Gamers Wanted: The Metaverse is Hiring

Noli G. Blazo works in a milk tea factory but he wants a job in the metaverse. In May, he posted his resume across several Facebook groups devoted to Axie Infinity, the play-to-earn game that’s gone viral in the Philippines, to promote himself as a top candidate for a part-time role as an NFT gamer. While he has no prior experience playing Axie, his resume states that he has studied the game mechanics including team composition and battle techniques. He lists his high school education alongside a summary of his relevant experience in the gaming world including Dota 2, Mobile Legends, Clash of Clans and others. 

He’s hoping to secure what’s known as a scholarship, where new players borrow a team of Axies and earn their keep by splitting their in-game token rewards with the NFT’s owner. With so many would-be players recognising the potential income to be made by playing the game, but unwilling or unable to fork out the upfront cost to buy their own Axie team, scholarship demand is incredibly high right now. Ask anyone in the NFT gaming sphere – me included – and they will tell you they are bombarded daily with messages from scholarship hopefuls, desperate to play. With competition this fierce, applicants need to find creative ways to cut-through the noise.

Traditionally, a written resume is a job seeker’s first chance to get noticed by a prospective employer. As a tool to sell their skills and experience, strategic gamers have long-recognised the overlap between their team-building, knowledge-sharing and problem-solving competencies in, say, World of Warcraft, and their responsibilities in the office.

So the idea to add your in-game accomplishments to your CV is nothing new. If anything, it’s become more relevant now that we’re all working and collaborating remotely, in online environments. In future, hiring managers will be searching for leaderboard candidates with demonstrable performance in virtual-worlds rather than physical ones, so this type of in-game experience will be less likely relegated under “Leisure/Volunteer Activities” and more likely presented as genuine “Work Experience.”

Noli, who turned 20 in June, already knows the value of his in-game expertise. He’s from Bulacan, the next province over from Nueva Ecija, where our documentary about NFT gaming in the Philippines was filmed. He currently earns PHP 1600 (USD $34) a week in his part time job and hopes to supplement his income by playing Axie. His resume says he’s willing to grind for up to 12 hours, but for a talented and committed gamer, he tells me it should only take two or three to hit his daily target of 150 – 200 SLP. So it’s possible to juggle Axie with other work. 

It’s hard to say how much this SLP would be worth as the price is so volatile. In July, it was selling as high as PHP 21, but from late November 2020 through to February 2021, it hovered around PHP 1. When the price is low, dedicated players keep grinding, treating their crypto wallet like a savings account and stockpiling their tokens until they see the price spike again. 

Despite his resume attracting some positive attention on social media, Noli hasn’t received a scholarship offer yet. And now, there are more and more player resumes being posted everyday. As just a couple of examples: Joseph Go calls out his experience with other NFT games including Alien Worlds and My DeFi Pet, while Sandra Pamintuan mentions that her hobbies include chess, which could be in reference to one of the player interviews featured in our short film, which describes Axie gameplay as chess-like. 

Each resume is nicely laid out and visually-appealing; every scholarship seeker I spoke with said they’d used a template on Canva, the online graphic design platform co-founded by Filipino-Australian Melanie Perkins.

It was Marvin James Pioquinto who came up with the idea first. For three weeks, he’d been seeking a scholarship alongside hundreds, maybe thousands, of other hopefuls. Realising he’d have to do something drastically different to stand out from the crowd, Marvin decided he would demonstrate his professionalism by applying for a scholarship in the same way that he’d successfully applied for his real-world job as a field sales supervisor on a building construction site. At PHP 30,000 (USD $628) per month, Marvin’s salary was above average expectations in the Philippines, but he wanted extra income so he could save money for his family’s future. 

Richard Rapera already had 160 Axie scholars under his wing, but when he saw Marvin’s resume on Facebook, he was impressed by his approach. Based on Marvin’s application, Richard could see he had a passion for online games and would be able to play with minimal supervision. He also liked that Marvin stated his aspirations to move into management, so he could eventually help others learn, earn and achieve their goals – a mission that aligned with Richard’s own core values for his guild. That day, Richard offered Marvin a place on his team. 

Those who still laugh at the legitimacy of a job inside a video game do so at their own peril. The nature of work is changing and places like the Philippines represent a massively under-utilised talent pool of tech-savvy, enormously hungry workers who are determined to level-up. This goes against that persistent narrative about the robots coming-to-take-our-jobs and opens up a new thread about the potential for the future of work to be more enjoyable and inclusive. 

As old jobs are destroyed, new ones will be created. And when the robots take their rightful place on the factory production line, visionaries like Marvin and Richard will be there to guide us through to the next stage. 

For more of my musings, and more on Axie Infinity, check out my column on Coindesk or watch the mini documentary about NFT gaming in the Philippines.