Axie Infinity used to be a leading game on the market, but after a while, they have now been left behind. Therefore, to regain its position, the development team took a new direction by approaching the real world. So if this direction is effective, let’s find out with Weakhand in this article.
Before jumping into the article, everyone can refer to some of the following articles to understand better.
- What is Axie Inifinity (AXS)? The game started the explosive play to earn movement
- What is Sky Mavis? The force behind the most successful game in Crypto history
- What is Play to Earn? The trend opens a new era for Gaming
Axie Infinity – The Golden Age is Gone
If anyone has participated in the golden age of GameFi 2021, it is impossible not to know Axie Infinity, also known as Axie. This is the game that kicked off the explosive Play to Earn movement and is considered the most successful game in history in the Crypto market.
This cute TCG (Trading Card Game – card game) has made waves in 2021 and has been used by millions of Filipino players to make money and cover difficult lives during the Covid epidemic. onion. The “Play To Earn” model of making money by playing games also became the main trend of GameFi titles at that time.
At its peak in 2021, Axie Inifinity’s daily revenue reached a staggering 17.5M USD with the number of daily active users exceeding 1.5 million. Axie Infinity’s estimated 30-day revenue reached 300M USD, surpassing the revenue of most traditional game projects at that time.
But the economic model of 2 Ponzi tokens made Axie Infinity not maintain its peak for long, it began to grow slowly and gradually collapsed following the general trend of the Crypto market at that time. According to data provided by Crypto Slam at the end of November 2023, Axie’s monthly revenue only reached 28,000 USD. According to data from DappRadar, the market capitalization and floor price of Axie Infinity have also been divided hundreds of times.
Market capitalization and floor price of Axie NFT has been divided hundreds of times
Unable to Sell NFTs, Switch to Selling Stuffed Animals
After Pudgy Penguins’ initiative to reach the Web2 world through selling Pudgy Toys, at the end of November this year, Axie Infinity also began to embrace this trend by launching an online store to commercialize 4,877 Axie NFTs in the game and turn them into stuffed animals, t-shirts, hoodies, and several other physical items. Users can purchase these items using Crypto Currency or fiat currency.
Additionally, Axie also unlocks the copyright restrictions of 4877 NFTs in the Mystic and Origin series. Users who own these NFTs can sell products they design in Axie’s store. Not only that, they can also use the NFTs they hold to develop brands with images from Axie such as: Cafes, restaurants, comics or other businesses.
Collaboration between Axie Infinity and Grab
In addition, Axie Infinity also cooperates with a number of game development studios such as Tribes Studio, Bali Games, Directive Games and Bowled.io to allow them to use Axie IP in these Game Studio’s games.
Through these activities, it can be seen that Axie Infinity is making efforts to expand the boundaries of its game IP to connect more with the Web2 world through various fields to expand the brand’s popularity and look forward to more user participation in the Axie game.
Does This Move Boost Axie Infinity’s Growth?
According to statistical data, since the launch of Axie’s Merch Store, the number of members in the community has not increased significantly and has not created much appeal to web2 users. In fact, the number of nearly 5,000 NFTs with trade restrictions lifted is too small, accounting for only 0.04% of the total number of Axie NFTs circulating on the market of 11.9 million NFTs.
Looking at Axie Infinity’s moves over the past 6 months, it’s not hard to see that the increase in user engagement depends largely on the game itself. Accordingly:
On November 22, 2023, right before Axie launches Merch Store, the Axie Classic game type returns with game experience upgrades including: allowing AXP character inheritance, increasing total AXS rewards and establish the final prize “Mysterious Ax”. Additionally, Axie also lowers the arena entry threshold and removes the game’s “energy” requirement, allowing players to participate without restriction.
Restart Axie Classic
These changes have aroused the passion of veteran players and attracted the interest of new players. This has also had a very positive impact on the price of the AXS token and the number of Axie’s weekly players has also reached 100,000 people.
Or on September 6, 2023, the Yield Guild Games (YGG) gaming community completed the first super mission event set by Axie Infinity and received a reward of up to 112,000 AXS tokens (about 472,000 USD). This has also created a wave of excitement and helped significantly increase player participation.
Through this we can see that compared to the launch of physical goods, the movements surrounding the game receive more attention from the community. It cannot be denied that developing IP can help more people know the brand, but first Axie Infinity needs to create its popularity in the smaller segment of GameFi. This is exactly what Pudgy Penguins has applied and created their success at the present time.
summary
Axie Infinity has had a unique shift in approaching the Web2 market through many different activities but has not brought many positive changes until now. Above is all the information that I want to introduce to everyone in this article, hope everyone receives useful knowledge.
