Do you still remember the “play-to-earn” frenzy from five years ago? Yield Guild Games was doing something wild back then: renting out Axie Infinity NFTs to players and telling you that you could get rich just by lying back and playing. Who wasn’t envious at the time?

Looking at YGG now, it’s a completely different picture.

Those slogans about “token price surges”? They’ve long been thrown into the dustbin of history. What’s replaced them is something much more pragmatic—a sprawling network seriously considering how to make gaming a truly useful part of everyday digital life for ordinary people. Not a story of overnight success, but one of gradual integration.

The narrative of Web3 gaming has shifted from speculation to infrastructure building, and YGG’s transformation has landed right at this turning point. After the bubble of the NFT lending model burst, what’s left is what can really endure—like how the guild system can genuinely mesh with the blockchain gaming ecosystem, and how players’ time can be reasonably valued.

This story might not be as sexy, but it stands the test of time.