Following his recent departure from Niantic as Pokemon GO product manager to Sky Mavis as game product lead for Axie Infinity, Philip La spoke with PocketGamer.biz about transitioning from one of the world’s most authoritative IP, experimenting with AR and blockchain, and the long-term viability of the Axie economy.
PocketGamer.biz: Why did you go from Niantic to Sky Mavis?
La, Philip: I enjoyed my time at Niantic and continue to believe in the AR technology and experiences that will emerge from the firm. At the same time, when I first encountered blockchain gaming with Axie Infinity in mid-2021, it became clear to me that this is going to be a major paradigm change in games.
As a lifelong gamer, finally owning the assets I acquired within a game was a radically positive experience. Collective game ownership and development with both players and developers is also a fundamental shift that I’ve seen tremendous value from in my first few days at Sky Mavis, where I’ve had numerous discussions with the community to inform our thinking.
Niantic has also invested much in research on blockchain games and the metaverse. What was it about Sky Mavis’ approach that drew you in?
Sky Mavis is the pioneer and face of blockchain gaming, and their inventions have already created history.
I believed that joining a firm that is native to the sector and has a track record of releasing quality and profitable products would be the most effective method for me to learn and contribute to blockchain gaming.
Read More: How to Catch Landorus Pokemon Go: The Ultimate Guide.
What do you think the future of augmented reality gaming will be?
Given my passion for the game, working on Pokemon GO was a dream job, and there are so many more things I would have loved to work on and integrate. Creating new experiences that connected games to the real world in novel ways is a significant topic that I would have loved to explore more.
I believe that there is still much room for exploration and creativity in the AR gaming area to figure out what works. Pokemon GO’s huge popularity was due to a unique combination of circumstances.
Many other games that try to clone its mechanics with a different IP will fail. I anticipate seeing a lot more distinct game mechanics in AR games that appeal to diverse sorts of player incentives, especially as the underlying technology advances in parallel.
What do you believe are the primary difficulties confronting mobile gaming that blockchain is best suited to address?
Blockchain provides significance not only for mobile gaming, but for the whole gaming industry. Currently, game producers keep all of the money. Have little community input in customizing their gaming experiences. With traditional methods, involving players in game design makes little sense since player incentives are not always aligned; game creators may be attempting to extract more income while players simply want to have more fun and obtain interesting items in the game.
Blockchain provides for the alignment of those incentives since players have skin in the game by owning assets, and people can understand why developers need to manage the economy in a specific manner so that the ecosystem as a whole can prosper, which benefits both participants developers.
He outlined Sky Mavis’ initial direction on social media, including talking about the builder program and Paydown.
What other fields are you studying?
Given that it is a startup, it will help many parts of the company. Key areas include economic management, Land/Origin game development, and defining overall game development plans. I can share another specific area I’m currently studying, collections.
Based on my experience with Pokemon go, it’s not surprising that I also thought about it. The collecting mechanics and ways to make collecting different axes more fun and interesting.
Axie Infinity Sustainability is a recurring topic that is often extrapolated to represent blockchain and NFT games.
What do you think about this sustainability?
With traditional gaming and gaming economy management expertise. Axie’s sustainability is simply the ability to balance the economy and deliver the fundamental values of gaming. It has little to do with whether the game is a blockchain or not.
For any given economy, sources and sinks must be in balance to keep the economy healthy. Absorbers are driven by the player’s desire to acquire various assets or achieve specific goals. A blockchain or non-blockchain game must provide enough fun and meaningful gameplay. That players are willing to spend resources to arrive at a game that satisfies their intrinsic motivation.
This will be the basis for my approach to designing and developing games on Sky Mavis. This type of motivation came to the fore when Sky Mavis. Recently launched more than 100,000 Axies for players to get exclusive. Beautiful, and unique cosmetic items to show off and own in their collections.