In 2024, Yield Guild Games (YGG) refined existing programs and launched new products to better serve the YGG community. The Guild Advancement Program (GAP) added many new features, including the Reward Center for Season 7. The 'Future of Work' (FoW) was also launched during TOKEN2049, enabling the community to explore new decentralized earning opportunities.
YGG announced its transition to the guild protocol at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, launched on-chain guilds on Base in November, and piloted them in select communities. The YGG Play Summit capped off the year, providing the global Web3 gaming community with a glimpse into YGG's next steps and how it plans to enhance its industry-leading guild infrastructure.
Here is a review of YGG's major achievements in 2024.
Guild Protocol: The Era of On-chain Guilds
In September this year, YGG released the concept document for the guild protocol: 'The Era of On-chain Guilds', which covered the key points for transitioning to the guild protocol. This outlined a blueprint for establishing on-chain guilds and utilizing their Web3 reputation to gain matching opportunities based on their verifiable skills and achievements.
YGG also published a series of explanatory articles summarizing the core concepts of the guild protocol.
Web3 reputation enables the guild protocol to match on-chain guilds with Web3 projects that require their specific and verifiable capabilities.
On-chain guilds provide the community with tools to grow, expand, and conquer tasks as a unit.
Through the guild protocol, on-chain guilds can discover economic opportunities that best suit their skills and expertise.
Guild Advancement Program (GAP)
YGG hosted four seasonal GAP events throughout 2024, doubling the number from previous years. Player engagement was high, with total sign-ups for tasks in the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons exceeding 169,000, while participation in the ongoing eighth season continues to rise.
Throughout 2024, each GAP season also introduced many new features aimed at providing players with a more engaging and valuable task experience. Highlights of the past year’s GAP include:
In Season 5, the YGG website underwent a complete redesign to accommodate upcoming project changes. It attracted 7,554 players. Among them, Pixels achieved a total sign-up number of 6,677 through players' activities in the game, competing for pet winning streak records, and community gatherings within Pixels, far ahead of other projects.
Season 6 introduced advanced tasks and AI bounties, providing innovative GAP tasks for both new and returning players. A total of 9,674 players participated, with sign-up numbers reaching 83,405, almost equivalent to the total sign-up numbers for the first five GAP seasons.
Season 7 introduced the Reward Center and the 'Staking Center', providing all players with the opportunity to enhance task rewards. Over 200 guilds participated, with 6 guilds having more than 100 members each, completing at least 5 tasks. Season 8 was launched in sync with the on-chain guilds, giving the community a chance to establish its own Web3 reputation as an on-chain guild and participate in group tasks for the first time.
Super Tasks
Since its launch in 2023, Super Tasks have provided high-quality exploration solutions, helping games enhance user acquisition and engagement. By combining world-class key opinion leader (KOL) educational content with deep integration into gaming platforms, learning is gamified, Super Tasks reward behaviors and achievements within games, while providing partners with actionable insights into their player communities.
In 2024, YGG conducted two successful Super Task events for Axie Infinity and Pixels. Super Tasks secured the role of official in-game coaches for Axie Infinity: Origins, providing players with customized video content and educational guidance from Axie OG, Kookoo, and one of the game's most successful tournament players, spamandrice. The Axie Super Tasks helped the Sky Mavis team link over 47,000 new wallets to Axie Origins.
Pixels also collaborated with YGG to help launch new guild-driven game modes to the community. Over a two-month campaign, this initiative attracted more than 156,000 registrations. The completion rate was also very high, with 95.7% of Pixels Super Task participants completing all three in-game activities.
Future of Work (FoW)
At TOKEN2049, YGG launched its latest vertical project, Future of Work (FoW). Trish Rosal, who joined the YGG team this year, serves as the head of Future of Work (FoW).
FoW guides YGG to expand into AI and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) through data collection and tagging-focused gamified tasks. FoW allows participants to work anytime, anywhere, based on their own conditions while connecting their partners with a diverse global talent pool.
An important addition to the YGG ecosystem
YGG has partnered with multiple game, blockchain infrastructure providers, and developers to continue supporting innovation across the broader Web3 landscape.
At the beginning of the year, YGG secured one of the most valuable plots from Pixels and $6 million in PIXEL tokens in the first quarter. YGG also acquired 67 in-game NFTs, including those from Overworld, and gained token status in the Sipher Odyssey ecosystem. Other partnerships include:
New games and developers, including Meta-X, Blade of God X, and Xociety, as well as the developers of the 2024 GAM3 Award annual game (Off The Grid), Gunzilla Games.
