Apeiron Interviews: Wine Tasting with YGG SEA

Greetings Apeiron Faithful! Today we are happy to share with you an interview with one of our premier partners — Yield Game Guilds…

Greetings Apeiron Faithful! Today we are happy to share with you an interview with one of our premier partners — Yield Game Guilds SouthEast Asia (YGG SEA). YGG SEA has been making waves in the crypto-gaming community by building up an impressive library of unique titles to support all kinds of scholars, and they are especially excited about what Apeiron has to offer.

As always before we begin, a quick reminder that the Persevering Priest Prize Package NFT giveaway ends today! You still have time to do all the social-media side-quests — they just take a minute — and it’s worth your time to do so, as for each one you complete you increase your odds of winning an Origins Collection Priest Apostle. Don’t leave home without a healer in the party!

Alright gang, with that taken care of, let’s start the interview! We have a few people to introduce…

Bookworm (BW): Hi guys! So just for our readers out there, I’d like to start this interview by letting everyone know who we are. So I’m Bookworm, I’m a writer here at Foonie Magus.

LoreKeeper (LK): Sure BEN! Hello everyone, lets just go with Frank here haha…Co-founder and LoreKeeper of Foonie Magus.

BW: …and the creative mastermind behind Apeiron! ╰(*°▽°*)╯

LK: No mastermind… just a spitballing gamer here. And then here we have…

YGG SEA: Hello! So I’m Evan, CEO and co-founder of YGGSEA. Thanks for inviting me here for this interview!

BW: Our pleasure! So Evan, I guess if you could introduce yourself, that would be a great way to start.

YGG SEA: Sure. So I’m CEO and co-founder of YGG SEA, which is based in Taiwan. I myself am originally from New York, but I’ve been working here in Asia for more than 20 years across executive positions within Unity Technologies, Electronic Arts, and PopCap games. I’ve seen the industry from a developer, platform, and 3rd party technology provider perspective, and I’ve watched the evolution of various games business models, so I was naturally drawn to play-to-earn (p2e), and I couldn’t be happier to talk with you guys about Apeiron.

LK: PopCap games! Big fan since Insaniquarium in 2002! And of course PvZ, such a classic! Haha sorry for fanboying(❁´◡`❁), please continue~

BW: Well, your resume speaks for itself! So what has drawn you to Apeiron — how did you learn about our project and what inspires you about it?

YGG SEA: A friend had approached me asking to review the prospects of a game for him. He isn’t much of a gamer himself, so he was looking for an insiders perspective on whether or not he should invest. So he sent me the pitch deck, which I’m sure broke some type of confidentiality agreement, but oh well. I didn’t say his name was Nelson or anything like that, so I’m sure he’s safe.

LK: *The Rock eyebrow*

YGG SEA: Anyway, where was I, oh yeah after Nelson gave me the deck, I honestly was surprised to see something new to the Play-to-Earn. Here at YGGSEA we see something like 80 or more decks per week and most of them are just clones of Axie Infinity. It’s sad really, because the Play-to-Earn space is completely new and full of untapped potential. Developers are extremely creative, they should be using that creativity to build the industry rather than clone the pioneers. It just brings me back to the Zynga days of their CEO saying “don’t innovate, just copy”. It doesn’t turn out well in the end. That’s why I loved PopCap, we were always trying new things and eventually when you do that, you get a big hit like Plants vs. Zombies. And I feel Apeiron is that big hit for Play-to-Earn.

LK: To be compared with the epic PvZ! What an honor! Countless hours I have put in squashing those zombinis! There’s an allure to all the classics back in the days, simple but powerful core game mechanics that lasts forever in the minds of gamers… Black and White was an incredible merge of multiple complex mechanics into one truly unique experience… and I want to try and reintroduce this experience to the world.

YGG SEA: Yeah that’s exactly it! Honestly Apeiron reminded me of tasting a wine with complex flavors — and you get these notes, these hints of something familiar; like when I read the deck I was thinking to myself, “yeah, this is like Populous and like Black and White!” and I could picture it in my mind, but at the same time, you know it’s bringing in elements of grand strategy, space, RPG…what a unique flavor. I mean how can you go wrong?

