ETHKL24 | Phee Tejada, YGG Pilipinas | Play as Onboarding Philosophy

[Music] um all right good morning everyone um how's everyone doing um this is the last day of the conference and just like our host said this is always like the sore casualty for After parties so I hope you guys are you know um hanging on there for the last you know um burst of your energy and I guess um let's ease into it so yeah um I'm fee I'm from YG um Filipinas so we are the Philippine Regional counterpart of Y um and today I'm going to talk about you know um onboarding as a tool to or play as an as as an onboarding tool um for users to come in into um web free so um just to give context first of what we do as y um we are the largest gaming guild um in the world but now we are transitioning into becoming a guild protocol that means also like we build more um guilds and and communities to you know um thrive in web free and then you know create or or help us you know um build the entire um ecosystem so um for many of you might think like in terms of onboarding more users to web free many of you might ask why we start with play right well you know in a world where the in a world where you know terms like decentralization blockchain can actually you know um feel like complicated um especially if you talk to someone who just wants to like you know level up in in Candy Crush right so it's pretty hard for them to understand those things and play is actually a general language that they can you know understand and you know get them attracted to what we do in web free um especially in gaming so um that's why y were really harping into you know the the philosophy or the idea of play um for us to be able to on board more you know people into web free in fact um YG Filipinas itself is actually a great case study for um you know for for this entire idea of you know play so since 2021 we were able to grow our Discord members for around 990,000 members over more than 1 million followers on socials and those are very organic numbers and now we are currently um at more than 50 guilds um just in the Philippines alone and the key ingredient here really is not to you know talk about the the complex concept around you know wallets and keys but it's really about you know onboarding them or introducing them to games which then becomes like you know um the the Gateway for them to navigate more naturally into the more complex concept or you know landscape of web now at the same time while while the sense of fun is you know something that we really um harp into at y we also see that there are many challenges um or or unique challenges that we face um at y one is with limited you know um access to internet connectivity um another one is like you know um the use of low-end mobile devices and then also like there is you know some some concerns around trusting other platforms um in social media for people who are wanting to learn more about the um technology that's why um at YG um Filipinas we try to really focus on low fidelty Solutions wherein it's like you know um simple it's lightweight and it allows people to interact more meaningfully um without having the need to like purchase a high-end devices or technology just for them to be able to you know um participate in web fre now also um as we look learn more about you know um onboarding more people to to web free and Beyond just you know the the sense of fun and playing games right there's we also realize that play can be also a Gateway for people to learn and you know develop further skills um in web free so for example we have our Guild advancement program um that's our permissionless um you know quest line platform at y wherein we reward our communities for the distrib for the achievements or you know contribution that they do um in the ecosystem so one example here is we have you know AI bounties so these are actually Quests for those who want to you know um for example upskill themselves in AI data labeling or may it be you know um navigating or operating a frobot so um by completing these Quest we also then provide them with um soulbound tokens so these are like you know non-transferable um nfts that they can use as you know digital credentials that they may then use as their onchain resume which can then be you know um checked by for example future Employers in web Frey to validate whether or not they've done something in the ecosystem of they've gone through trainings and Quest you know um this under y and all these things actually we we teach within our you know um educational arm which we call the mediversity which later on I'll be um sharing with you guys as well all right so what we've also like realized is that as we onboard more people to web free it's actually not just you know introducing individuals to you know to to web free but for us um again being a guild protocol it's really important that you know we we build more guilds we build more communities as we also believe that they are actually key players in terms in this decentralized you know framework so what I'm showing now is actually the guild Alliance of you know ygg and here we are they are decentralized you know um gaming guilds they actually um operate on their own they make their own decision they're also the ones teaching their own members in terms of how to you know play the games that they love um navigate into web fre complex you know account creation of different Wallets onramp on ramping and off- ramping their tokens or or earned assets so these are actually the guilds that are really building the you know the entire ecosystem for for Y which also then helps the entire you know um space especially around web free gaming and of course um we have