Additional reporting from Michael Mislos

As the web3 gaming landscape continues to evolve in the Philippines, Mench Dizon, the Country Manager of YGG Pilipinas, shared her insights on integrating web2 developers, programmers, and gamers into this innovative sector, despite the challenging bear market conditions.

“Despite the challenging times, we know its a bear market, it’s been quite the crypto winter, we continue to give back and remain steadfast in our mission on providing Filipinos with sustainable opportunities to participate in this exciting web3 space and we want to make sure that the FIlipinos are at the forefront of this.”

Mench Dizon, Country Manager, YGG Pilipinas

While the Web3 Games Summit, a week-long event in Taguig, Philippines, from November 18-25, 2023, has seen the conclusion of its conference and game jam, the game expo is currently in full swing, showcasing the latest in web3 gaming. The summit also featured a tournament, hackathon, and other engaging activities.

Web3 games like Cryptopia, Axie Infinity, Anito Legends, Nine Chronicles, Ragnarok Landverse, Parralel, Pixelmon, MetaCene, Mighty Action Heroes, as well as web3 gaming clients like Hyperplay are being exhibited at the expo and showcase at the show floor in front of attendees and media.

Web3 content creators, including Kookoo, Yellow Panther, and Een Mercado, as well as key leadership at YGG including Co-Founder Gabby Dizon are at the event, happening at SM Aura.

Onboarding Web2 Gaming Natives

During the pandemic, the Philippines witnessed a swift adoption of cryptocurrency, largely spurred by the popularity of Axie Infinity. A YGG survey indicated that 86% of their scholars were new to cryptocurrency before joining. Similarly, a 2022 Finder survey reported that 25% of Filipinos engaged in play-to-earn (P2E) games. The Philippines ranked second globally in cryptocurrency ownership in a GWI survey in Q4 2021. However, these numbers dipped following the onset of the bear market, with a 35% decrease in NFT trading volume in Q2 2023.

With these concerns, Dizon elaborated during the interview that it is making efforts to once again encourage Filipinos to enter the web3 gaming space. According to her, there are opportunities to attract and onboard new users across all the features of the upcoming YGG Web3 Games Summit.

“The first is our Web3 Game Jam, we want to appeal to a broad developer and programmer—and gamer market. These kids might be curious on how to make games so we’re providing them with this opportunity to learn how to use these web3 tools that are coming out to the market,” she stated.

Dizon also emphasized the opportunity for traditional game developers to integrate web3 technologies into their projects, facilitating a smooth transition from web2 to web3 platforms.

“On the consumer side, we want to appeal to a wider gamer audience, of course the priority will be those that have experience of having the unique chance of playing web3 games. They also have peers and friends or family members that may not be on the web3 space, that could be an opportunity for them to bring and have their friends come along and see for themselves how different and exciting web3 games are shaped,” she added.

Key to Onboarding

Accordingly, Dizon emphasized that the key to onboarding new gamers into the space is that the games “have to be fun.”

“The game has to be entertaining. There remains to be that social aspect which web3 games are all about; it’s really combining the best of web2 and bringing it to web3. But what uniquely rises above that is the ability to really own the assets,” she highlighted.

Moreover, Dizon mentioned that web2 players often invest significant effort in playing games, but they don’t have real ownership of their in-game assets. According to her, web3 technology can change this by allowing players to truly claim ownership of their in-game assets, which they can then use beyond the game, such as in trading and other activities.

“It becomes another dimension of ownership and playing, now, you as a player are not just a gamer but also an investor; not just your time but actually your resources that you can now expect to gain from in the future–but that varies on the game… think about it beyond playing it’s also owning assets of the game and as you own then you can have the mindset of an owner investor,” Dizon expounded. 

Views on Web3 Games Criticism

Despite the decline in the web3 gaming sector due to the crypto winter, YGG is addressing public skepticism by diversifying their game offerings. Dizon believes that showcasing a variety of sustainable web3 games can alter public perception and highlight the sector’s potential for growth and innovation.

“It is also a good opportunity for us to learn about what went wrong, what went right, and what we could learn from the things that went wrong and see what we could evolve from that,” she stated.

Dizon also emphasized that the emergence of Axie Infinity in the Philippines demonstrated how entities can uniquely acquire customers through a community-centric approach.

“The Philippines is at the heart of all these. Isn’t that wonderful that before, things originate from Silicon Valley, the US; now the innovation, the learnings from web3, the insights is coming from the Philippines. That for me is really exciting,” she concluded.

This article is published on BitPinas: YGG Pilipinas Country Manager on How to Onboard Web2 Natives to Web3

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