I still remember the way early blockchain gaming looked and felt because it was beautiful and confusing at the same time and it carried this quiet message that said you can join if you already have the right assets and the right connections and the right starting money and if you do not then you stay outside and watch other people live the dream you also want. Yield Guild Games grew out of that exact feeling and it did not start as a cold plan built in a boardroom because the origin story is simpler and more human where Gabby Dizon began lending his NFTs in two thousand eighteen so other people could experience new blockchain games and that small act of sharing slowly revealed a bigger idea which is that access can be organized and protected by a community instead of being controlled by whoever can pay first. When he was later joined by Beryl Li and Owl of Moistness the project took shape as a guild that could scale this sharing into a real network and in interviews Gabby describes how seeing the impact of NFT games on Filipinos around October two thousand twenty inspired the creation of YGG as a global network meant to help players get started with NFT games while doing something they already loved which was playing.
What made people believe in YGG was never only the possibility of earning because plenty of things promise earning and then disappear when the weather changes and the deeper reason people leaned in is that the model felt like it understood real life and the way opportunity often works. In many onchain games the assets are the door and without the door you cannot even begin the journey and YGG decided to become the place that holds doors and lends them to people who have the time and skill and commitment to walk through. That is where the scholarship model became the heartbeat of the guild because a manager or a community organizer can provide the expensive game NFTs needed to play and a scholar can borrow those assets and play with them and share what is earned through a clear split and YGG explained this openly with one common example where the scholar keeps seventy percent and the scholarship manager receives twenty percent and the guild receives ten percent while the manager also recruits trains and mentors new players which turns access into something guided instead of random. And when you look at how far that spread you can see why the story became so powerful because YGG reported that by June two thousand twenty two the network had provided over thirty thousand scholarships across the world which means the idea moved beyond theory and into thousands of daily routines where people logged in learned improved and felt like they belonged to something bigger than a solo grind.
As the guild grew it also had to become more structured because a community can have a warm heart and still need strong systems if it wants to last. That is why YGG leaned into a DAO identity and put governance and coordination at the center so the community could guide direction and manage how capital and assets are deployed across different games and regions. The YGG whitepaper updated on June twenty five two thousand twenty one lays out the vision of YGG as a network of subDAOs and activities where participation can connect to governance and where the broader YGG token can reflect the combined activity of these subDAOs so the guild is not only a single bet on one game but a coordinated portfolio of communities and game economies that can evolve as the landscape changes. Around the same period YGG published details about its token supply and public sale mechanics including that total supply is one billion YGG tokens and that twenty five million tokens were made available for the public sale which helps explain how the project funded growth while building a treasury that could keep acquiring assets and supporting expansion.
Then came the part of the journey that every honest project eventually faces which is the moment hype stops carrying everything and the hard questions begin. Play to earn as a phrase was exciting but it also created a fragile expectation that earning alone could keep a game alive and the broader market cycle forced everyone to admit that a healthy game needs retention and fun and balance and community pride or else players leave and economies break. YGG has been adapting through that reality and you can see the evolution clearly in its own communications in Q3 two thousand twenty four when it published a concept paper explaining a transition toward a Guild Protocol meaning a shift from being seen only as a single guild brand into becoming infrastructure that other guilds and communities across the ecosystem can use for onchain coordination and services. That shift matters because it says the long term purpose is bigger than one scholarship engine and bigger than one market moment since the goal becomes building rails that help gaming communities organize reputation coordinate assets and create sustainable participation even when the market is quiet and only the real believers remain.
In two thousand twenty five that evolution became even more visible through YGG Play which is the publishing arm and player facing gateway that aims to connect people to new onchain games in a smoother way and YGG launched its first title LOL Land on May twenty three two thousand twenty five while describing it as a browser based casual board game and reporting strong early player participation in its own publishing updates which shows YGG is not only supporting games from the outside but also experimenting with how to ship experiences and onboard players directly. It also began announcing third party publishing partnerships such as Gigaverse through its YGG Play efforts which signals a wider strategy where the guild uses its community distribution and coordination experience to help games grow while giving players a clearer path from curiosity to real participation.
If you are wondering how a real user can use YGG in daily life the answer depends on what kind of person you are and what kind of value you want to create. If you are a player then YGG can be your guided entry into onchain games because you can seek scholarships and join a community that teaches you how to start how to improve and how to treat the opportunity with discipline so your progress is not luck but growth. If you are a mentor type of person then the scholarship manager role is not just administration because it is leadership where you recruit train protect and build confidence in new players who might be stepping into something unfamiliar and that kind of support is often what turns a beginner into a long term community member. If you are a builder or a creator then YGG is a network of attention and culture and coordination and those are the ingredients that help a game survive beyond launch week since players do not stay for mechanics alone they stay for belonging and shared meaning and YGG has been building toward a future where it can offer that belonging while also offering better infrastructure for guild operations and publishing pathways. And if you are a long term supporter then governance becomes your daily life role because you are not just watching from the sidelines but helping decide which communities deserve support which experiments feel sustainable and which values the guild should defend when it would be easier to chase noise.
When I look at Yield Guild Games from the beginning to its purpose today I see a single thread that never really breaks which is the belief that ownership should not isolate people and that opportunity should not be reserved for those who arrive rich. Theyre building a world where access can be shared without being chaotic and where players can become contributors and where communities can coordinate value without losing the soul of play. It becomes a reminder that technology is only worth something when it reduces distance between humans and if the future of gaming keeps moving toward open economies and player owned assets then the projects that last will be the ones that make new players feel safe seen and supported on day one and that is the kind of future Yield Guild Games keeps reaching for with every evolution it chooses to survive.
