Over the weekend, the news of NFT-based online video game Axie Infinity banning Filipino users from its Discord server circulated on the interwebs. Developed by Sky Mavis of Vietnam, the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity uses Ethereum-based cryptocurrency AXS and SLP, and has registered more than US$386 million in sales volume as of July 2021 based on data released by cryptoslam.io.
But it seems that this “news” of Axie Infinity banning Filipinos from its Discord server is more of misinformation geared towards promoting hate and discredit the game.
“Filipino players were being abusive on the Discord channel and it was closed. They're not banned from playing the game nor talking elsewhere. It's just a time-out since certain players were being very toxic and abusive,” according to Gabby Dizon, Co-Founder of Yield Guild Games and Axie Infinity community member. Yield Guild Games is a play-to-earn gaming guild that brings players together to earn via blockchain-based economies.
“The Philippines (Axie Infinity) channel is still there but is on lockdown for the time being except for moderators. It doesn't affect anybody's ability to actually access the game,” Dizon added.
As of press time, no official statement was released by the game developers but they had a tweet on Saturday evening, 17 July 2021:
“It's been an intense week for the Axie nation and we want to provide some clarity and transparency around the server issues and how we are dealing with them. Thank for you for the patience as we go through this historic time!”
And this was the full announcement included in the same tweet:
Axie Infinity continues to be at the forefront of the play-to-earn realm and pushes further the rise of NFT gaming.
How about you? Are you playing Axie Infinity already? What are your thoughts about this game and its play-to-earn platform?