job.

I can see these kinds of games getting really, really popular and addictive. Like microtransactions and lootboxes I can see NFT rewards being common and in AAA games. But without regulation, this is going to have big consequences and ruin people's lives.

I was one of the researchers who worked on this project, if you want a condensed summary I put together a thread that pulls out some of the highlights:

https://twitter.com/larsiusprime/status/1459191090100244483

The most salient graph IMHO is the graph of expected daily earnings versus the average and minimum Philippine minimum wages.

What continues to confuse me about this game is what is the source of money into the ecosystem? If the vast majority of players are doing this for the income, who is the buyer? Are there a small number of 'whale' players who are effectively paying small armies of (by all accounts) filipinos to 'farm' the game for them? Is there some kind of money laundering angle here?

In order to play the game at all, you must own 3 axies, which currently cost about $350 total to purchase 3. This is one of the principal sources of new money entering the ecosystem, new players wanting to play the game and securing virtual livestock with which to play. Most players cannot afford this themselves, so there are "sponsors" in the developed world who buy them for them and loan them to these "scholars" in exchange for a cut.

Yes, but what on earth is so compelling about a quasi pokémon clone that anyone is paying the price of 5-6 AAA games to play it as a game for fun? And who is buying all the SLPs ‘players’ farming this for $?

As far as we can tell the primary motivation of most people playing the game is the hope to earn money, and the business model is sustained primarily by the pace of new user growth.

SLP's price is supported by demand to breed new Axies -- it is consumed and then a new Axie is created -- and so demand for new Axies props up the value of SLP. But additionally there is some speculative value to SLP based on expectations for what will happen with the game itself.

> who is buying all the SLPs ‘players’ farming this for $?

Novice traders looking at the SLP token price chart and thinking it has to mean-reverse (instead of looking at the marketcap chart as they should).

Not sure how this 2k a month service ad got on the first page.

This is an extremely detailed report including explanations of Axie Infinity and blockchain gaming.

I'm a crypto bear but it's well worth being in the front page if you ask me.

This topic is obviously going to rankle some feathers, since it involves NFT's on hacker news. However, this was an incredibly well researched article and i enjoyed it.

I've tried many of the crypto games recently and i'm not a fan. However, the space holds promise.

One of the things i found shocking was not about gaming or NFT's, but the fact that Eth 'Made/Generated' $1.4B in fees last month... Thats wild. According to that metric, eth is one of the most profitable companies(?) on the planet.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with this submission and maybe I'm a skeptic but definitely seems like a gamed submission. Submission by a new account, another new account posts that this is the best piece they've read about this game, front page in less than 30min...

Also the title seems eerily similar to a good primer on the company that I had read earlier this year by twitter.com/packym that was titled, "Infinite Revenue, Infinite Possibilities." That was a super bullish piece though so perhaps the growth is tapering off as the title of this piece seems to suggest.

Anyways - I'd highly recommend that piece [0] for a primer on the company and catalysts for its growth (if anyone reading this isn't familiar with this company and wants a deeper dive + more context around blockchains+games).

[0] https://www.notboring.co/p/infinity-revenue-infinity-possibi...

It’s a great piece and this is a professional games industry consultancy —- one of the best.

The other comments objecting to $2k for “public data” are off base —- this is for studio execs who need context and dont have random blockchain devs sitting around to do “free” on chain analysis

Edit: Packy’s piece is great too but this one has newer data to comment on. Packy’s also selling stuff (his placed written ads and his substack), so there’s no real difference in “purity” there

These blockchain/NFT games are an interesting space which I don't know much about, does anyone on HN play them?

I'm specifically interested about the balance of having fun playing like traditional games vs playing because of the potential of earning money

According to our research, the vast majority of the players of this game (the #1 in the space) in particular are in the developed world. Furthermore the majority of players are "scholars", ie player who are loaned assets by "sponsors" in the developed world who purchase assets for them, and take a cut of the "scholar"'s earnings.

Informal surveys suggest the primary motivation motivation for most players is to earn money, and this is backed up by the demographics we observe and the behavior we see in the economy.

Sky Mavis estimates 10% of their audience is in the USA and 65-70% is in Southeast Asia. My guess is that not many Hacker News players (unless they are themselves investors) are playing this game.

Thanks for the response, I'm a sceptic when it comes to NFTs and that seems to be the general sentiment on HN as well

What's interesting to me is that you kind of confirm the main enticement for the game is the promise of earning money.

These types of games don't seem sustainable to me in the long run. What I keep asking myself is where is this money everyone playing is coming from? If it's new players or new inflows into crypto then it's basically a convoluted pyramid scheme, and I can't see how value is being created which can be constantly extracted and exchanged for real life goods

But maybe it's similar to people making a living like in the old days selling WoW gold or Runescape items or whatever? I don't know, the modern economy confuses me

Currently the plan is to transition to different game modes that are supposed to turn the ecosystem into a platform in its own right.

We discuss the viability of this in the report; in our opinion there are challenges down that route as well, ultimately you must create an ecosystem where more players are putting money in than expect to take it out. Anything could happen but what is on the roadmap currently seems like it needs a lot of work.

One thing that's striking with their "roadmap" is how they seem to plan on doing seemingly everything you could think of in the field of crypto + video games. L1, DAO, DEX, social platform, fun-in-its-own-right game, user content creation platform, ...

That pattern of over promising and vague roadmaps is endemic in the speculation-driven field of crypto.

There's the entry fee and speculators buying the SLP and AXS tokens.

> If it's new players or new inflows into crypto then it's basically a convoluted pyramid scheme, and I can't see how value is being created which can be constantly extracted and exchanged for real life goods

99% of DeFi/NFT/"Crypto games" products are indeed convoluted pyramid schemes. It's just the natural result of mixing a financial bubble with new technology very few people understand.

It’s a constellation of different methods of money laundering. If you enjoy money laundering (or have some sort of disorder that makes you enjoy assisting money launderers), it’s all fun!

$2000 a month for a report containing public data. Uuhhh

$2,000 per month for this drivel is absolutely hilarious. Normally I’m not a big fan of outlandishly overinflated egos peddling nonsense for cash, but the sheer arrogance on display here is actually somehow impressive.

That being said, the subject matter here is so incredibly stupid that I have no option other than to hope that it fails magnificently (along with the ‘games’ it tracks).

This is for execs who need context, not everyone can just open etherscan and download insight straight into the brain. Your comment shows a misunderstanding of the markets for business research snd analysis (yes, including trivially free data sometimes)

> not everyone can just open etherscan and download insight straight into the brain.

So… this is for execs that lack the core competency for being an exec in this space?

or, if you've read the article and seen that the crypto gaming space is worth a lot of money, 2k for a bunch of data and insights is a steal to some.

Yes. It would be a “steal” for somebody that somehow both can’t run etherscan and extrapolate meaningful information but is in a position to make big financial decisions.

Are you a customer of this service?

It's convenient but too low on insights and synthesis to justify the asking price. Bringing it to half the length would increase its value. For $2k I can get an expert on a Zoom call to explain it in detail, answer my questions, and get more color on the topic.

Agreed. I’d rather pay the $2k to somebody that can address my immediate specific concerns in an interactive way, and I’d certainly not give it to somebody that suggests that I don’t understand an entire market because I think their silly newsletter is overpriced.

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