NFT, blockchain, cryptocurrency, metaverse. So many trending terms, and so many boxes ticked by Axie Infinity. Seen from the outside as a harmless clone of Pokémon or a competitor to Cryptokitties, this phenomenon from Vietnam is advancing like a steamroller and is perhaps laying the foundations for a new era for video games.
Made by Sky studio Mavis, Axie Infinity has benefited from the support of Ubisoft through its Entrepreneur Labs, and motivated crypto moguls to invest in it. Mark Cuban or Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian have already poured marbles into it. And last week, it was the American investment fund Andreessen Horowitz who participated in a new fundraiser to the tune of 152 million dollars.
But then why is the finance planet racing for a game that would leave any regular player unmoved? It's simple: he is one of the first representatives of a new type of video game, play-to-earn.
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Axie Infinity: what is it?
Let's start with the beginning. If we strip down the game mechanics as much as possible, Axie Infinity is a turn-based role-playing game in which we fight creatures, the axes, in 3 against 3 confrontations to make them progress.
Each axis has its own abilities, and falls into a particular category: aquatic, beast, bird, insect, plant, reptile, or even dusk, dawn and mech. Bird-type axis will have an advantage against insect-type axis, beasts will make short work of reptiles, etc. You know the song.
But several things set Axie Infinity apart from a certain Nintendo game. First, there are more than 390 axes to date (we'll come back to this). And each one is unique thanks to a clever mix of characteristics and “members” (body parts in English).
Clearly, each critter is “equipped”, for lack of a happier term, with six members that offer it unique abilities. Represented in the form of cards, it is these "limbs" that define which techniques an axie can use in combat.
Without going into theorycrafting (we are sure that you have better things to do with your day), remember that this principle creates, in fact, an important hierarchy in the food chain of the axes. The player has no control over the "limbs" enjoyed by his companion. So the only way to change it is to make it gain experience, or have it mate with another in hopes that genetic roulette will make your fortune—literally.
Playing Axie Infinity is expensive
By the way, did I tell you Sky Mavis was a $3 billion company? The reason is simple. Axie Infinity is a paid game. But be careful, you don't pay like “oh la la, 30€ isn't cheap. To start playing, you will have to buy your starter of three axes and, how to say, the entry ticket is rather salty.
At the time of writing, the most affordable axis on the marketplace is sold for 0.03 ETH, or just over €110. Yes, you read that right. And in case you're interested, the most expensive axis ever sold on the platform traded at the end of 2020 for 300 ether, or around €112 at the time.
In fact, it must be understood that Axie Infinity is less a video game than an investment opportunity. Or let's say it gamifies the otherwise austere business of investing. Each axis is actually an NFT, a non-fungible token, which increases in value depending on the characteristics associated with it. And since some people make money by breeding animals to meet specific traits, axis farming is a money-making business in its own right — not to mention being cruel to the animals, but it's is another subject.
By using Smooth Love Potion (SLP), one of the two cryptocurrencies associated with the game, and recoverable by winning duels, completing daily quests or buying them on an exchange, trainers will be able to mate two axes and hope to get a rarer one. It is then up to them to keep it warm to make it mate in turn, or to sell it on the marketplace for Axie Infinity Shard (AXS): the other cryptocurrency, based on the Ronin sidechain.
Earn money by playing Axie Infinity
You begin to understand the principle of play-to-earn. In fact, we should rather write pay-to-play-to-earn, in that entering Axie Infinity requires a large initial investment but, then, the time spent on the game can allow you to recover your stake, even double it. Or more.
This is particularly the case in the Philippines, which represents the largest pool of Axie Infinity players. According to an article published this summer by Rest of World, 40% of the approximately 250 daily players come from the Southeast Asian archipelago, followed by Venezuela (000%) and the United States ( 6,3%). And the reason for this success is not magic: the average income of these countries is low, and the Covid-5,7 pandemic has pushed thousands of people into unemployment. Idle, and in difficulty to find a job, many seek to make their time spent in front of the screen profitable thanks to Axie Infinity.
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And for some, business is going so well that they see no point in going back to the fields or the factories. A player interviewed by Rest of World says he earns more than $2000 per month thanks to Axie Infinity. He has thus doubled his monthly income compared to his job as a worker, and can as a bonus stay at home, where he feels safer in these times of a pandemic.
In the country, Axie Infinity is growing to such an extent that the wallet, which each new player must create, is for more than 25% of players the very first form of "bank account" ever held. But as we wrote above, the entrance ticket is not within everyone's reach. However, capitalism always finds a way: companies have seized on the phenomenon and offer new players to let them use their axes against a commission of 30% of the income generated.
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A company from the metaverse
Serene, the studio draws plans on the comet. Asked by journalist Casey Newton in his Platformer newsletter, Aleksander Larsen, the co-founder of Sky Mavis began by acknowledging that his game was difficult to access. "It's like trying to reach an island by swimming," he compares. Axie is totally isolated, far away. You have to take all those hard steps to get there. And yet, people want to get there. »
So to help them, Sky Mavis is currently working on a "free" version of her game. A condition that could notably sign the arrival of Axie Infinity on the iOS App Store and the Android Play Store, and therefore considerably increase the number of players — and, by rebound, of potential buyers.
Buyers who, perhaps, will be interested in another type of asset that is already up for sale in the game: plots of land (some have already sold for over $1,5 million). Like many others, the studio is betting its future on the famous "metaverse", and wants to make its game not only an arena for battles between axes, but a real community space in which AXS token holders will have voting rights. to influence decision-making. Plot holders will also earn AXS every time another player crosses their land, and those same tokens can be staked by investors to generate interest.
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A future that still seems like science fiction, but which is in any case written black and white in the company's roadmap. "The goal is to create an app where players can interact with the entire Axie Infinity universe," reads Sky Mavis' whitepaper. Social network, market place, breeding game, "real estate" management park in which "players can expand their kingdom, collect resources, attack chimeras and other people. In other words, the studio founded in 2018 is dreaming big.
And what can I say except that, so far, Sky Mavis has been on a roll? Since its introduction in November 2020, the price of AXS has risen from 0,015 per token to $139. Over the last six months, there is still an increase in its value of 1540%. According to Token Terminal, AXS is now valued at $7.46 billion (it was $4.2 billion as of September 1), and is expected to generate over $2021 billion in revenue in XNUMX.
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But of course, and like any crypto-asset, volatility is something to take into account. Price fluctuations exist, and can sometimes be violent, even if the trend has been bullish since the beginning of the summer. Moreover, Axie Infinity has already been the victim of several server failures due to its popularity or, worse, a DDOS attack.
So many elements that could make investors cautious, or even collapse the building like a house of cards if the problem becomes recurrent. As we've seen, Sky Mavis is betting big on the community aspect of its game, which actually cements its economy. So he's also not immune to other new play-to-earn sensations coming out of nowhere to steal the show. After all, we are still only at the beginning of the democratization of NFT. And there's no doubt that Axie Infinity's business model will be emulated in the future… for better or for worse.
