YGG Web3 Games Summit: The Future of Gaming Has Arrived
The first YGG Web3 Games Summit (W3GS) defied Crypto Winter as it delivered a host of experiences at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, Manila, on November 18–25, 2023, including an intense hackathon with a Web3 Game Jam, an insightful two-day conference, and a vibrant three-day expo. The thrilling week culminated in the first-ever XENO PRO TOUR MANILA 2023, with a special appearance by Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao.
With support from Diamond sponsors HyperPlay, PROJECT XENO, and Brilliantcrypto, as well as Platinum sponsors Ragnarok Landverse, Polygon ID, Clique, Globe, Linea, Coins.ph, and AuraNFT, W3GS saw over 5,300 gamers, developers, investors, creators, educators, legislators and industry leaders from all over the world at the epicenter of web3 gaming. The summit demonstrated that the future is bright — and it has already begun.
W3GS Conference: 2 Days of Unforgettable Moments Onstage
W3GS featured over 90 international speakers across five tracks designed to give attendees a holistic view of the web3 game industry.
Web3 Game Development
During his highly anticipated keynote, Jeffrey “Jihoz” Zirlin of Sky Mavis unveiled the major announcements he had been teasing in the lead-up to W3GS, including Axie Classic’s return with a brand-new game mode, Cursed Coliseum, which unleashes curses on unsuspecting Axies.
In a fireside with Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler, Jihoz recounted how, in the earliest days of Axie Infinity, he once mistook a family of Axie players for bots. He revealed that a similar scenario is happening with the farming and social MMO, Pixels, which recently migrated to Sky Mavis’ Ronin network.
“In the last day, 82,000 Filipinos played Pixels. These are real people. These are Filipinos,” said Jihoz. “It is clear, as we enter a new cycle — the Philippines remains the beating heart of web3 gaming.”
On a panel with Sangho Grolleman, CEO of Cryptopia, and John Sedano, YGG Community Marketing Manager, Star Atlas co-founder and CEO Michael Wagner spoke about how a strong vision can anchor the continued development of a game.
“We’ve been developing since early 2021. This is a product that will take up to a decade to finish,” said Michael. “But it is never intended to be complete because the whole vision here is that, through time and through this decentralized ecosystem, people can carry the torch on into the future.”
YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon revealed the five big themes he predicts will define web3 gaming in 2024. He also sat down with Parallel Studios co-founder and Head of Design, Kohji Nagata, who shared his process for designing the base mechanics of the sci-fi trading card game sensation, Parallel.
While Axie Infinity, Star Atlas, and Parallel stand as web3 brands that were homegrown by their developers, the fireside “Turnaround Kings” illustrated how passionate entrepreneurs like Giulio Xiloyannis of LiquidX can steer an IP like Pixelmon from controversy to acclaim. Wei Zhou of Coins.ph also spoke about acquiring 0N1FORCE, highlighting the inherent value of great IPs.
“We believe very deeply in the power of NFT communities,” said Giulio. “They are tighter-knit than any early-stage consumption community I have seen. There’s a deep level of passion. In the case of Pixelmon, there was also a legacy, but Pixelmon also had a mystique and its history before the acquisition.”
User-Generated Content and Community
Sebastien Borget from The Sandbox and Brittany Li from the web3 entertainment ecosystem, Planet Tota, had a fireside chat discussing the potential for powerful collaborations. “The opportunity of The Sandbox is to turn anyone into a content creator,” said Sebastien. “To let them develop their own story, their own adventure, share their creation, publish it, and keep expanding their brand presence as they co-create with their fans.”
YGG Head of Ecosystem Development, Andy Chou, moderated “Worldwide Web3 Gaming,” featuring Akio Tanaka of Infinity Ventures Crypto and YGG Japan, Rohit Gupta of NYXL, and Irene Umar of W3GG, who talked about the SEA guild’s questing platform. “We are opening it up to everyone so you guys can be onboarded and create your own events, create your own communities, and manage your communities using the platform,” said Irene.
Meanwhile, content creators like YGG’s Een Mercado, Philippine basketball player Jared Dillinger of Daredevil Media, and content creator yellowpanther discussed building an online presence to educate about web3, and drive adoption.
“When you’re building a community, you become the niche, and they’ll want to follow you because of who you are,” said Jared. “It matters what I like, and I want to show you guys the things that I enjoy. It’s that simple.”
Driving Gamer Adoption
Highlighting the role of government in accelerating web3 adoption, Atty. Nathan Marasigan moderated a panel with Hon. Krystal Lyn Uy of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippines, Atty. Jocelle Batapa-Sigue of the Philippine Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), and Mohan Low of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).
