In the latest update for the battle game Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis has made the decision to block lower level accounts from earnings Smooth Love Potions, or SLP tokens. All Axie Infinity accounts with 800 MMR or lower will no longer receive SLP from adventure mode, arena mode or the daily quests.
Sky Mavis made these changes to make sure that only active players are eligible for SLP rewards. They want to reward active, competitive Axie Infinity, who will automatically have higher level accounts. Based on community feedback, the team will obviously be able to higher or lower the benchmark. The update can’t be seen separate from the on-going battle against bots.
However, the community seems divided. “This is really sad. Please give those players having under 800 MMR a chance, they’re also your customers”, community member Joezer Arances wrote on Twitter. Other users complain about floor priced Axies now being useless or players in the scholarship program being the victim. Others point to scholarship managers, who will need to provide better teams to their scholars.
The 1.1.0a update also brings other features to Axie Infinity. From now on Axies transferred to a new owner will reset to level 1. In addition players will now have the ability to challenge players from their friend list for a friendly duel. The update launches today on desktop, Android and iOS.
Recent changes to Axie Infinity
Despite the community backlash, it’s also important to look at these changes from a macro level. Take a step back and see the bigger picture. Axie Infinity now has 2.5 million players according to their internal messaging. The team always communicated to reward active community members. We could see this for example in the distribution of the AXS rewards, where players who battled a lot would have received a much bigger pile of AXS. In addition ownership of NFT assets (Axies and land parcels) obviously played a role as well.
They want players to actively participate and battle for SLP. For example, they lowered the rewards in the Adventure Mode to boost the competitive element of the game. This would lower the distribution of SLP into the market, perhaps giving the price a boost. In addition the team made change to the breeding costs of Axies, making it so that users need more SLP and less AXS to make a new Axie.
What is Axie Infinity again?
Let’s quickly talk a bit about Axie Infinity. The tactical battle game uses its own, native Ronin sidechain. In the game players need to use 3 Axie NFTs to battle opponents and earn Smooth Love Potions (SLP). Players need to use SLP to breed new Axies. In addition parent Axies can only breed children a limited amount of times. SLP has a demand, while the floor price for an Axie NFT is right now more than $200. In short, you need three $200 Axies to play and earn SLP tokens.
Earning SLP tokens has become a source of income for people in developing countries. Among those countries the Philippines is leading the pack. The organization and economics behind this, is also becoming more professional. Third party organizations like Yield Guild Games are building tools and communities to really turn people into gamers earning income by playing Axie Infinity.
Axie Infinity moved to the Ronin sidechain earlier this year, and launched staking of their AXS governance token earlier this month. The game uses play-to-earn mechanics to reward players with Smooth Love Potions, empowering communities around the world. In their latest update, the team reiterated their focus on three main components: rewarding value creation, co-creation and co-ownership.
The community has grown to over 2.5 million players without ever releasing their game on Google Play or the iOS App Store. With Axie Infinity the developers actively want to redefine what it means to work in a world where digital ownership has actual value.
