Yield Guild Games Association announced that it has expanded into Web3 game publishing with the launch of the causal Degen game LOL Land.

With the launch of its first title, LOL Land, Yield Guild Games Association (Yield Guild) has announced YGG Play, a new game publishing unit dedicated to lighthearted, addictive games that embrace the chaos and culture of crypto degeneracy.

With YGG Play, the association aims to define a new genre in gaming: Casual Degen. The debut game — a browser-based casual board game featuring members of the Pudgy Penguins community as playable characters — with 116,000 pre-registrations prior to its exclusive launch on Abstract Chain. By playing, collecting points, and unlocking NFTs in LOL Land, players have the chance to win part of a prize pool funded on May 1, valued at $10 million in YGG token rewards.

“Over the past four years, we’ve seen and played hundreds of games, and Yield Guild has invested in many of them. Through that experience, we’ve come to know what’s fun, what works and what doesn’t, and that’s led us to develop some very strong opinions on how to best serve the crypto market,” said Gabby Dizon, cofounder of Yield Guild, in a statement. “YGG Play, which is specifically targeting the Casual Degen market, is our expression of everything we’ve learned, starting with our first game, LOL Land.”

LOL Land features four thematic boards, each with a unique mechanic: YGG City, Beach Day, Carnival, and Ice World Wonderland — the latter being home to the Pudgy Penguins IP, where players can choose to playable characters based on notable members from Pudgy’s community, including Aaron Teng, Rusk0f, KP, Burnasso, and Orange. Dizon is also a playable game character, and other themes are under development, including Pirate Cove and Parkside Story.

The Abstract Chain, the exclusive platform for LOL Land, was created by Igloo Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins. Its consumer-first approach makes it easier for players to get into Web3 games by using chain abstraction and integrating friendlier onboarding mechanisms such as social logins and passkeys. The platform has already succeeded with several launches, including Myriad, Roach Racing Club, and Gacha. The launch also coincides with the YGG token being available on Abstract.

“LOL Land is a game built by degens for degens,” said Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins, in a statement. “It takes everything we’ve come to love about playing Web3 games and puts it into a casual pick-up-and-play experience. We’re really excited to be a part of YGG’s first game and its exclusive launch on Abstract.” 

LOL Land offers two gameplay modes to suit different player preferences. The free mode allows players to enjoy unlimited rolls at no cost, though it does not include YGG token rewards. In the premium mode, players can purchase premium rolls, with points earned through gameplay eligible for redemption in YGG tokens. LOL Land is only available to players 18 years or older and in certain countries. The game is available to play now at LOL.Land. 

I asked Dizon a few questions. In a message to GamesBeat, Dizon said YGG is a guild protocol that provides guilds with a suite of tools to organize onchain.

“Our core community’s Discord currently has over 112,000 members and our Guild Advancement Program (GAP) has seen over 300,000 community members use our questing platform,” Dizon said. “Since launching on Base in November last year, we’ve had more than 75 Onchain Guilds sign up for our platform’s pilot. We also have a global network of guilds spanning 11 regions, represented by our guild partners YGG Pilipinas (Philippines), W3GG (Southeast Asia), OLA GG (Latin America), KGeN (India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia), SKYGG (South Korea), YGG Japan, YGG China, AMG DAO (Europe), and NYXL (North America).”

Asked why YGG decided to make a game, Dizon said, “We decided to launch our game publishing arm because we want to establish the “Casual Degen” category in Web3 games. With our history and our deep connection to the community and its crypto-native, grassroots, play-first culture, game publishing felt like a natural expansion.”

YGG has grown into a hub for players to discover new games and contribute their skills to different projects and ecosystems.

Dizon added, “We represent highly skilled communities that can bootstrap the launch of a game by connecting them with dedicated players as well as groups that can provide the services these early-stage projects need like community management, marketing and local events, content creation, education, esports, game testing, and more.”

And he said, “YGG is uniquely positioned as a publisher because we know what the community looks for in games and we know where these games need help at launch—we hear it directly from the players. So, expanding into publishing and making the first game ourselves made sense.”

I asked Dizon how YGG chose the game. He noted that before he got into crypto and cofounded YGG, he was a game developer for over 20 years.

“I was actually building casual games for much of my career. It’s nearly five years since we founded YGG, and we’ve played hundreds of Web3 games and invested in many of them,” Dizon said. “Building our ecosystem and running events like the YGG Play Summit has kept us closely aligned with our community’s interests. We understand what the YGG community wants: playing fun games and enjoying the rewards together.”

And he added, “Based on our experience, we also knew that the Web3-native game market is still very underserved. These are the people who aren’t necessarily hardcore gamers but are in crypto for fun — or what we call degens. Hardcore Web3 gamers are actually a very small portion of the total Web3 user base. But the “Casual Degens” — that’s people trading memecoins, minting NFTs, or trading on exchanges — they’re a much larger market. And we know exactly how to target these markets.”

Yield Guild Games (YGG) is a global collective of gamers, creators, and builders turning play into opportunity. Known for pioneering the Web3 guild model with the rise of the play-to-earn movement in 2020, YGG laid the foundation for a new kind of digital coordination: a network of onchain groups, each organized around their own purpose, and united by shared values of collaboration, progression, and ownership. Pre-registration is currently ongoing at https://www.lol.land/pre-register.