Flying Falcon Sponsors Players to Start Earning In NFT Games
Donors to the YGG Sponsor-A-Scholar program will help onboard newcomers to play-to-earn games.
Yield Guild Games (YGG), a decentralized gaming guild of players and investors who generate yield from NFT-based games, has launched its Sponsor-A-Scholar program with the goal to onboard more new players to play-to-earn games.
Flying Falcon, a pseudonymous benefactor, is the first to contribute to the program, sponsoring a total of 50 players to start playing and earning in the NFT game, Axie Infinity.
“The future is in the metaverse and the ones to cultivate it will be the players of NFT games. In building the digital nations of tomorrow, we must ensure that these virtual worlds are more inclusive than the ones we inhabit today. I am proud to be supporting these players to join us here in the new decentralized economy,” said Flying Falcon, a crypto whale and NFT enthusiast who recently invested $1.5mil into virtual land in the Axie Infinity metaverse.
Across the world, there are currently more players applying to access play-to-earn scholarships than there are in-game assets available to meet the demand. The YGG Sponsor-A-Scholar program allows patrons to support more new players to get into NFT games by donating funds to cover the cost of creating new in-game assets that will be leased directly to scholars.
“Play-to-earn gaming is changing lives for the better and we don’t want to see anyone left behind. Many people were asking me: How can I help? What can I do to support YGG in onboarding more new players? The Sponsor-A-Scholar program is a really concrete way for our generous benefactors to contribute to this movement,” said Gabby Dizon, co-founder of YGG.
The play-to-earn movement, where players can earn an income by playing NFT games, became popular amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, especially in developing countries where many communities lost their usual capacity to earn an income and very little crisis relief was on offer.
However, rising NFT prices have made these games cost-prohibitive for many of those people who would benefit most from play-to-earn. To reduce barriers to entry, YGG offers a profit sharing arrangement, known as a “scholarship,” where in-game assets are provided to new players on a rental basis.
There are no upfront fees for the player and resulting revenues generated from playing the game are shared between the player, their community manager and YGG.
“I want to earn money while being able to still attend school but part time jobs are scarce because of the pandemic,” said Danielle Louise, a recipient of a Flying Falcon scholarship. She plans to use the money earned playing Axie Infinity to pay bills, save and invest.
Another recipient of the Flying Falcon scholarship, named Hapon, was waiting three months before he could get started with play-to-earn.
“I am very glad and thankful,” said Hapon. “I will buy basic necessities when I receive my first payout and save funds to help build my house.”
Benefactors to the Sponsor-A-Scholar program donate the in-game token, Small Love Potion (SLP), so that YGG can use it to breed more Axies. Those Axies are then loaned to new players under the YGG scholarship model.
Sponsors are not entitled to any revenue share and they do not earn any return from the players they sponsor; the activity is entirely philanthropic. However, their generosity is recognized in-game with an attribution next to the player’s name, for example:
YGG Scholar 464 — Flying Falcon
For more information on Sponsor-A-Scholar, email: ygg@emfarsis.com
What is Axie Infinity?
Based on blockchain technology, Axie Infinity is a decentralized digital pet universe where players battle, breed and trade adorable fantasy creatures called Axies.
To play Axie Infinity, a player must first purchase a team of three Axies from the Axie Marketplace. Axies are non fungible tokens (NFTs) meaning that each one is cryptographically unique and can’t be replicated, which makes it digitally scarce.
In choosing Axies, their attributes determine their strengths and advantages in battle. This could mean the difference between winning and losing a game, and earning SLP or not, so players are rarely looking to acquire the cheapest Axies available.
What is SLP?
SLP or “Small Love Potion” is an in-game token earned by players as a reward for winning Axie battles. It is critical within the game as it is required in order to breed Axies.
However, if players are not engaged in breeding Axies, they can choose to sell their SLP tokens. SLP can be converted to Ethereum (ETH) through Uniswap and Binance.
In some countries around the world, the demand for SLP is so high that local cryptocurrency exchanges are offering direct swaps between SLP and the domestic currency. For example, in the Philippines, BloomX offers a direct swap between SLP and Philippine pesos (PHP).
What are scholarships?
Currently, it costs up to USD $1000 to buy a decent Axie team. Understandably, not all people are willing or able to invest this much upfront, especially if they are unfamiliar with the game.
To help onboard newcomers to the play-to-earn ecosystem, a “scholarship” is a popular pathway to get started. Scholarships are profit-sharing programs that provide an opportunity for new players to borrow a team of Axies, so they can get into the game without having to spend any money or take any risk. The only upfront investment required is their time spent in-game.
The SLP earned is then shared between the player and the owner of the Axie team, with the player taking the largest cut. Scholars, as they are known, usually also receive training on how to play the game. Each scholarship program is modeled differently, and some provide in-house tournaments, upgrade incentives, and more.
How does YGG support scholarships?
YGG is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that invests in yield-generating NFTs, such as Axies, that are found in blockchain games and virtual worlds.
To optimise returns on its in-game assets, and to scale its operations, YGG works with existing player guilds around the world that have been proven to have a good reputation in their own community. The YGG treasury provides Axies to these guilds so they can be rented out to scholars via their localized operations and their own player relationships.
