YGG Holds Court at Korea Blockchain Week 2024
As an early adopter of some of the biggest gaming trends of the past few decades, South Korea has played a huge role in legitimizing esports and driving adoption of mobile free-to-play gaming. With the web3 community gathering in Seoul for Korea Blockchain Week 2024 (KBW), founders and fans flew in from all over the world. To welcome them, Yield Guild Games (YGG) co-hosted two separate side events: one partnered with gaming platform Iskra and another with South Korean regional guild partner SKYGG.
These events were held at the FearX-owned esports café Portal PC in Gangnam. An iconic venue representing PC bang culture, competitive gaming communities have flourished at Portal PC, fostering the rise of global esports stars and cementing South Korea’s reputation as a dominant force in the industry.
In addition to all the passionate gamers who descended on Portal PC, YGG’s events also attracted web3 leaders including Sky Mavis co-founder Jihoz, The Sandbox co-founder and COO Sebastien Borget, Avalon CEO Sean Pinnock, Immutable Head of Business Development Andrew Sorokovsky, HyperPlay founder Jacob C., BreederDAO co-founder and CEO Renz Chong, Pixion Games founder Kam Punia, Mirai Labs founder and CEO Corey Wilton, and more.
High profile web3 content creators also joined, namely GamingGrid co-founder YellowPanther, 4,4 founder FlyeKitesJay, and Twitch partner Oatmewk. Freelance journalist and CoinDesk alum Elaine Ramirez, and Decrypt Asia Editor Sebastian Sinclair, also attended to mingle with the community and learn more about web3 gaming and esport’s role in fueling South Korea’s crypto economy.
YGG x Iskra present Ready Player Seoul
YGG kicked things off with Ready Player Seoul, co-hosted with ecosystem partner Iskra. The event drew a large crowd eager to participate in the night’s events, including show matches, hands-on game demos, and more.
Attendees explored different sections of Portal PC that were taken over by the event’s game partners including BLOCKLORDS, Shrapnel, Unioverse, and more. Show matches were held for mobile shooter Juicy Adventure and street basketball simulator 3on3 FreeStyle.
FreeStyle’s show match saw international players face off against hometown heroes, with YellowPanther, FlyeKitesJay, and YGG Head of Global Guild Relations Kyroh teaming up against Korea’s Black cat, ROWNA and MOONYU for a 3v3 match casted by Axie Infinity legend and YGG Superquests mentor spamandrice.
Other members of the YGG Core Team and a host of community leaders also graced the event grounds, including YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon, YGG Korea Regional Manager Hun Pascal Park, YGG Head of Ecosystem Development Andy Chou, and YGG Director of Asset Acquisition Dan Hibell. YGG Community Lead CorpsCity also made it to the event with his mom. Mama CorpsCity had such a great time, she is already talking about travel plans for Manila’s upcoming YGG Play Summit in November.
YGG Esports was also well-represented at the event. YGG Head of Esports Mike Ovecka, YGG Esports Captain Disi, Global Axie champion spamandrice, YGG Esports’ resident cardslinger Sequinox, and YGG Esports Social Media Manager Big Gabbie were all in attendance, both as guests and participants in the various exhibition matches held during the event.
YGG x SKYGG present Games: Portal to Web3
YGG returned to Portal PC to co-host the Games: Portal to Web3 event with SKYGG. The event was jam-packed with game demos, tournaments and surprise guests from web2 esports. Main sponsors included leading web3 game marketplace HyperPlay, sci-fi game Wanderers, questing and news hub GAM3S.GG, dark fantasy game DARKTIMES, gamified social network Spacebar, and more.
In the afternoon, YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon, Xociety Head of Business Sang Chung, Game Fund Partners co-founder and Chief Gaming Officer Jonah Blake, and Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and CPO of Sui Network developer Mysten Labs, joined the panel “Web3 Gaming, Where We Are Headed,” to pause and reflect on the state of the industry. Their conversation centered on the potential growth through web3-native user acquisition, as well as the increasing prevalence of publishers and incubators helping to bring higher-quality releases into the ecosystem.
While discussing the web2 backlash, Adeniyi noted that free-to-play was a laughing stock in its early days but ultimately it was the quality of the product that formed and evolved that view. Jonah Blake added that most of the people who have a problem with web3 are from North America. “Those people here in Korea, or in Manila, Philippines — they like that they can play and maybe earn some money,” said Jonah.
The side event also attracted some of the world’s most successful esports athletes to attend, including StarCraft 2 pro Cure, and content creators Smoogy and Omareloff from Team Liquid. Primarily known for their involvement in web2 titles such as Counter-Strike and DOTA, Team Liquid has recently started exploring opportunities to get into web3 gaming and its growing competitive scene. A notable surprise guest was Johnathan Wendel, better known as Fatal1ty. Fatal1ty was esports’ first superstar, whose excellence in Quake saw him shoot to early internet stardom in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Former Overwatch pros and current SKYGG KOLs Profit, Gesture, Birdring and WooHyaL, as well as YGG mainstays spamandrice, Sequinox, Gabbie, Disi and Kyroh, were also there, representing the new wave of personalities in esports.
Closing the day’s events was a Web3 Gaming Triathlon, where participants were put through a gauntlet of three distinct games: extraction shooter XOCIETY, sports brawler Sparkball, and the first-person shooter Shatterline. The marquee matchup was YGG vs. SKYGG, where SKYGG emerged victorious as the home team made the most of its advantage.
YGG Dives Deeper into the Esports Scene
Over YGG’s two events throughout KBW, it became clear that web3 gaming may be ready to enter its next big evolutionary stage. More and more high-quality competitive web3 games are releasing, and as shown during Games: Portal to Web3, the web2 esports world is finally taking notice.
YGG’s stint at KBW was only a tease for what’s to come later in the year. Given the incredible amount of support and interest YGG received from the competitive web3 gaming community at KBW, the YGG Play Summit (YPS) is poised to make a huge splash when it returns to Manila this November.
Follow Iskra and SKYGG on X for more information on future YGG-partnered events and promotions.
Follow Korea Blockchain Week on X for a complete account of everything that happened in Seoul this week.
Head over to the official YGG Play Summit website to secure a spot at one of the biggest web3 gaming events of the year: www.yggplay.gg.
Follow YGG on X and join the YGG Discord for the latest news on YGG’s IRL and online community events.