Thought leaders such as Juntaro Iwase from Sky Mavis, Chris ‘Caldie’ Calderon from the web3 growth platform Superfine, and Lisa JY Tan from leading provider of tokenomics consulting services, Economics Design, also shared strategies for understanding, building and nurturing web3-native gaming communities.
On the panel “Turbocharging Gamer Acquisition” with Caldie and YGG Head of Growth Angel Pui, Juntaro said, “We’re living in an era where many projects are reinventing the way they do user acquisition, being prudent in how they invest their capital and how they measure.”
Angel spoke about YGG’s Superquests as a product for user acquisition. “It was a combination of learning in bite-sized, step-by-step guides with a level progression,” she said. “I believe that will be able to unlock a lot of these web2 players that might see that big barrier and not be able to get started.”
At W3GS, Angel also announced that YGG is now the official training partner for Axie Infinity: Origins, with more Superquests to come, featuring YGG GAP Ambassador Kookoo and YGG Elite player spamandrice.
The Business of Esports
Head of Esports Mike Ovecka moderated the “Intersection of Web3 and Esports” panel, which featured Rohit Gupta from the New York-based esports and gaming organization, NYXL, Tryke Gutierrez from leading gaming and esports entertainment company in Southeast Asia, Tier One, and Jamie Paraso from Mineski Global.
“We see web3 as a potential avenue to encourage fans to explore our team’s journey, incentivize viewership, and strengthen the fan relationship, ultimately boosting revenue,” Rohit said, explaining how ownership can bring a more involved audience to esports. “It should fix the business model in some ways from just pure web2 ways.”
Disi, Captain of YGG Elite, also took part in the Parallel game showcase with his teammate Sequinox and content creators Miccolo and Munchies.
Venture Funding in Gaming
Renowned VCs including Ken Bassig of Magnus Capital, Augie Ilag of CMT, Lisa JY Tan of Economics Design, Yuji Kumagai of Emoote, gave attendees a glimpse into how founders and investors can build a mutually beneficial relationship, and how founders can best pitch their projects.
“In my perspective, the reason to use web3 technologies is, first, the ownership,” said Yuji, highlighting what he looks for in a web3 project. “The second one is removing web2 frictions to reach more mass users. What value do you provide to users?”
President of Com2uS USA, Kyu Lee, also talked about Com2uS’ push into web3 with the launch of XPLA. He also reflected on the impact of XPLA lead investor FTX’s collapse, saying, “It’s been quite a journey. And we survived through it. It didn’t break us. It didn’t break our belief. I think it only made us stronger.”
Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu answered children’s burning questions about the open Metaverse in a unique fireside chat that quickly became a crowd favorite.
“If there’s a web3, is there a web4, web5, and web6?” asked Lexi, age 8, from the Philippines.
“If there’s anything that seems to be true, it is that the world constantly evolves, meaning that there will very naturally be a web4, web5, web6, web7, or web8 — but we don’t know what that looks like,” Yat replied. “If you had asked me 10 years ago, ‘What would web3 look like?’ I wouldn’t have known the answer. I wouldn’t have known that it was about ownership, or that it was about self-sovereign rights.”
The Philippines: The Beating Heart of Web3 Gaming
Besides the conference, W3GS featured an expo showcasing the latest web3 games, a 24-hour Web3 Game Jam, and other networking opportunities like exclusive parties and side events.
Web3 Game Jam
The Web3 Game Jam was a successful collaboration between YGG, W3GG, OP Games, STI College Global City, and Globe, featuring a 24-hour nonstop hackathon during which participants built games and applications.
Guided by mentors from the web3 developer community in the Philippines, Web3 Philippines Group, competitors had their entries evaluated by a panel consisting of Jeff Espejo from Gala Games, Jaden Yan from Clique, and Renz Chong from BreederDAO.
Team 10k Magic was announced as the winner, receiving a prize of PHP 50,000 plus an additional PHP 50,000 from Globe Telecom (a total of US$3,600), for their game Pandora.
Expo and Side Events
Ahead of the summit, Country Head of YGG Pilipinas, Mench Dizon, appeared on one of the Philippines’ leading news stations, the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), to talk about the emergence of web3 games that appeal to a wider demographic. The three-day expo at W3GS showcased over 40 of these web3 games, many of which are playable now, namely Ragnarok Landverse, Mighty Action Heroes, Anito Legends, Axie Infinity: Origins, Pixelmon, PROJECT XENO, Parallel and MetaCene. Other games that took center stage at the expo were Nine Chronicles, Sunflower Land and Riftstorm.
