YGG Play officially brings Proof of Play (PoP) into its third-party publishing camp. This is not the kind of simple 'shouting slogans' cooperation, but a solid publishing agreement:@Yield Guild Games Responsible for growth marketing, player acquisition, and their own revenue-sharing model secured by smart contracts, helping the PoP Arcade platform further expand its player base. In simple terms, it means#YGGPlay to leverage PoP's (Pirate Nation) already launched pirate ship to push their 'Casual Degen' concept to more ordinary players.

Many people's first reaction might be: hasn't YGG always been focused on the hardcore Play-to-Earn model of Axie Infinity? Why suddenly switch to 'casual gambling'? In fact, the logic behind this is quite straightforward. The early P2E was popular due to the scholar model in the Filipino community, but after the crash in 2022, everyone realized: relying solely on token rewards does not retain players; the game itself must be fun first. Over the years, YGG has accumulated a massive amount of NFT assets and built the largest player guild network in the world, but they increasingly realize that the real future growth lies not in those games that require thousands of dollars to enter, but in the 'casual' category where players can just open a browser and earn some small money.

Proof of Play is indeed a fierce player in this field. Led by FarmVille co-founder Amitt Mahajan and former Cash App member Adam Fern, these individuals have come from traditional gaming giants to fully on-chain games. Their flagship (Pirate Nation) launched not long ago, and the daily trading volume easily surpassed a million, even forcing them to roll out two dedicated chains. First Apex, then Boss Chain, to handle the influx of players. The core fun of this game lies in 'pirate building + endless adventure'; you build ships, explore islands, and treasure hunt, all the logic is directly written on the chain, without centralized servers dragging behind. As you play, you will find that this is not just a game, but more like a living on-chain economy: gems, ships, and islands are all NFTs, and transactions, team formations, and even guild wars naturally emerge between players.

What YGG Play values is the design philosophy of PoP that is 'crypto-native but not pay-to-win'. After the cooperation announcement, Proof of Play Arcade was directly included in the debut lineup of YGG Play Launchpad. What is Launchpad? In simple terms, it is an integrated platform prepared by YGG for casual games that includes 'discovery-task-airdrop'. You play games to earn points, which can be exchanged for priority subscription rights and can also be boosted through staking.$YGG The first self-developed game LOL Land (the Monopoly with Pudgy Penguins) generated $4.5 million in revenue just six months after its launch, proving that this gameplay is truly appealing in the degen circle. Now bringing in a mature IP like (Pirate Nation) is equivalent to instantly injecting 'hardcore exploration + pirate romance' into the platform.

Looking deeper, the complementarity of these two teams is very strong. YGG has hundreds of thousands of active players globally, especially in Southeast Asia, where people are most sensitive to 'earning extra money by playing games'; PoP has top-notch on-chain technology stacks and viral game mechanics. YGG can help PoP increase the player base from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and PoP can upgrade YGG's Launchpad from 'point-based task brushing' to 'truly immersive on-chain adventures'. Recently, YGG also specifically opened a creator bounty for PoP tasks with a $1,200 reward to encourage people to make guides and edit videos, clearly wanting to generate community enthusiasm in advance.

Looking at the entire crypto gaming circle, this cooperation actually reflects the most realistic trend for 2025: the days of hard forks are over, and everyone is starting to come together for warmth. In the past year, Telegram mini-games (like Hamster Kombat) attracted a massive number of users but collapsed due to unsustainable rewards; on the other hand, mid-sized projects like Pixels and Parallel are struggling to find sustainable player retention solutions. The collaboration between YGG and PoP provides a middle-ground answer. Using the scale effect of guilds and distribution platforms to support truly fun fully on-chain games, rather than making games accommodate token issuance logic.

If 2021 was the year Axie showed everyone the possibility of 'making a living by playing games', then the 2025 YGG x PoP partnership is likely telling us: in the next bull market, those who can truly reap the benefits are the teams that understand crypto and remember that 'games must be fun first'. The pirate flag has already been raised; the question is, are you ready to board the ship or will you continue to watch others divide the treasure from the shore?