YGG has also partnered with various dapps, networks, and infrastructure providers, including Iskra, LongHash Ventures, Keystone Foundation, and Sending Labs.
As Ronin and Base integrate YGG tokens into their ecosystems, support for YGG tokens continues to grow.
YGG has also introduced new AI and DePIN partners for the Future of Work, including FrodoBots, Navigate, and Sapien, while deepening existing partnerships with Synesis One.
For more information about YGG's collaborative activities throughout 2024, please read the community updates for the first, second, and third quarters.
Community and Competitive Year
During 2024, YGG welcomed thousands of new Web3 gamers through live events. Supported by YGG's efforts to nurture the Web3 esports sector, the community also collectively improved its skills in competitive gaming.
YGG Pilipinas Roadshow
YGG Pilipinas Roadtrip was a cross-regional event that lasted four months, spanning six locations in the Philippines. This roadshow attracted over 7,000 participants, including YGG community members, students, influencers, government officials, and Web3 game developers, aiming to engage the grassroots communities in Web3 education and equipping efforts.
Highlights from the six-stop roadshow include:
Gameplay demos for games such as Parallel, Sipher Odyssey, Arena of Faith, Rumble Racing Star, My Pet Hooligan, etc.
A cosplay competition with a total prize pool of 100,000 Philippine pesos held at the final stop in Manila.
International speakers, such as Simon Davis, CEO of Mighty Bear Games; Jill Keshyap, Executive Producer at Immutable; Martha Schoppa, Game Product Manager at Immutable; and YellowPanther, Founder of 4,4 Labs.
YGG Esports
In March this year, YGG Esports captain Disi was featured in a New York Times special report, sharing how he achieved his professional esports dreams while running a dragon fruit farm by participating in Web3 games.
Other members of YGG Esports also achieved success in 2024, primarily due to a series of high-profile talent acquisitions. To enhance 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 finishing their professional play (Hearthstone).
This year, YGG Esports invited long-time community member Syll to lead the team in competitive exploration in Sipher Odyssey. The team also maintained dominance in the Axie guild under the leadership of spamandrice.
Here are the highlights of this year's competition results:
In June, YGG Esports secured a key victory in the Axie Infinity competition at the EA Guild Wars LAN event.
In July, Sequinox became the champion of the 2024 Parallel Planet Fall Invitational.
In the new Leaf Championship of Sipher Odyssey, YGG community member and leaderboard mainstay Some1one placed second, while YGG Pilipinas social media manager Stephy took third.
At the YGG Play Summit, YGG guild partner Sylphy Academy won the Arena of Faith competition, earning a $4,000 prize. Team members included guild founder Syl and Stephy from YGG Esports, as well as Lrdgrim, Fer, and Pelfi.
A series of showdowns at the summit concluded with YGG Esports' Zeliaser winning the Parallel Championship and taking home a $20,000 grand prize from a total prize pool of $100,000.
The images show, in clockwise order from the top left: 1) Inder Phull, CEO of PIXELYNX; Jesse Pollak, founder of Base; Gabby Dizon, co-founder of YGG; and Ben Colayco, COO of Iskra during the 2024 Global Developer Conference. 2) YGG Pilipinas' Spraky, James, and Sedano playing Xociety during Korea Blockchain Week Game Day in 2024. 3) Co-leads of Web3 Metaversity Bianca Cruz and YGG co-founder Beryl Li, community co-lead Sam Cruz, guild lead Kyroh, future work lead Trish Rosal, co-leads of Web3 Metaversity Jenna Ilao, YGG Pilipinas national lead Mench Dizon, and business development lead Phee Tejada launching future work at the Web3 Transition Summit during TOKEN2049 Singapore. 4) Gabby Dizon in Okinawa, Japan at the Binance Asia campus.
In 2024, the YGG core team immediately got to work, with co-founder Beryl Li attending several events coinciding with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Beryl spoke with international dignitaries, government officials, and business leaders about how YGG could leverage Web3 to provide economic opportunities for people in emerging markets.
