How ‘Pixels’ Guilds Are Changing Crypto’s Hottest Game

After last month's token and weather, the Ronin Farm game is attracting hundreds of thousands of daily users and Pixel is undoubtedly the hottest game in crypto right now. Given that success, why is the game “completely changing” in the coming months?

All of this comes on the heels of next week's introduction of in-game Guilds, a social-finance feature that takes cues from last year's many protocols like Friend.tech and Stars Arena. Essentially, players can create in-game guilds with NFT membership passes, which can then be resold and offer special perks and benefits.

But groups become more than a simple social mechanism or status symbol and entry into a special kind of “club.” Guilds in Pixels will be closely related to a “massive” update to the way resources are generated, founder Luke Barwikowski said in an official live stream this week.

Ahead of last month's PIXEL token launch, Barwikowski shared with DecryptGG some insights into how he envisions wallets to work in the updated Pixels economy. Click below to watch this video interview segment:

In short, in-game resources are even more scarce in Pixel with their reveal of a ranking system for rarity in this week's stream. And as he explained in an interview last month, he expects that user-run groups will form around specific resources, focus on them, and ultimately help control and disperse these resources into the economy.

“These teams are tightly integrated into our gameplay, and control all resource generators in our game,” Gigi told Decrypt. “They help distribute these resources. We expect them to form associations around the land. […] Other rare resources. And we expect guilds to help facilitate and group players.

Some changes to resource gathering and generation on pixels, especially around trees in the game (which can be cut down) will “almost compete overnight,” Barwikowski said, adding a new dimension to the experience.

Guilds seem to highlight that new angle, with the ability to buy and sell passes and gradually increase the price of the pass through binding curves as they can profit from resale over time.

Barwikowski said this week that guilds will eventually develop specific roles for members and even require ownership of multiple passes to gain benefits. Guilds also reduce pass sales, building guild coffers that can be spent at will—to reward members, target recruits, or collect even more resources.

Of course, the idea of ​​industry competition over Pixel goods might not be the vibe everyone in Pixel wants. That's good, Barwikowski said: players who don't want to join groups and log into SocialFi can continue playing as they were. Want to chill and enjoy your solo game? It's still there.

But Pixel sees these changes as another way to embrace game mechanics that only make sense in the crypto economy, all while giving new utility to the PIXEL token and allowing players to have more options and agency in the game world.

“It all basically goes back to the PIXEL and what we're doing with this token, so it's very complex. It's really fun,” Gigi told Decrypt in February. “I've never been more excited about the gameplay we're building here than I have been in the last month or so. I really think we are onto something when it comes to sustainable economics and web 3 gaming.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.