Axie Infinity has announced plans to axe play-to-earn capabilities from its vintage game. The game led the P2E revolution of 2021 with its AXS currency that players earned through breeding, raising and battling Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The move is intended to encourage players to move to the new game mode called Axie Infinity Origin and aims to balance the economy for the Smooth Love Potion (SLP) token.
Starting from Friday 19th August, no more SLP will be minted on the game’s classic mode.
Not So Smooth Love Potion
Axie Infinity is a popular crypto blockchain game built on the Ethereum sidechain, Ronin. Players have always enjoyed lucrative real-money rewards from the game; however, the SLP has since destabilized and caused chaos for users. Key to the tokenomics of the game, the SLP began to lose value dramatically towards the end of 2021. Players earn (SLP) tokens by playing the Axie Infinity game and as a replacement for experience points.
The Defiant reported back in September 2021:
“After peaking in May and again in July, [SLP] lost more than three-quarters of its value, though this week SLP has stabilized at around $0.081.” – The Defiant
SLP are ERC-20 tokens, which can breed new digital pets known as Axies. Breeding costs 100 SLP and rises to:
- 200 for second
- 300 for third
- 500 for fourth
- 800 for fifth
- 1,300 for sixth
Axies will breed a maximum of seven times, and the seventh breed costs 2,100 SLP. This limit exists to prevent hyperinflation in the marketplace.
Axie Infinity: Origin season 0
The solution? To transition into phase three of development and transfer the transmission of $SLP from Classic to Origin. The new game mode will migrate SLP rewards to their new game mode. The team has also announced that minting will be unavailable for 30 days as the team conducts a monitoring phase to search for bugs, abuses and exploits.
In addition to removing classic rewards, the team will also enable using SLP to craft various in-game boosts such as runes and charms in the new mode to add utility to SLP.
“Season 0 is an important step for Axie Infinity as we fully transition into the new game, Axie Origin,”
“The community can expect more developments in the future as all focus will be on making Origin super awesome. Personally, I’m most excited to see old players from v2 transitioning into Origin and seeing them thrive in this new environment. I also want to see new players who maybe have never tried Axie before but can now easily go and play with the introduction of Free Starter Axies!” – Axie Infinity PH lead, Nix Eniego, told BSCNews.
Changes to Axie Infinity NFT
$SLP will transition to the new origin format, and players must wait until the season ends to mint their utility tokens. The game developers seem mainly concerned with ensuring everything is secure on the network, as a video released by the team to explain the updates makes clear.
Similar to Classic, $SLP will continue to be distributed in PvP Ranked mode when players win battles. The higher Rank a player is competing in, the more $SLP rewards they will receive per win. However, a significant difference in Origin will be that $SLP is required to craft various Charms and Runes.
According to the Axie team:
“The amount of SLP rewarded at each Rank will also depend on how many NFT Axies the player is using. If a player is using only Starter Axies then they will not be able to be rewarded SLP.” – Axie.
$SLP will still be rewarded within the game and claimed and minted on-chain into a token. Origin prohibits players from minting their $SLP until seven days have passed since securing the win. During Season 0, no player can mint $SLP to enable developers to monitor the system. Players may have $SLP removed if developers find bugs, abuse, or exploits in SLP emissions pre-minting.
A New Phase For A Beloved P2E Game
Axie Infinity has long been a favorite of P2E players. The community has continued to grow and, despite the crypto hiccup, seems excited for the new release. Despite a poor performance throughout the crypto winter, the NFT transaction volume for the project surged 205% in July.
Although some might see the move away from classic to origin as a move that forces P2E players to a new mode, it appears the team are doing so in order to protect the assets in the game. The gaming experience itself has also had an upgrade, and it’s exciting to see new opportunities emerging to earn in the game.
“Origin will keep improving as we build and work with the community,”
There will be more surprises down the line for sure, as Axie Origin evolves even more and new elements are introduced within the game. Fun times ahead!”– Nix Eniego, Axie
It looks like the future of Axie Infinity is secure and set to run smoothly, unlike its Smooth Love Potion.