Other significant international Web3 events that the YGG team participated in this year include:
2024 Game Developers Conference (GDC) -- San Francisco, California
2024 Korea Blockchain Week -- Seoul, South Korea
TOKEN2049 Singapore -- Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
2024 GeckoCon Conference -- Bangkok, Thailand
Binance Blockchain Week -- Dubai, UAE
Okinawa Binance Campus -- Okinawa, Japan
The YGG Play Summit concluded YGG's activity schedule for 2024. Web3 leaders gathered in Manila to meet with the vibrant Philippine Web3 gaming community, with highlights including:
In-depth discussions took place with legendary figures such as Sebastien Borget, co-founder and COO of The Sandbox; Jihoz, co-founder of Sky Mavis; Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games; Giulio Xiloyannis, co-founder of MON Protocol; Kalos, co-founder of Parallel; and esports pioneer Fatal1ty.
The total prize pool for events like Anichess, Arena of Faith, Indus, and Parallel is $130,000.
The world premiere of the Metaverse Filipino Worker mini-series.
The first live award ceremony for GAM3S.GG's GAM3 Award.
Before the release of the concept document, YGG launched exclusive content and collaborated with major media platforms to prepare for the transition to the guild protocol.
In March, Decentralised.co published an article by Joel John, highlighting the important role of soulbound tokens and Web3 reputation, introducing some key themes that will be elaborated in the concept document.
After the release of the concept document, Blockcrunch published a comprehensive report on YGG, covering the product lineup and fundamental concepts of the guild protocol.
In a YGGTV special released in July, Gabby also discussed with Pixels founder Luke Barwikowski how reputation can unlock the value of Web3, hosted by Emfarsis Director Leah Callon-Butler. During the chat, Gabby and Luke shared strategies for acquiring Web3 native users and reflected on the unique challenges of building in Web3.
Media Focus
YGG team members also appeared on various prominent Web3 podcasts and traditional media platforms, sharing their insights about the industry:
Glitchwire - Upgrading Blockchain Games: Beryl Li, co-founder of Yield Guild Games
The Defiant - YGG's Guild Protocol, On-chain Reputation, and Gabby Dizon's Next Round of Web3 Games
Straits Times - Poll shows Singapore's non-retail investors are more likely than their global peers to increase their cryptocurrency holdings by 2025
The New York Times - What is a crash? Cryptocurrency makes a comeback in the Philippines
Blockcrunch - YGG is Building the First Guild Protocol - Gabby Dizon, Ep. 257
Blockcrunch - YGG is Building the First Guild Protocol - Gabby Dizon, Ep. 257
France24 - Making a living playing crypto games: Filipinos seek to escape poverty
e27 - YGG's Future of Work: Empowering Gamers for the AI Era
Decrypt - YGG Launches On-chain Guild on Coinbase Base, Expanding the Blockchain Ecosystem in the Philippines
IcoHolder - Why Investors Should Focus on the Blockchain Gaming Ecosystem Rather Than Just Individual Tokens: Insights from YGG Executives
Cointelegraph - 'Crypto gaming will soon reach 1 million monthly users': Gabby Dizon from YGG, X Hall of Flame
Introduction to Metaverse Filipino Workers
(Metaverse Filipino Workers) is a mini-series scripted and directed by Leah Callon-Butler, creator of (Play-to-Earn: NFT Games in the Philippines), telling the story of alternative earning opportunities brought by Web3.
At the YGG Play Summit, (Metaverse Filipino Workers) had its red carpet premiere, allowing attendees to get a closer look at the lives of YGG community leaders, including community manager Spraky, YGG esports captain Disi, guild leader JB, content creator Stephy, mom-fluencer Julie, and Web3 Metaversity students Aileen and Kryztine. The series' soundtrack was a collaboration by Allan Pineda (Apl.de.Ap from Black Eyed Peas) and Edgar Sinio (also known as Artek606), who attended the premiere alongside Apl's manager Dan Vo.
Preparing for another brilliant year ahead
In 2024, YGG provided the community with the opportunity to explore endless possibilities in Web3 gaming, combining on-chain activities like the Guild Advancement Program and Super Tasks with live events such as the YGG Pilipinas Roadshow and YGG Gaming Summit. The summit particularly showcased the amazing progress YGG made in the past year, allowing the leaders in Web3 gaming to connect face-to-face with the most loyal community members.
Looking ahead, initiatives like on-chain guilds and the Reward Center will make joining guilds and completing tasks a more fulfilling experience. With the continuous support of YGG's ever-expanding partners and their communities, YGG is preparing for an even more brilliant year ahead, helping the world unlock the infinite potential of Web3.
Embark on a new journey with YGG into 2025.