Play-to-earn guild YGG records 174% player increase in Q1

Philippines-based Yield Guild Games (YGG) has seen a spike in players for the first quarter of 2022, recording a 174% increase from Q4 2021.

YGG’s founders / Photo credit: YGG

According to the company’s community update report for the quarter, the increase in scholars – players who borrow digital assets to join play-to-earn games – was driven by new games launched by partner subDAOs.

YGG added cyborg-themed soccer game CyBall to its roster of games in February after partnering with the title in October 2021 by acquiring Genesis CyBloc NFTs.

This enabled players to use YGG assets to earn CyBloc Battery Tokens (CBT), which provides multiple P2E mechanics. So far, its initial CyBall cohort of 1,000 players earned 2.8 million CBT from gameplay valued at US$255,000. 

YGG formed a total of 13 new partnerships in the first quarter, investing US$2.6 million in these tie-ups. Of that amount, 63% went to nine play-to-earn games, 23% to gaming guilds, and 14% were targeted at platforms and infrastructure to support the P2E ecosystem.

By the end of Q1 2022, there were a total of 29,548 YGG scholars putting close to 90,000 assets to work across the metaverse. The month-on-month scholarship growth was highest in January at 50.13%, with February and March seeing growth figures of 28.80% and 41.93%, respectively. 

Image credit: YGG

These scholars farmed a total 55.5 million SLP (small love potion, Axie Infinity‘s in-game digital currency) in Q1 2022, with a record 26.4 million farmed in February 2022 alone.

Despite this, revenue from SLP in Q1 2022 stood at US$93,693, down from US$368,968 in the previous quarter. This was brought about by SLP’s weakened value, averaging US$0.02 this quarter compared to over US$0.05 in Q4 2021.

The cost of breeding axies has dropped sharply to US$46 per axie in the reported quarter from US$132 in Q4 2021. YGG also increased its total number of axies by 122% to a total of 152,213 assets for Q1 2022.

See also: YGG’s Axie Infinity assets grew to $25.5m in Q4 2021.