Bankless Layer Zero podcast
Jiho from Axie Infinity
Grew up in NY
Gamer and collector
Dad was painter, gallery, fossil collector, and an attorney
Korean mom, tiger mom
Jiho is his Korean name
Starcraft was his first real game
Also WoW
DK Country, Zelda (played Ocarina 20+ times)
Pokemon on Gameboy – bot two Gameboys so he could trade with himself
Collectors instinct – “some things I just need”
Inherited from his father – collected 40 cases of butterflies
What’s his starter Pokemon? Charmander
likes lizards, salamanders
Trendsetter for games his school played
eg, Diablo – wanted to trade with others
Had Korean cousins who were always into the new Blizzard games
Didn’t know what he wanted to do for most of his life
Entrepreneurial pretty early – selling fossil sharks teeth at school, selling drawings and paintings to people who visited his house
People pleaser
He came from within Axie community – one of first hundreds in Discord
Fell in love with art and roadmap
Helped write whitepaper, did announcements, community building
Job is “sharing vision repeatedly”
What creates sustainable economic engine is people spending for fun + status
Some thought it was fork of CryptoKitties, and early CK players came to Axie
Problem with CK was hyper inflation of cat supply
Axie is balance of collaboration + competition
But also PvE component – Axie believers versus non-believers / critics
Beefs / enemies can be good, eg an early beef with CryptoKitties
DH: How do you prevent it becoming too grindy
Jiho: ownership helps, “things you’re grinding for”, social elements help
3rd version of battle system coming
“Is Axie fun?”
Being “rewarding” is more important – life isn’t always fun, but it should be rewarding
Metaverse = digital lives are becoming just as important, and merging with real world
A lot of initial team members are Vietnamese
Moved to Vietnam to help
In current game industry, a lot of money isn’t going to developers or players
Remove those middlemen, give to builders and players
Since AXS mooning, how has community changed?
Bear = missionaries
Bull = rest of world finds out
Cycle repeats
Classic growing pains eg,
Some schism between OGs and newcomers
Gamers in general are not very nice
Axie is example of the rise of opt-in nations
Choose who your leaders are
Decentralized contribution and building
Axie is largest Discord in world
Collab.land auto assigns role (eg, 3 Axies = can speak, 10 Axies = special channels, etc)
Moderators to guard dog and guide
Jiho is still #1 by total messages sent
Discord caps (max 800K members) may be holding back their game growth (instead of vice-versa!)
Need more innovation around social coordination tools
maybe Discord inherently unscalable
Will see a lot of consolidation in guilds, P2E games
Community + scaling + art + gameplay + economics = Each component is important, requires getting all of them right
Under appreciated reason for Axie’s success is “people love their Axies”
Bunch of his, he would never consider selling eg his first one #707
“Emotional utility” – NFTs don’t work if everyone’s doing it just for money
Mistake when shipped an update where your Axies stopped making facial expressions while battling = got feedback players missed this feature
When you don’t use your Axies for weeks, Axies should act like dogs / pets that actually miss their owners
Combo of aesthetics + utility + scarcity
Triple threat of NFTs
View at Medium.com
DS: end of day, it’s all about optimizing for love
Jiho: It’s hierarchy of needs; Ikigai
Eve founder quote – don’t chase fun, create rewarding experience
Software is creating equal access to communities, relationships, opportunities
If you’re born in bad place or environment, you’re not as limited anymore
No surprise that people in Philippines, Venezuela were early adopters
Direct access to those of different socioeconomic classes (eg, Axie players can easily connect to whales)
Future will be more free, more individual responsibility
“There will be a battle”
Felt like he was a revolutionary without a cause – but now there are many
Not going to be a peaceful era, full of schisms, but very interesting times
Web3 = generational opportunity, a cause worth fighting for
Final advice? Be willing to waste a lot of time online, wander, go down rabbit holes, absorb info