As the web3 gaming landscape continues to evolve in the Philippines, Mench Dizon, the Country Manager of YGG Pilipinas, shared her insights on integrating web2 developers, programmers, and gamers into this innovative sector, despite the challenging bear market conditions.
“Despite the challenging times, we know its a bear market, it’s been quite the crypto winter, we continue to give back and remain steadfast in our mission on providing Filipinos with sustainable opportunities to participate in this exciting web3 space and we want to make sure that the FIlipinos are at the forefront of this.”
Mench Dizon, Country Manager, YGG Pilipinas
While the Web3 Games Summit, a week-long event in Taguig, Philippines, from November 18-25, 2023, has seen the conclusion of its conference and game jam, the game expo is currently in full swing, showcasing the latest in web3 gaming. The summit also featured a tournament, hackathon, and other engaging activities.
Web3 games like Cryptopia, Axie Infinity, Anito Legends, Nine Chronicles, Ragnarok Landverse, Parralel, Pixelmon, MetaCene, Mighty Action Heroes, as well as web3 gaming clients like Hyperplay are being exhibited at the expo and showcase at the show floor in front of attendees and media.
Web3 content creators, including Kookoo, Yellow Panther, and Een Mercado, as well as key leadership at YGG including Co-Founder Gabby Dizon are at the event, happening at SM Aura.
Onboarding Web2 Gaming Natives
During the pandemic, the Philippines witnessed a swift adoption of cryptocurrency, largely spurred by the popularity of Axie Infinity. A YGG survey indicated that 86% of their scholars were new to cryptocurrency before joining. Similarly, a 2022 Finder survey reported that 25% of Filipinos engaged in play-to-earn (P2E) games. The Philippines ranked second globally in cryptocurrency ownership in a GWI survey in Q4 2021. However, these numbers dipped following the onset of the bear market, with a 35% decrease in NFT trading volume in Q2 2023.
With these concerns, Dizon elaborated during the interview that it is making efforts to once again encourage Filipinos to enter the web3 gaming space. According to her, there are opportunities to attract and onboard new users across all the features of the upcoming YGG Web3 Games Summit.
