2024: A Year in Review

In 2024, Yield Guild Games (YGG) honed its existing programs and released new products to better serve the YGG community. The Guild Advancement Program (GAP) gained many additional features, including the Rewards Center in Season 7. Future of Work (FoW) was also launched during TOKEN2049, enabling the community to explore new decentralized earning opportunities.

YGG’s transition into a Guild Protocol was announced during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, and Onchain Guilds was launched on Base and piloted with select communities in November. With the YGG Play Summit capping off the year, the global Web3 gaming community caught a peek at what’s next for YGG and how it plans to refine its industry-leading guild infrastructure.

Below is a recap of YGG’s major accomplishments in 2024.

Guild Protocol: The Era of Onchain Guilds

In September, YGG published the Concept Paper “Guild Protocol: The Era of Onchain Guilds,” which covered the key points of its transition into a Guild Protocol. This laid down the blueprint for groups to form an Onchain Guild and use their Web3 reputation to be matched with opportunities based on their verifiable skills and achievements.

Read the Concept Paper in full here.

YGG also published a series of explainer articles summarizing the core concepts of the Guild Protocol.

• Web3 Reputation enables the Guild Protocol to match Onchain Guilds with Web3 projects that need their specific and verifiable abilities.
• Onchain Guilds provide communities with the tools to grow, scale, and conquer quests as a unit.
• Building with the Guild Protocol allows Onchain Guilds to discover economic opportunities best suited to their skills and specializations.

Guild Advancement Program (GAP)

YGG held four GAP seasons throughout 2024, doubling its output from previous years. Engagement was strong, with over 169,000 total quest enrollments across Seasons 5, 6 and 7 and participation in the ongoing Season 8 still rising.

Each GAP season also saw the introduction of many new features throughout 2024 designed to give players a more fun and rewarding questing experience. Highlights from the past year of GAP included:

• Season 5 saw the full redesign of the YGG website to accommodate the upcoming changes to the program. It drew in 7,554 questers. Pixels led the way with 6,677 total quest enrollments as players grinded in-game, built their pet care streak, and attended the community meet-up inside Pixels.
• Season 6 introduced Premium Quests and AI Bounties, giving new and experienced questers novel GAP quests to explore. In total, 9,674 questers participated, while enrollments reached 83,405 — almost as many quest enrollments as the previous five GAP seasons combined.
• Season 7 introduced the Rewards Center and The Stake House, giving all players opportunities to boost their quest rewards. Over 200 guilds participated, with six guilds reaching over 100 members who completed at least five quests. Read more about GAP’s revamped rewards system here.
• Season 8 launched in tandem with Onchain Guilds, giving communities the opportunity to build their Web3 reputation and participate in group quests as an Onchain Guild for the very first time.

Superquests

Since launching in 2023, Superquests has offered a premium questing solution to help games drive user acquisition and engagement. By combining educational content from world-class key opinion leaders (KOLs) and deep integration into the game’s platform to gamify learning, Superquests rewards in-game behavior and achievements while providing partners with actionable insights into their player base.

In 2024, YGG created two successful Superquest campaigns for Axie Infinity and Pixels. Securing the role of official in-game trainer for Axie Infinity: Origins, Superquests provided players with tailored video content and education guidance from Axie OG, Kookoo, and one of the game’s most successful tournament players, spamandrice. The Axie Superquests helped the Sky Mavis team onboard over 47,000 new wallets into Axie Origins.

Pixels also collaborated with YGG to help introduce its new guild-driven gameplay to the community. This initiative drove over 156,000 new sign-ups during the two-month campaign. It also had an exceptionally high completion rate, with 95.7% of all Pixels Superquest participants completing all three quests in the in-game event.

Future of Work (FoW)

At TOKEN2049, YGG unveiled its latest vertical, Future of Work (FoW). Helmed by Trish Rosal, who joined the YGG team this year as Future of Work Head, the initiative promises to help the community uncover decentralized earning opportunities at the intersection of Web3 and other new technologies.

FoW has led YGG’s efforts to expand into AI and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) through gamified tasks focused on data collection and labeling. FoW enables participants to work on their own terms — anytime, anywhere — while connecting its partners with a diverse, global talent pool.

Read more about Future of Work: YGG Expands Beyond Gaming with Future of Work

Key Additions to the YGG Ecosystem

YGG established partnerships with several games, blockchain infrastructure providers, and developers to continue supporting innovation within the broader Web3 landscape.