Throughout the week, many side events took place after hours, including a Women’s Forum co-hosted by YGG Pilipinas and Emfarsis which featured speakers Leah Callon-Butler, Mench Dizon, Angel Pui, Irene Umar, Lisa JY Tan, April Agregado, mother of 11-year-old NFT artist SeviLovesArt, and Laura Nguyen of Ava Labs.
“Men and women have their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s not to say one is better than the other. It’s not to negate one or they are mutually exclusive. I think there’s so much we can learn from each other and leverage our own strengths while complementing our weaknesses with other’s strengths. It’s really simple. No one is better than the other,” said Lisa in a LinkedIn post about the Women’s Forum at YGG W3GS.
XENO PRO TOUR MANILA 2023
The first-ever XENO PRO TOUR MANILA 2023 from PROJECT XENO, the leading web3 strategy game in Japan, offered an impressive $100,000 USDT prize pool.
Out of 10,134 aspirants from the online qualifiers, Makatty [H.U.G.] came out on top and collected $40,000 USDT. Runner-up RYO walked away with $20,000 USDT. The rewards to the finalists were presented by boxing legend and PROJECT XENO ambassador, Manny Pacquiao.
Taking Web3 Gaming to the Next Level
While actively building during the Crypto Winter, YGG identified key unlocks that have helped propel web3 gaming to the next level. W3GS was designed to hit these goals as the guild continues making a positive impact on the industry.
Addressing the challenge web3 of user acquisition
Recognizing user acquisition (UA) as one of the biggest challenges in web3 gaming, YGG has rolled out multiple questing solutions including the Guild Advancement Program (GAP) and Superquests. At W3GS, the YGG core team spoke about the value of these skills development programs as a method of onboarding new players and reviving interest in dormant users.
On stage with Angel Pui, the first mentors for Superquests, Kookoo and spamandrice, shared their thoughts on the questing program as well as their motivations for becoming web3 content creators.
“Everything about Superquests is amazing. The earnings, the onboarding, the bringing new players back, or bringing new players on, or bringing old players back,” said spamandrice. “And in terms of the process, working with YGG, they made everything so smooth. I’ve never had an easier time content creating in my life and it was honestly a pleasure to share tips and whatever I can teach, to the community,” he added.
Reflecting on the time when he first joined the Axie Infinity community in late 2020, after reading Leah Callon-Butler’s original story about the breakthrough web3 game on CoinDesk, Kookoo said there were few content creators sharing details on how to get started with crypto or blockchain, and the ones that did were not honest in their intentions. “Some of those were onboarding people because they have personal interests or bags to shill, and that’s the challenge. There’s a lot of scams before,” explained Kookoo.
Despite having no experience in video production, he was inspired to start creating educational content of his own as he believed there was a need to provide transparent onboarding guidance to the community.
“Those information should not only be accurate, but beneficial to your viewers. It’s important to research the things that you’re going to say in front of the camera because people rely on you. I don’t endorse people buying any Axies, or tokens, or anything. I just guide them on how to do it, and it’s up to them to decide if they will buy or not. Basically, it’s about them creating an informed decision for them to get started in the space,” said Kookoo.
Unlocking web3 with a reliable identity system
YGG is empowering its community to unlock further opportunities in web3 by establishing a reputation system that keeps track of everyone’s contributions. Reputation and Progression (RAP) is a key part of this initiative, as discussed by YGG Head of Community Products, Mark Tan, during his keynote.
At W3GS, attendees were also invited to visit the Clique x Polygon ID expo booth, where they could issue their credentials from web2 gaming — such as skill levels, purchase power, play histories, and favorite games — onto the blockchain, helping to build a more comprehensive picture of a gamer’s experience, history of accomplishment, and their overall reputation across both web2 and web3 communities.
Connect developers and web3-ready gamers
The Philippines boasts the largest population of web3-ready gamers, offering an unparalleled opportunity for innovators to connect, collaborate and contribute to the evolution of web3 gaming. Through the various community-centered activities at W3GS, YGG brought together developers and visionaries from around the world, reaffirming the guild’s commitment to driving the future of gaming.
YGG expresses its gratitude to its partners, sponsors and community, anticipating that the connections formed at W3GS will contribute to the continued growth and development of the web3 ecosystem. With the insights and innovations shared during this summit, web3 gaming has never been more bullish.
Stay tuned for more web3 gaming events by bookmarking https://ygg.events.
Follow W3GS on X to track the next one. You may also join the YGG Discord or follow us on X.
