How Axie Infinity Creators Plan To Take Crypto Gaming By Storm (Again)

When it comes to games to make money, the name Axie Infinity stands like a colossus above all the others.

Originally launched in March 2018, the online game based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) became a worldwide sensation, shaking as a true crypto success story.

By November 2021, Axie Infinity’s token, AXS, had risen from a few cents per token to an all-time high of $164.90. Such was the massive success of Axie Infinity that at its peak in 2021, tens of thousands of players were able to make a living just playing.

Then, in March, Axie Infinity and its users lost $620 million in a cybercrime attack funded by North Korea. The loss was a heavy blow to the company, but perhaps surprisingly not a fatal one.

Today, Axie Infinity (AXS) is down 92.3% from its peak to around $12 a share, but the game and its parent company, Sky Mavis, continue to fight on.

Be[In]Crypto talkede with Aleksander Leonard Larsen, Chief Operating Office (COO) of Sky Mavis to find out what the company is doing now and why Axie is perfectly positioned for a big comeback story.

Axie community and network effects

One of the things that Larsen, better known as Psycheout, is keen to share with us is the reasons for Axie Infinity’s success. While Larsen himself could congratulate himself on the creation of Axie Infinity, the game boss instead points to the community as one of the main differentiating factors.

“I would say that instead of the classic Axie game being the real secret sauce, the community was always the secret sauce of Axie,” Larsen said. As for the game itself, Larsen cites the two-token model as one of the important innovations in the game.

After tasting success through Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis is now developing its next game titled Axie Origins, which will use the lessons learned from what Larsen sometimes refers to as “Axie classic.”

About what Sky Mavis has gleaned from the experience, Larsen said “we should have been a little more careful with it.” [token] inflation,” but overall the Axie Classic was a “great learning experience.”

“If you just look at the latest user numbers, and how many people discovered the game, now we have the opportunity to build on top of that as we release the next games.”

Axie is taking crypto by storm again

Larsen believes that the company is now in a good position to take crypto by storm again, primarily because of the loyal community of players the company has built up over the years. The existing gaming community of Axie players creates a “network effect” of built-in fans, as long as Sky Mavis gets the game itself right.

“The really hard part is starting up network effects,” Larsen said. “In the traditional games industry, many games are sent every single day. And most of them fail, like bootstrapping network effects, or IP (intellectual property) is very, very difficult. And that’s really the competitive advantage that Axie has right now.”

For that reason, Larsen has a message for players looking for “the next Axie Infinity.”

“Axie is the new Axie, because we ship games now that they are in the ecosystem and use the same resources, Larsen said.

“That’s really going to be the future of Axie infinity – more games, an ever-growing ecosystem of different things that players can do.”

So while the number of Axie Infinity users may be down from the peak, the COO points out that this reduced number is still far ahead of its competitor’s ecosystems and products.

Casual gamers are the future, says Larsen

One area Sky Mavis has identified for growth potential is casual, non-crypto players.

“For us, it’s all about now going into the market outside of the crypto space, and making sure we have regular players who just love the products,” Larsen said.

Larsen sees a future for the company where some players find Axie through its app store and play outside of the crypto ecosystem, “and then whether you want to become a blockchain player, whether you want to earn something, or whether you want to participate in the economy … that’s when you interact with the crypto side of things.”

Part of bringing new users into the crypto fold will be in education. As Larsen puts it: “Why should normal people care about this?”

That’s a bigger question that crypto companies of all shapes and sizes will eventually have to answer.

Lessons learned from the Ronin attack

Finally, we asked Larsen about the elephant in the room, the $620 million attack and what it has meant for the company. Here, Larsen expresses regret for what happened.

“Looking back, I wish we had more validators and we would have been more secure,” Larsen said. “We’ve taken it to heart, it’s a great learning experience.”

The company will now look to restore the trust of users and make the system more robust and secure. In the second goal, the company has now added Google to the list of validators, which Sky Mavis believes will improve the security of the network.

Now the company is focused on launching its next game Axie Origins, which promises improvements over its predecessor, including better game mechanics and a free entry model.

Will Origins be the next Axie Infinity that Larsen thinks? This is crypto, where anything is possible.

Disclaimer

All information on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes on the information contained on our website is strictly at their own risk.