Axie Infinity nft is a collectable battler based on NFTs created by Sky Mavis, a Vietnamese firm that is a product of Ubisoft’s Enterprise Labs. A marketplace and Steam-like crypto game launcher, as well as a crypto wallet software, are among the dapps (decentralized apps) created by the developer.

What is the significance of this?

Axie Infinity nft has been a popular subject in recent months as a result of its meteoric rise to 1 million DAU and $1 billion in lifetime transactions. This expansion of axie infinity nft is based on what Sky Mavis refers to as ‘Play to Earn’ (P2E): the option for players to pay out their in-game earnings to support themselves in the real world. In the Philippines, this has been advocated as a viable alternative to COVID-affected occupations.

Many have cautioned, however, that the capacity of Axie Infinity ‘s economy to maintain P2E is dependent on the continual flood of new players eager to profit. Without these new players, demand for new Axies (important characters) falls, and their price (and hence P2E profits) falls as well. Some have compared the situation to a Ponzi scheme as a consequence of this.

Gameplay Fundamentals

Despite all of the buzz around Axie Infinity, the basic gameplay receives relatively little attention. At its most basic level, the game is a cross between a team battler and a trading card game, with evident inspirations from Hearthstone and the Final Fantasy Tactics titles, as highlighted in Sky Mavis’ white paper.

The player assembles a squad of three axies, which are floating monsters that are carefully placed in a grid. Both the default target and the interaction between the axes are affected by this location.

Each axie is characterized by four attributes that influence battle performance (Health, Morale, Skill, and Speed). Second, each axie has four cards that might be thought of as abilities. Six bodily components determine both stats and cards related to the axie (eyes, ears, horn, mouth, back and tail). Finally, there is a series of lessons called rock, paper, scissors, which pits strong and weak students against one other.

Players are handed a hand of cards across their axis in battle, which cost a certain amount of mana to play. These cards specify how each axie will fight, defend, and assist each other, including targeting, boosting, and debuffing. The RPG and TCG mechanics coexist in such a way that squad composition and placement tactics operate in tandem with notions like card advantage and tempo. This results in a game with a subtle depth of strategy despite being simple to pick up and play at first.

In truth, the game’s ease of play and complexity of mechanics, along with very precise balance, make it quite enjoyable to play. Some seemingly basic processes require time to completely comprehend and perfect strategically.

Once you’ve assembled your team, you have two options:

• Adventure: A collection of small PvE campaigns with saga map-style level connections. Players compete against non-axie adversaries controlled by AI.
• Arena: A PvP game with elo rankings and custom matchmaking in which players compete against their teams.

The game’s economy is built on these two modes. Energy is used to reward the gate and refills over time depending on the number of axes the player has, while winning awards SLP (Smooth Love Potion), the breeding token (more on these resources below). Axis are also rewarded with EXP in Adventure mode, which raises their level and improves their stats.

However, there is a reason why this fundamental gameplay is overshadowed by the rest of the game; although being excellent, it is the least original or intriguing aspect of the product. Instead, it is the breeding economy and the market that produce the profiteering behavior that makes Axie Infinity one of the most interesting games in a decade.

What is the economic system like?

Along with the axes themselves, three resources lie at the heart of Axie Infinity. They are:

• Off-chain Energy: Each PvP and PvE match consumes 1 Energy. If a player runs out of energy, they may still play PvE and PvP, but they will not get SLP or EXP (EXperience Points, which are used to determine the level of an axie). This implies that Energy acts as a reward gate. The number of axes a player has determines how much energy they may have and how fast it regenerates. This is a pretty random method of incentivizing players to buy more axes than the game needs.
• Smooth Love Potion (off and on chain): A grindable resource that is awarded after winning PvP or PvE battles. It is also one of the two resources needed to breed new axes, alongside AXS.
• AXS aka $AXS (on chain): The game’s ERC-20 governance token. This smart contract-backed token has a variety of purposes, including voting on development choices and staking, but the most important is its usage in breeding with SLP.

The essential resource at the heart of Axie Infinity and the driver of P2E is SLP Grinding and P2E Smooth Love Potion.

SLP may be earned in two ways:

• Arena (PvP): Almost every victory awards a sum according on the player’s current position, with higher ranks awarding more SLP every victory. There are no rewards for lower ranks.
• Adventure (PvE): Players are rewarded for completing a level based on their star rating (directly related to the number of axies still alive).

Energy is the gating element in SLP generation since SLP can only be obtained if the player possesses it. Increased axie ownership does, however, enhance the pace of energy generation.

Players may claim their SLP from the game into their Ronin wallets at certain periods (currently every two weeks) (i.e. putting it on chain). SLP may then be exchanged on a cryptocurrency platform like Binance or used to produce axies.

This SLP selling has spawned a gig economy of gamers that grind the game, earn SLP, and then sell it for money. With three hours of play every day, gamers may expect to earn roughly 500 SLP per week. This works out to $32 per week and $1,664 per year at the current SLP price of $0.064 USD. Many players will be competing on scholarship (an Axie Infinity loaning group) and cashing out roughly 70% of their entire earnings ($1,164).

Running three Axie Infinity accounts might now give a fair living in the Philippines, where the average wage is roughly $3,200 USD. However, SLP prices seem to be on the decline lately, implying that P2E may soon become unsustainable. The reasons for this are explained in further detail later in P2E is Unsustainable.

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