Beyond Gaming: Boosting communities around the world through NFTs
The “play-to-earn” movement or NFT gaming is enjoying a massive growth over the past year. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are assets that live on the blockchain network. In game, players collect rewards in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and later convert them to real cash.
One of the play-to-earn games dominating the scene right now is Axie Infinity, a Pokemon style game created by Vietnamese developer Sky Mavis. It has over 350,000 daily active users and over $170 million in trading volume. The blockchain based game allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle and trade token-based creatures known as “axies,” which are digitized as their own NFTs.
To play Axie Infinity, you will have to buy a team that consists of three axies. At the time of writing, the floor price of each adult axie is around 0.17 ETH each (BHD136).
One of the main reasons why Axie Infinity has reached so much popularity is due to its “Scholarship Program” which allows axie holders to farm out their pets to “scholars” through different profit-sharing methods. Scholarship programs empower people who do not have enough access and capital to enter the game, to still play and earn. At the time of writing, scholars can earn as much as 2,000-3,000 SLP (BHD240-370) in a month.
We had the chance to talk to Bryce Johnson (@brycent), Founder of Loot Squad Gaming, a community of Blockchain gamers looking to enrich people’s lives through NFTs, cryptocurrency and play-to-earn games. They are also one of the leading Axie Infinity scholarships providers globally.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What sparked your interest in trying out NFT games?
My name is Bryce and I go by the alias Brycent online. Before I got into NFT games like Axie Infinity, I worked as a software engineer. I also co-founded a human resources company with a couple of my buddies to help college students find jobs after graduation. That didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to so I decided to take a break and start gaming again. This was when I discovered Axie Infinity through a podcast.
After a while, I tried streaming the game on Twitch; not many people were doing that before. Now, there’s over 4,000 people watching every time I go live which has really caught me off guard. This has sparked my interest in NFT gaming even more. I feel like I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole completely and it has changed my life ever since.
We’ve learned that Loot Squad Gaming is one of the leading Axie Infinity scholarship providers globally. Can you tell us more about your vision in creating this platform?
Initially, we just wanted to help people and create a social gaming community through Loot Squad. But because things have taken off so quickly, we’re reassessing our goals to help more individuals.
Ideally, I see Loot Squad being an organization that continues creating scholarships for people five or more years down the road – whether it’s in Axie Infinity or other games. We want to help people get out of poverty and achieve a level of financial stability so that they can help their families.
Other than that, we want to create more experiences for people to be able to interact and build a community especially during these disruptive times we’re living in.
You have generated quite some hype for using the game to help communities in several parts of the world. How many scholars do you currently have? Are you planning to expand your scholarship program?
I want to build an empire focused on helping people because that’s kind of the root core of why Axie Infinity is where it is. It’s about helping people and creating this amazing infrastructure and ecosystem.
Loot Squad currently has over 270 scholars and nine scholarship managers. We also have a partnership with Yield Guild Games (YGG) which aims to bring the benefits of P2E games to those who need them the most.
Actually, our scholarship program is different. We promote our scholars to managerial positions where they’re able to earn 5% on every scholar they manage – so it’s almost like they have their own small scholarship program.
Are there any exciting news that you would like to share to our readers?
We have a couple of things coming out including a big merch giveaway to our scholars.
On a personal note, I am working on getting Axie into the US market through partnerships. Through this initiative, the value of the game will increase more, which means more money will go back into the hands of people who are scholars.
What’s one motto/quote that you live by?
“Become the impossible”.
