Axie Infinity Guild CGU Aids Players Join the Play-to-Earn NFT Game with ‘scholarships’

Axie Infinity, a monster-battling NFT game, has been growing popularity, with over $600 million in Axies purchased and sold in the last month. Each Axie is a nonfungible token (NFT) that was created on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Axies, like Nintendo’s Pokemon series, come in several rarity types with variable strengths and traits, with the strongest fetching very high prices on the game’s marketplace.

Smooth Love Potions (SLPs) are earned by performing daily objectives, slaying monsters, and competing in arenas with their Axies. SLPs can then be exchanged for a variety of cryptocurrencies. Due to the hefty initial cost of purchasing/borrowing/breeding Axies, in-game guilds have recently developed to subsidize players’ upfront fees or grant scholarships in exchange for their SLP profits while playing.

The Singapore-based Crypto Gaming United, or CGU, is one such in-game guild, with around 100,000 Discord users and a regular search for new scholars in the official Axie Infinity Discord. Sergei Sergienko, co-founder of CGU, emphasized to Cointelegraph that users are not obliged to pay anything to begin playing. Instead, CGU covers all character/NFT expenditures through a scholarship, which can total $4,000 per participant. Furthermore, CGU offers instruction and mentorship to its associated gamers in order to improve their bitcoin understanding and gaming skills.

In exchange, CGU takes a 50% commission on players’ gains, part of which are distributed to CGU token holders; the remaining 55% goes to local management in the countries where CGU operates, with players keeping the remaining 45 percent. Furthermore, as a social security initiative, the corporation is currently testing a “pension plan” of 3% to 5% for its participants. Sergienko claims that elite players can make up to 680 SLPs each day net (after CGU’s cut).

Top players play for approximately six hours per day. Meanwhile, players on the lowest end of the revenue scale might earn around $120 per month for 60 hours of play. Even on a pro-rated basis, this amount exceeds the minimum salary for full-time labour in countries where Axie Infinity is popular, such as the Philippines and Russia.

CGU claims to have attracted a large number of Axie players from Cuba, Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, and African countries. CGU not only focuses on play-to-earn gaming, but it also runs the crypto-freelancing platform LaborX. CGU’s website has a collection of anecdotes and testimonies from players who have partnered with the organization. Sergei had the following to say about the CGU guild and its players’ long-term development:

“We also recognize that play-to-earn may be a transitory fad, and as such, we are exploring for better options for all of our employees. We’re hiring academics with an eye toward what might happen after the excitement dies down. Having a freelance platform and a wealth of educational knowledge aids us in this endeavor.”