Starting the year strong, YGG secured one of the most valuable parcels of land in Pixels and US$6 million in PIXEL tokens in Q1. YGG also acquired 67 in-game NFTs for Overworld and secured a token position within the Sipher Odyssey ecosystem. Other partnerships include:

• New games and developers, including Meta-X, Blade of God X, and Xociety, as well as Gunzilla Games, developers of the 2024 GAM3 Awards Game of the Year, Off The Grid.
• YGG also partnered with various dapps, networks, and infrastructure providers, such as Iskra, LongHash Ventures, Keystone Foundation, and Sending Labs.
• Support for the YGG token grew, with Ronin and Base incorporating it into their ecosystem.
• YGG also brought in new AI and DePIN partners for Future of Work, including FrodoBots, Navigate, and Sapien, while deepening their existing relationship with Synesis One.

To learn more about YGG’s partnership activities throughout 2024, read the Q1, Q2, and Q3 Community Updates.

A Year of Community and Competition

Over the course of 2024, YGG onboarded thousands of new Web3 gamers through in-person events. The community also leveled up together in competitive play, bolstered by YGG’s efforts to cultivate the Web3 esports scene.

YGG Pilipinas Roadtrip

The YGG Pilipinas Roadtrip was a multi-regional event that spanned six locations across the Philippines over four months. Engaging the country’s grassroots communities to educate and equip them for Web3, the Roadtrip attracted over 7,000 attendees, including YGG community members, students, influencers, government officials, and Web3 game developers.

Highlights of the Roadtrip’s six stops included:

• Playable game demos for Parallel, Sipher Odyssey, Arena of Faith, Rumble Racing Star, My Pet Hooligan, and more
• A PHP 100,000 cosplay competition at the final leg in Manila
• International speakers such as Mighty Bear Games CEO Simon Davis, Immutable Executive Producer Jill Keshyap, Immutable Game Product Manager Martha Schoppa, and 4,4 Labs founder YellowPanther

YGG Esports

In March, YGG Esports Captain Disi was featured in the New York Times, where he shared how his involvement in Web3 gaming has enabled him to pursue his professional gaming ambitions and maintain a dragonfruit farm at the same time.

The rest of YGG Esports also had a successful 2024, largely thanks to a series of high-profile talent acquisitions. To shore up the team’s competitiveness in the emerging Parallel esports scene, YGG Esports recruited Tyler and Feno, who chose Web3 as the next step in their careers after playing Hearthstone professionally.

This year, YGG Esports brought on longtime community member Syl to lead the team’s competitive exploits in Sipher Odyssey. The team also maintained its Axie dominance with spamandrice at the helm of its Axie Classic guild.

Here are the year’s highlights in terms of tournament results:

• In June, YGG Esports secured a key Axie Infinity tournament victory at the SEA Guild Wars LAN.
• In July, Sequinox emerged as the champion of the 2024 Parallel Planetfall Invitational.
• In Sipher Odyssey’s New Leaf Tournament, YGG community member and leaderboard mainstay Some1one finished 2nd place, with YGG Pilipinas Social Media Manager Stephy coming in 3rd.
• At the YGG Play Summit, YGG guild partner Sylphy Academy won the Arena of Faith tournament, securing US$4,000. On the team were guild founders Syl from YGG Esports and Stephy, along with Lrdgrim, Fer and Pelfi.
• The Summit’s series of showdowns concluded with YGG Esports’ Zeliaser conquering the Parallel tournament and claiming the US$20,000 grand prize of its US$100,000 prize pool.

YGG Around the World

The YGG core team hit the ground running in 2024, with co-founder Beryl Li heading to Davos for several events held alongside the World Economic Forum (WEF). Beryl spoke with international dignitaries, government officials, and corporate leaders about how YGG has leveraged Web3 to provide economic opportunities to people from emerging markets.

