(And why I’m still not sure it’s safe)
Back when “play-to-earn” was just a buzzword nobody really understood, YGG actually built something that felt useful. The pitch was simple and honestly kind of beautiful: buy expensive NFTs, lend them out for free to people who could never afford them (mostly in the Philippines, Venezuela, Indonesia, Brazil), split the earnings. A kid with a cheap phone and decent Wi-Fi could suddenly make $200–$800 a month playing Axie Infinity. For a lot of families that was rent, groceries, or school fees. Overnight, YGG turned “I like video games” into a legitimate answer to “How are you paying your bills?”
On paper it was brilliant. The guild treasury buys the assets, scholars play, everyone eats. The YGG token was supposed to capture the value of a growing network of these little micro-economies. SubDAOs, governance votes, staking rewards — it all looked like the future of cooperative gaming.
But the longer you stare at it, the more cracks show up.
1. It’s still insanely concentrated risk
Almost everything YGG owns lives or dies with two or three games at any given time. When Axie Infinity’s economy imploded in 2022, the ripple hit thousands of real households. NFTs that were worth five figures turned into ones you couldn’t give away. Scholarships went from life-changing to “sorry, we’re paying $2 a day now.” The treasury took a beating and never really recovered to old highs. Diversification helps, but the guild is still one bad patch or one rug-pull away from another bloodbath.
2. The token side is rough
Big unlocks, team allocations, investor vesting schedules — classic crypto stuff. Every time a cliff hits, the price gets hammered, scholars earn less, morale drops, and more people leave. The worse the token does, the less the guild can subsidize scholarships, which makes the whole flywheel slow down. It’s a feedback loop nobody has fully solved.
3. “Play-to-earn” quietly turned into “grind-to-survive” for a lot of scholars
When the numbers were good, it felt like freedom. When the numbers got bad, it started feeling like gig work with extra steps and no labor protections. You’re tied to leaderboards, breeding prices, daily quotas. If the game adds a new paywall or the token dumps 30%, your paycheck disappears overnight. That’s not empowerment in the long run — that’s precarious labor wearing a gamer skin.
4. The ethical tightrope never went away
Managers take 30–40% cuts (sometimes more). Some subDAO leaders run things like mini-fiefdoms. There’s very little transparency on exactly how profits are split once you get past the top layer. And when times get lean, guess who feels the squeeze first? Never the token holders with locked vesting — always the kid grinding 10 hours a day on a cracked phone screen.
Look, I still root for the mission. Giving people in poor countries a way into this new economy without needing $1,500 upfront is noble. Some scholars have saved up, moved to better apartments, put siblings through school. Those stories are real and they matter.
But the whole model is still balanced on a knife edge: game economies that can collapse, tokens that can crater, and a scholarship system that only works when everything is going up at once.
YGG proved the concept can work.
It hasn’t proved it can survive the first real storm intact.
If you love the idea of opening Web3 gaming to people who were locked out before, keep an eye on them. Some of the regional subDAOs are doing smarter, more sustainable things now.
Just don’t bet the rent money on the token, and don’t pretend the scholars aren’t the most vulnerable part of the machine when things inevitably get choppy again.
The dream was real. The risks still are too.
@Yield Guild Games #YGGPlay $YGG