BW: Apeiron is certainly bringing something new to the table.

YGG SEA: Yes it does, and it’s exciting. And it wasn’t only me that felt that way. We have a multi-cultural investment team that reviews all of our potential investments and Apeiron received a green light from everyone. They loved the theme, team, and tokenomics. Although they weren’t quite sure how to pronounce it haha. Many on our team used to call it “Ape Iron” haha.

LK: Am still hearing that everywhere I go haha. Just so all our readers out there know, it’s pronounced A-Per-Ron.

YGG SEA: Right! So overall I’ve been really impressed with how Apeiron has had the guts to go out and build something completely new, and something that takes advantage of the p2e metaverse. I truly believe that our scholars will absolutely love the depth of gameplay and lore that they’ll be able to explore in Apeiron.

BW: It’s clear that YGG SEA is a strong supporter, and indeed you guys have gotten one of the largest constellations in the SEA Mythological Galaxy — a real statement of intent. Could you talk a little more about YGG SEA’s aspirations in the SEA scene for p2e, and how Apeiron fits into that?

YGG SEA: I love this, we’re here to talk about Apeiron and you are asking about YGG SEA’s mission. It just goes to show the type of character you have. I’ll briefly touch on YGG SEA’s aspirations and then let’s get back to Apeiron.

LK: Thanks! :)

YGG SEA: First off please let me first explain who we are. YGG SEA is a play-to-earn gaming guild entirely focused on Southeast Asia. That means we buy into NFT assets of different blockchain games and lend them out to our scholars throughout the SEA region. We actually just launched in November 2021, but we already have trusted co-founders in each of our offices in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, and we will open offices in at least two more countries this year.

BW: Growing fast! So basically, as a guild you help to remove the barrier for entry for blockchain games, since through joining the guild the scholars don’t have to get any NFTs of their own or anything.

YGG SEA: Exactly! Our aspirations are to ensure that scholars throughout SEA have the opportunity to learn about the metaverse while earning from it. Without a doubt, crypto and play-to-earn is here to stay, and now it’s our job to bring it to the 680M people in SEA.

LK: Bring them Apeiron! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

YGG SEA: Yes. We have invested in over 40 games with most of them being developed by SEA developers. It’s a part of our strategy to create a self-sustaining economy that is good for everyone: we not only want to build a strong scholar base, but we also want to assist the growth of local developers.

BW: It’s a new era for gaming and for the metaverse. So how does Apeiron specifically tie in here — what kind of collaborations do you envision?

YGG SEA: Honestly, the sky’s the limit…or maybe I should say “our destiny is written in the stars” haha.

LK: It’s the Year of the Dood! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ The Doods are coming!

YGG SEA: And we’re all for it! So I see two opportunities on the horizon. After YGG SEA launches our token this year, we will introduce staking. This will allow scholars the ability to stake multiple in-game assets, potentially including Apeiron’s in-game currency as well, which is something we’re pretty excited about. And on top of that, we will introduce a questing system to our guild platform. I’d love to see some of those quests actually take place among the stars.

BW: I think there will certainly be quests for YGG SEA scholars to undertake in the godiverse~

LK: Thanks a lot, Evan, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to speak with us — really appreciate it. Got any last comments for us before we sign off?

YGG SEA: Hey it’s no problem, I was really happy to do this interview. On behalf of the YGGSEA community, we are extremely excited to experience the full depth of gameplay that Apeiron will offer. For those that aren’t part of YGG SEA, please join us in the stars and let’s make our YGG SEA constellation the best in the universe!~

BW: Thanks guys!

Ok Apeiron faithful, that wraps up this one. If you want to learn more about YGG SEA and getting involved as one of their scholars, you can find their website HERE. And if you’d like to talk more about Apeiron, join us over on Discord, Telegram, and Twitter, where we always have conversations going on! And as always, thanks for reading, Godlings. We’ll see you all next week — Goodbye for now.