Yield Guild Games (YGG) announced that it will sunset its web3 game publishing business unit, YGG Play, by August 1, 2026, following a prolonged crypto market downturn. The organization will redirect its resources toward the artificial intelligence (AI) data economy while maintaining its core blockchain ecosystem and the YGG token, according to a company statement.
A full transcript of this writer’s interview with Gabby Dizon, Co-Founder of Yield Guild Games, is available at the end of the article.
Impact of Market Conditions
YGG noted that the decision stems from external economic challenges that began with a macroeconomic shock on October 10, 2025, which liquidated over $19 billion in leveraged crypto positions within 24 hours. The subsequent market decline caused capital outflows, driving Bitcoin below $60,000 by mid-2026 and resulting in asset depreciation of over 80% for major altcoins.
YGG Play recorded $9 million in lifetime revenue by the end of Q1 2026, peaking at $3 million in monthly revenue in October 2025. However, YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon stated that monthly revenues steadily declined alongside the broader bearish market, making the publishing business commercially unsustainable.
“Sunsetting YGG Play is a heavy decision, but it is a market decision, not a product decision,” Dizon said. He added that the broader traditional games publishing market is currently facing similar commercial difficulties.
Operational Changes and Layoffs
The closure of the business unit will result in the termination of 35 employees across various functions. YGG indicated that it is actively facilitating connections to help the affected staff secure new employment opportunities.
The transition process involves retiring the YGGPlay.fun website, its launchpad, associated social media channels, and community questing features. The games LOL Land and Waifu Sweeper will also be retired, and all marketing support for third-party games will cease.
The web3 versions of GIGACHADBAT and Ragnarok Breaker will remain operational. Their live services will continue to be fully maintained by their respective development studios, Delabs Games and Planetarium Labs.
A Great Run, Says Web3 Players and KOLs
While the news was met with disappointment, many in the web3 gaming community took the opportunity to express appreciation for YGG Play’s contributions and the way the organization handled the transition.
Through its community quest campaigns, many players reported receiving airdrops, winning competitions, and, in some cases across the broader YGG ecosystem, earning life-changing amounts of money not simply by playing, but by demonstrating skill and actively participating in the community during a period when the broader crypto market had turned bearish.
Former YGG Ambassador Kookoo said he appreciated YGG’s handling of the transition, saying the organization had a lasting impact on his web3 journey and expressing support for the affected team.
Shift to AI Data Economy and Financial Position
Moving forward, YGG will channel its resources into the global AI training dataset market, focusing initially on a business-to-business pipeline for gaming datasets. The organization stated that its global community will generate behavioral datasets through gameplay, building on its previous initiatives where users completed gamified data-labeling tasks.
As part of this transition, the organization has rebranded its YGG Alerts initiative to AI Alerts. The platform connects workers in the Philippines with verified, remote AI training jobs and received 27,000 applications within its first five days of launching a marketplace for AI tasks.
Dizon clarified that the pivot does not represent an exit from web3; he confirmed that the YGG token and the core organization will continue operations. YGG plans to utilize its existing infrastructure for community organization to transition players into data collection and AI training roles.
At the end of Q1 2026, the Yield Guild treasury stood at $20.6 million, with $6.2 million held in stablecoins, T-bills, and large-cap tokens. The company reported that discontinuing the unprofitable publishing unit and restructuring operations has extended its operational runway to four years.
Full Interview
1. BitPinas Reporter (Michael Mislos): I am unsure about how big $9M in lifetime revenue but I’m sure that in the PH startup scene, $9M is something most would only dream of. Please walk us through the exact moment when you realized the current success of YGG Play will not survive the ongoing market climate.
Gabby Dizon: We hit our peak of $3M of revenue in a single month in October 2025. Since then, the monthly revenue has been going down with the overall bearishness in the market.
We’ve always seen ourselves as a global team with Filipino roots. We wanted to create a business that would grow and be best-in-class on a global basis. But given where the market is right now, we’re not sure it is viable for the publishing business we’ve created, which is why we’ve made this decision.
All startups have to consider macroeconomic factors but crypto even more so. Like it or not, we are tied to the health of the overall market. Unfortunately, the steady decline over the last nine months has made it impossible to ignore that reality.
2. How do you reconcile changing the core of YGG from ‘play’ to ‘work’ for the Filipino community? (And please let me know if and why you think it (the changing of the vision) isn’t the case.
What’s being sunset is our game publishing business. There’s no change to core YGG.
The concept of “play” itself will always be core to YGG. The vision hasn’t changed. YGG is still about play as a pathway for economic empowerment. We are dedicated to helping people all around the world, especially those in emerging markets, find earning opportunities through technology. It started with blockchain and now we have AI too.
We’re definitely not changing who we are or what we stand for. This new direction is actually going back to our roots with people playing games to earn money, skills, knowledge, and other valuable things. But now, they’re doing it to help collect data and train AI models.
Look at AI Alerts (formerly YGG Alerts). AI Alerts is our way of helping Filipinos learn how to use AI tools and find remote training jobs right now. Just like YGG did with gaming, we’re giving everyday Filipinos the tech and the opportunities they need to start earning in the global economy. We’ve seen a lot of people signing up for opportunities through the AI Alerts Facebook group: 27,000 applications in its first 5 days.
3. Is this a web3 exit? What is going to happen to the YGG Token?
We are not exiting web3. YGG continues and the YGG Token continues.
We are only sunsetting YGG Play, the web3-native game publishing arm that was launched in May 2025.
4. With the AI shift brings new competitors YGG is going to compete against. What will be YGG’s competitive edge?
We already have a lot of experience in organizing communities so that they can play games, reach certain goals, and get paid for it. So we’ll be taking everything we’ve proven there and be bringing it into AI.
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5. After the planned closures by August 1st, what and how is the next 5 months going to be for YGG
We’re taking a small core team and working with our community who’s already starting to figure out what kind of games are needed by the AI labs and we’ll organically grow the business from there.
This article is published on BitPinas: Yield Guild Games to Sunset Web3 Publishing Arm YGG Play, Pivot to AI Data Economy
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