Axie Infinity Pt.2 — Resolution

Any views expressed below are based on the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be taken as recommendations or advice to engage in investment transactions. NFA. DYOR.

With more Metaverse/Web3.0 games surfacing, how will Axie continue to stay relevant in this fast-moving space? How will Axie solve its current $SLP price “crisis” to attract even more players to enter the game? Should I still enter Axie — starting my own scholarship or just owning Axies? These are all questions that we will answer in this post based on upcoming news and analysis.

Just a quick recap on what we discussed in Pt.1:

• Axie basics
• Axie’s growth in the past year
• The current state of Axie’s Economy (metaphor of an empty restaurant)
• Hyperinflation of $SLP caused SLP prices to decline in the previous months
• The “vicious cycle” that is causing the downfall of Axie in the past couple of months.

In the past few months since Facebook announced the change of their company name to Meta — to usher in the metaverse and build a new world in virtual reality.

We have seen a huge influx of new Play-2-Earn (P2E) games like Pegaxy, Thetan Arena and other NFT based Web3.0 games. All of which seem to carry the same Play-2-Earn(P2E) scholarship concept as Axie Infinity. These games, however, are all seemingly better than Axie in a few ways.
1. More sophisticated graphics and designs
2. Better gameplay mechanics
3. Improved tokenomics

Being a gamer myself, I believe that the first thing gamers would look at before deciding whether or not to play a game would be whether the game is fun. Axie’s current game graphics and the gameplay itself, pale in comparison to many of these new games that present 3D animations and essentially better gameplay. Gamers that entered Axie to play for fun — and maybe earn some extra cash on the side — are moving to other games simply because Axie is, simply put, becoming boring. Mindless grinding, doing the same actions and fighting the same monster every single day for hours is not fun… to many, it has become more like a job, taking the fundamental joy of gaming away.

So how is Axie, trying to stay competitive and relevant in terms of their gameplay overall?

Axie just released their Axie Infinity: Origin (Battles V3) update teaser and to be quite frank, I am pretty excited about it. Some key features of the update include:
1. New Game Mechanics: changing the way the game is played with Sequential Turns and Energy & Card resets and also reworking some of the battle cards.
2. Adding New Features: they are introducing powers related to an Axie’s eyes and ears, which had no effect previously. And also, power-ups (runes & charms) that can be equipped to Axies to enhance their abilities.
3. Improved Graphics & Design: As seen from the teaser screenshots, we can see that Sky Mavis has reworked the art of Axie to become more vibrant and significantly improve its UI and its overall aesthetics.
4. Starter Axies: Axie will also be introducing non-NFT based “starter” Axies for players who wish to play the game for fun or even just try out the game before investing in NFT based Axies.

So why am I excited about all these changes? Well simply because this brings back the novelty factor to Axie. Similar to games like Mobile Legends, League of Legends, Valorant or even Maplestory, when new characters or reworks of existing characters are introduced to the game, people get excited. They are excited to try these new changes and how to integrate these new changes into their current gameplay style. This is why Web2.0 games like the above mentioned are able to retain so many of their active players even after so many years. Simply by introducing or even just tweaking certain ways the games are played and voila.

With the release of Axie Infinity: Origin, I believe we will see the return of old players (that maybe got bored of the game) and the attraction of new players to the game. If Axie is able to increase their daily active users and decrease their player attrition rate, it would definitely help the current Axie demand crunch.

Another key issue that we talked about in Pt.1 was the hyperinflation problem of the $SLP token. Basically the current rate of mint > rate of burn of $SLP. With Origin, many Axie maxis were hoping that the Developers would introduce another way that SLP could be burnt and slowly solve the inflation problem. And they did!

NFT-based Charms and Runes will require both SLP and Moonshards to craft; this will be one of the initial SLP burning mechanisms incorporated into Origin.

Axie has finally announced another SLP burning mechanism (hopefully not the last) into the ecosystem. Players will be able to use SLP and the new token Moonshards to craft the power-up Charms and Runes that will increase the abilities of Axies. But honestly, how effective do you think this will be? I think, although a great new update and introduction, it might not work as effectively as one might think.

As an Axie guild owner myself, my aim is to maximise the amount of profit/ROI. Having to spend SLP and Moonshards (assuming that it would be worth a certain value) to boost my scholar’s Axies might not be the top of my priorities. Why? Because of the uncertainty and risk. Imagine having 100 scholars, this would mean I would have to purchase charms and runes for every Axie and every scholar. And it might not even affect the performance of the scholars significantly. Thus, I would rather keep the SLP as profits than reinvest it back to buy upgrades. But I mean, who knows right? Maybe these Runes and Charms are going to have a huge impact on the game and it would be almost literally impossible to win without them, then maybe the adoption of these power-ups would become more widescale. We will never know until more information has been provided and we see from the actual gameplay itself. *Fingers crossed*

Although I am not very optimistic about this new SLP burning mechanism, I believe that this first step, albeit slight, will be a catalyst for even more updates in the future. This could lead to the upgrade of Axie body parts itself or even more equipment to be introduced to the game.

Will the SLP hyperinflation problem be solved, in the short term may be slightly, but will it be sustainable? We will have to wait to find out.

So the question that so many of my friends and family have been asking me, “Eh you play Axie right, what do you think? Is Axie dead or is it a good time to buy in?”

As always, my answer will be “up to you”. Everything that we have discussed in these two posts, are points of consideration that can help you with your choice but again, should never be taken as financial advice.

Personally, I am still optimistic about Axie considering that they have a really huge and competent team — much bigger than other new Web3.0 games. They have huge funding from investors and from the few AMAs by the team that I have attended, they have a vision and roadmap for the game. Will it take a long time? Maybe, but with their resources and competence, I believe that most of these ideas can come to fruition. But hey, what do I know, I am just a degen ape that is invested in the game!

Do your own research and come to the conclusion yourself, if you share a similar belief as I do then I welcome you to join the Axie family, and feel free to approach me for tips on starting your own scholarship/guild. If not, there are so many other P2E games out there for you to choose from, DYOR and if you vibe with it, go for it!

So what do you think, with the upcoming updates and Origin (Battles V3) about to launch at the end of Q1 2022, are you still bullish or bearish about Axie? Let me know your thoughts, you can contact me @bearlastair (telegram) or @defi_ally (twitter).