ways to to make sure that you know we have repeatable strategies for onboarding um new players and you know um members into into the ecosystem so one is of course like you know gamified learning so again this is through our U mediversity and also our Guild advancement program wherein um not only that they complete quests around you know the different games they play but also they get to learn new skills there um but at the same time they're being rewarded for learning those skills um one example um in terms of how we play um at y another used um case study here is for our Esports program so a lot of the people um actually in the space especially those that you want on board you know in a professional scene um Esports actually a very a very big thing now um in in web Frey for example we have Tyler sequinox and Chris who were actually like former pro players at Hearthstone and now when we introduced parallel TCG to them they've started to dabble into web free gaming and now a great advocate for you know for for web free gaming and not only actually them even normies um for example I don't know if you guys have heard about aness aness is another web free chess game um and now when we introduce that to Filipino students most especially who used to playing traditional chess board game right they when they started playing anes it actually kind of Sparks in sense of fun it's actually new and then without them realizing that they're actually now you know participating in web free and and that's very important that we get to be able to recognize and you know um appreciate that because then it you know it's it's for us to be able to like think further and how else we can be creative in terms of like onboarding you know more people into web Frey another case stud is again our mediversity Marshall program so um mediversity is actually um the the educational pillar of Y it's designed to be the learning playground for our you know existing members and also to the new ones that are about to be part of the the community currently um we have 350 student Scholars and we also have around 100 plus topics and contents now in under mediversity we do have two um major initiatives so again one is Marshal program and then the other one is the future work for future work this is more on the vertical around Ai and also deepen which later on we'll share with you guys as well but under Marshall program we do have actually a Cornerstone um project together with um sandbox so here we're building a metaverse city so this is actually very interesting and very close to my heart kind of project because with what we're doing right now um I don't know if you guys are familiar with BGC that's one of the major um Central business district in the Philippines where some also call it like you know the small Singapore of Manila but here what we're doing is we're replicating um BGC in sandbox I know this is not you I've I've seen um some students in in Hong Kong build something as well um almost similar concept to what we're doing now in mediversity but what's actually very interesting about this are the people building the mediversity in in sandbox so um we actually onboarded um students from a boarding school in Cavite um Philippines and the policies in boarding school is like students have limited access to PCS and mobile devices and despite that challenge we were still able to like on board them and they were able to create create these digital assets and nfts that they actually never realize that these are like blockchain or web free assets and for us the key learning there is that we don't actually again need to tackle more about like the difficult Concepts or the complex you know um ideas around web free and blockchain but just having them on boarded in a fun and in an approachable way as simple as like having them create assets in sandbox is actually something meaningful ready especially for kids with limited access to mobile devices and PCs and imagine like what more if they are being provided with more resources with more access to technology and what else can they do in fact the one that you see now they've created that for two weeks um again with zero knowledge in web free so another thing that we're doing also um in in y as a form of play and on boarding people to web free is gain Jam so this is a hackathon and we've been doing this for the last three years now um this is actually in partnership with breed Dow um which St is also like helping us out so here um we've been um on boarding not only web free hackers or developers but even web to professionals and even student devs um for the last um two years that we've been doing this we've actually seen growth um from our Dev Community um and it's it's so enjoyable to watch because a lot of these devs do not only participate for the sake of competition or for winning something it's actually them being able to access the different tools that they can experiment on you know um be I mean have mentors to to consult in terms of like you know how to navigate into blockchain or be part of any program that would accelerate their studies in blockchain um development right so that's why this is again this is another way for us to onboard more people to to web free and these are the different ways as to how we play at y g and again um to to to my last point I think it's it's very evident now that you know play is not just like a Pastime for for everybody it's actually a a a a great Catalyst for learning for community building and even for upskilling you know um devs right to to go into blockchain development so um for us the going to be it for for y Filipinas and thank you so much for having me here thank you so much fee