Other key international Web3 events attended by the YGG team this year include:

• Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2024 — San Francisco, California
• Korea Blockchain Week 2024 — Seoul, Korea
• TOKEN2049 Singapore — Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
• GeckoCon 2024 — Bangkok, Thailand
• Binance Blockchain Week — Dubai, UAE
• Binance Campus Okinawa — Okinawa, Japan

The YGG Play Summit closed out YGG’s 2024 events calendar. Web3 leaders gathered in Manila to meet the vibrant Filipino Web3 gaming community and experience the following highlights:

• Thought-provoking panels with living legends like The Sandbox co-founder and COO Sebastien Borget, Sky Mavis co-founder Jihoz, CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, MON Protocol co-founder Giulio Xiloyannis, Parallel co-founder Kalos, esports pioneer Fatal1ty, and more.
• A combined US$130,000 prize pool for its Anichess, Arena of Faith, Indus, and Parallel tournaments.
• The world premiere of the Metaverse Filipino Worker miniseries.
• The first in-person awards ceremony for GAM3S.GG’s GAM3 Awards.

Read more about the YGG Play Summit: The Biggest Web3 Gaming Conference in the World

YGG’s Most Important Conversations of 2024

Leading up to the release of its Concept Paper, YGG launched exclusive content and collaborated with major media platforms to set the stage for its transition into a Guild Protocol.

In March, Decentralised.co published an essay by Joel John, highlighting the crucial role of soulbound tokens and Web3 reputation to introduce some of the key themes that would later be detailed in the Concept Paper. Read the summary of the article here.

After the release of the Concept Paper, Blockcrunch published a comprehensive report on YGG covering its lineup of products and the concepts underpinning the Guild Protocol.

In a YGGTV special released in July, Gabby also delved into how reputation unlocks the value of Web3 with Pixels founder Luke Barwikowski, moderated by Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler. During their chat, Gabby and Luke shared Web3-native user acquisition strategies and reflected on the unique challenges of building in Web3. Read the key takeaways here.

Media Highlights

Members of the YGG team also appeared on a variety of noteworthy Web3 podcasts and traditional media platforms to share their views on the industry:

• Glitchwire — Levelling Up Blockchain Gaming: Beryl Li, Co-founder, Yield Guild Games
• The Defiant — YGG’s Guild Protocol, Onchain Reputation, And The Next Wave Of Web3 Gaming With Gabby Dizon
• Straits Times — S’pore non-retail investors more likely than global peers to boost crypto holdings in 2025: Poll
• The New York Times — What Meltdown? Crypto Comes Roaring Back in the Philippines
• Blockcrunch — YGG is Building the First Guild Protocol — Gabby Dizon, Ep. 257
• France24 — Playing crypto games for a living: Filipinos seek to escape poverty
• e27 — YGG’s Future of Work: Empowering gamers for the AI age
• Decrypt — YGG Unveils Onchain Guilds on Coinbase’s Base, Expands Blockchain Ecosystem in the Philippines
• IcoHolder — Why Investors Should Focus on Blockchain Gaming Ecosystems, Not Just Individual Tokens: YGG Executive’s Insight
• Cointelegraph — ‘Crypto games will soon hit 1M monthly users’: YGG’s Gabby Dizon, X Hall of Flame

Introducing the Metaverse Filipino Worker

Metaverse Filipino Worker is a miniseries written and directed by “Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines” creator and Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler covering the alternative earning opportunities enabled by Web3.

At the YGG Play Summit, Metaverse Filipino Worker had its red carpet premiere, giving attendees an intimate look into the lives of YGG community leaders like Community Manager Spraky, YGG Esports Captain Disi, guild leader JB, content creator Stephy, mommy influencer Julie, and Web3 Metaversity students Aileen and Kryztine. The series is scored by L!NE OUTS!DE, a collaboration between Allan Pineda, better known as Apl.de.Ap of the Black Eyed Peas, and Edgar Sinio aka Artek606, who attended the premiere along with Apl’s manager Dan Vo.

The series will be released online in early 2025. Watch the trailer below.

Setting Up Another Great Year Ahead

In 2024, YGG provided its community with boundless opportunities to explore Web3 gaming, combining onchain activities like GAP and Superquests with in-person events like the YGG Pilipinas Roadtrip and the YGG Play Summit. The Summit, in particular, showcased the incredible progress YGG had made over the year, bringing the best of Web3 gaming face to face with its most devoted community members.

Looking ahead, initiatives like the Onchain Guilds and the Rewards Center are poised to make joining a guild and completing quests an even more fulfilling experience. Together with the continued support of YGG’s growing roster of partners and its community, YGG is gearing up for an even bigger year of helping the world uncover boundless potential in Web3.

Embark on a new journey with YGG in 2025 by joining the YGG Discord and following YGG on X.

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