Everyone is saying that YGG Play is the super entrance to Web3 games, but few have calculated the accounts clearly: is this 'entrance' a selfless 'portal' or a shrewd 'toll booth'? While it brings users to public chains like Ethereum, Ronin, and Base, is it extracting more value or truly nurturing the prosperity of the ecosystem?
To understand this game, we need to look at it from two angles: one is the outflow of value, which is 'bloodsucking'; the other is the injection of value, which is 'nourishment'.
Let's start with the unpleasant truth: how YGG Play is 'bloodsucking'. Its core model is to organize a massive number of players, like a well-trained army, to enter various games on different chains to 'mine'. A considerable portion of the tokens, NFTs, and other assets produced by these players will flow back to YGG's treasury through the guild system. This creates a value extraction machine: players grind day and night in a certain game on the Ronin chain, and some of the game tokens they produce are converted into stablecoins through trading, while others may be concentrated and sold off by YGG in exchange for more core assets like ETH. This creates a continuous selling pressure on the native economy of the game itself. I spent a weekend specifically tracking the interaction records of several key wallet addresses related to YGG Play on the Base chain, and discovered an interesting pattern: in the early stages of a new game launch, their trading behavior is extremely active, frequently converting in-game rewards into ETH and USDC, which undoubtedly extracts the most precious liquidity at the time when the ecological value is the weakest. For emerging L2s like Base, although they gain users and trading volume, they must also endure the pain of early value being seized by top 'channel providers'.
But looking at it from another perspective, if YGG Play is a 'vampire', it is also a vampire that actively 'donates blood'. Firstly, it addresses the most troublesome problem for all public chains and game projects: where do users come from? When a new game launches, the most feared scenario is a 'no man's land'. YGG Play directly brings thousands of active players who have been refined through Web3; these individuals come with wallets, understand interactions, and can quickly support the early ecology of a game. For Ronin, YGG is an indispensable partner in its ecosystem; from the Axie era to now, YGG has not only contributed a massive number of players but its YGG token has even been launched on the Ronin network, deeply participating in network validation, which is a strong ecological binding. Similarly, for the Base chain, the choice to deploy the YGG Play 'on-chain guild' platform here is a significant draw. This will attract more developers to build games on Base, as they know there is a ready-made, large player community waiting for them. Through its initiated tasks and activities, YGG Play is effectively providing the 'social layer' infrastructure for these public chains, integrating isolated players into an organized and goal-oriented economy.
Therefore, simply defining YGG Play as 'vampiric' or 'reciprocal' is one-sided. It is more like a symbiotic entity, parasitizing on various gaming ecosystems, extracting nutrients to grow itself, while its growth in turn attracts more resources and attention, thereby bringing traffic and vitality to the host ecosystem. This relationship is dynamic and also fragile. If YGG Play over-extracts and collapses the game economy, it will lose its source of value; but if it can skillfully maintain balance and reinject the extracted value back into the ecosystem in more effective ways (such as providing initial liquidity for new games or investing in incubating new projects), then it will become the most powerful positive flywheel in the entire Web3 gaming field.
The key to the future lies in how this balance is maintained. For us ordinary players, understanding this point allows us to better assess the long-term potential of a game or a public blockchain. Do you think that in the long run, the YGG Play model is more beneficial than harmful for an emerging GameFi public blockchain, or vice versa? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Disclaimer: This article is solely a personal analysis and does not constitute any investment advice. The market has risks, and investment should be done with caution.@Yield Guild Games #YGGPlay $YGG
