Axie Infinity and Polygon leaders tackle the bear market in crypto, NFTs, and blockchain games

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For the Index Ventures Gaming Summit 2022 event, I moderated a fireside chat with Ryan Wyatt, head of Polygon Studios, and Jeff “Jiho” Zirlin, a leader at Sky Mavis, the maker of the popular blockchain game Axie Infinity. They’re among the biggest believes in Web3 gaming and the benefits of decentralization.

It was an interesting conversation as the bear market is upon us, with stock prices weakening, inflation rising, cryptocurrency values plummeting, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) crashing. It’s unclear what the exact impact will be for blockchain games, which accounted for a third of all fundings in the first quarter, according to Drake Star Partners. On top of that, game-focused VCs said that most of the pitches they are getting focus on blockchain game startups.

Wyatt left his job as head of YouTube Gaming to dive in this sector, and Zirlin was among the early believers who figured out how to make a popular NFT game with Axie Infinity. I asked them how the blockchain game industry could still steer a path to a bright future, given the challenges. They didn’t shy away from the tough questions, and we tackled the bear market topic head-on.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

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GamesBeat: Hello, my name’s Dean Takahashi, and welcome to our web3 gaming session here. I’m the lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. I organize the