Unless you have been living under the metaphorical rock, the past weeks have been absolutely explosive not only for Axie Infinity but also for the NFT space in general. Rocks are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Cyberkongz VX dropped, and generative art is just going atmospheric.
While all this growth is good for the space in general, it makes me think about how we can all stay connected, sticking to the original mantras that drew us in to Axie Infinity in the first place. That is one of the beautiful things about Axie Infinity, no matter where in the world you come from, no matter whatever your background is, we can all unite to form a digital nation with no boundaries. We are joined together based on a common philosophy that we all share. The problem therein lies in the question: as we grow big (big enough to max out the Discord limit), how do we maintain a focus on this philosophy? How do we not let it leave our vision and have it get corrupted by things that were never a goal in the first place? I think myself, and many others who I have talked with over the past weeks and months, may have an idea.
Somewhere I heard that one of the main focuses of McDonald’s is that wherever you go in the world, you knew exactly what you were going to get when you got a burger from the golden arches. It did not matter if you were in a country that you have never been in before, if you went to McDonald’s you knew what to expect.
The same should be said for Axie Infinity. As we grow big, no matter what guild, channel, or discord server you go to, you should always know what to expect when entering into an Axie Infinity-focused community. The principles and values of what Axie Infinity is pushing forward should be present and felt in every server that lays its name to be a subset of Axie Infinity. By leveraging ‘franchises’, or guilds in the gaming sense, we can keep the engagement and communication amongst players personal. Everyone will know each other, people will be able to have deeper conversations, and relationships will have the environment to flourish. In a large discord with 800,000 players, some of this is more difficult to do. That is not a bad thing, it just doesn’t allow for the deeper connections amongst community members to develop.
How do we keep it consistent?
First and foremost, a strong message from the team is what keeps us all aligned with the proper goal. The Axie Infinity team, Psycheout and Jihoz (along with many others), do an incredible job with ensuring that the fundamental vision of Axie Infinity is always at the forefront of every decision that is made, and that we do not sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term gains. They deliver this message effectively on both Twitter and Discord. Leveraging this messaging should be evident in every sub-guild of Axie Infinity. The message at the top should steer the ship. Just like every franchise updates its menu to have the same items, every guild should update its messaging to match what comes from the team who sets the sail.
Second, there could be an official guild process where Axie Infinity interviews guild leaders and gives its stamp of approval to note that said guild represents Axie Infinity all the way through. This does not have to apply to every guild as anyone has the power to start a guild. However, if the purpose is to keep the messaging the same so that every person knows what to expect when they enter an Axie Infinity-themed guild, then an approval process of some sort is required to ensure that the guilds are held to the highest of standards.
Further, the leaders of the guilds can all meet on a regular cadence so that they can share the messaging from their sub-communities amongst each other and with the team itself. This approach allows for community leaders to gather and discuss important topics that their guilds raise in order to make sure that the community is heard and that the community’s needs are being met. It is also a time for the team to disperse any important messaging to the guilds so that they can disseminate this message to the people to ensure that everyone is aware of urgent announcements or events.
We can even go a step further and have these community leaders voted upon with an official voting process so that the people feel as if they are being represented properly in Lunacia and the Axie Infinity community.
While the process or infrastructure does not have to match the layout that I discussed above, I think this governance approach could ensure that we stay small as we grow big, and that the fundamental philosophy of what makes Axie Infinity, Axie Infinity is not lost in the process.
YCB 