MapleStory – Developers have made the initiative to stay up with the changing Web3 environment.
Web3 has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, particularly during the NFT boom, which witnessed the emergence of hundreds of projects.
It has also aroused the interest of major businesses, celebrities, and influencers, all of whom are excited about the new technology.
Nexon, a well-known Asian game publisher, is the most recent company to launch a Web3 game.
The news
Nexon is seeking to maintain its relevance by developing a new Web3 game based on MapleStory.
MapleStory is the company’s well-known pixelated 2D role-playing game, created by Wizet in South Korea and distributed by Nexon.
On Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Nexon announced the establishment of MapleStory Universe.
The Web3 game will be distributed on Polygon’s private Supernet, illustrating the company’s determination to make a reputation for itself.
The game
MapleStory, which has been in operation since 2003, is one of the longest-running games.
According to a Nexon statement earlier this year, the game has generated more than $4 billion in sales.
It also has approximately 180 million registered users.
Check out MapleStory’s Steam website, which boasts over 260 million players, to get a feel of its popularity.
Hwang Sun-Young, Group Head of MapleStory World, expressed his delight for the project’s progress in a statement, saying:
“We are looking forward to expanding the NFT ecosystem envisioned by MapleStory Universe by building on Polygon.”
“We will work closely with the team at Polygon Labs to develop and market the game.”
The Supernets
Polygon is well-known as an Ethereum scaling network that enables faster and less expensive transactions than the Ethereum mainnet.
According to Urvit Goel, VP of Global Games and Platform Business Development at Polygon Labs, Nexon’s forthcoming PC game would utilize Polygon Supernet, allowing it to have its own dedicated app chain.
“They have the ability to scale in a way that you can’t scale on a shared blockchain,” said Goel regarding Nexon and its planned Supernet.
“They have a very broad vision of how many transactions they think they’ll do daily, because the game and the IP is so large.”
A similar method is employed by the Polygon Supernets.
They may, for example, set up a customized sub-network for certain purposes.
Moreover, Supernets allow writers to customize their work and insulate decentralized apps (dapps) and games from possible performance issues on the wider public network.
Read also: Wildxyz platform set to introduce the future of NFT artists
Early announcements
Although MapleStory Universe was announced in 2022, no release date has been set as of yet.
Goel, on the other hand, has declared that no NFT presales will take place.
Instead, by playing the game, players would earn NFTs.
“They’re not pushing for in-app purchases,” said Goel, referring to the typical microtransactions in mobile games.
The MapleStory Universe
The future MapleStory Universe will be an NFT-centric game, which implies tokenized assets will be a component of the game and will be exchangeable or transferable via the game’s marketplace.
Nexon claims that the MapleStory World would soon incorporate a crypto asset.
Still, the details have yet to be hammered out.
“We plan on issuing our unique coin, and specific details about this will be revealed later with our tokenomics,” said the game studio.
South Korean companies diving into Web3
Nexon is a South Korean and Japanese conglomerate that makes the vast bulk of its money in the South Korean market.
Urvit Goel of Polygon Labs claimed that the firm is not the only South Korean studio venturing into the Web3 world, emphasizing the company’s strong origins in the South Korean market.
“Korea has been by far the leader from a developer standpoint,” he said.
“If you look at the top 10 gaming companies in Korea, 8 out of 10 have publicly stated that they’re building something on the blockchain, which is very unique globally.”
Another two major South Korean game developers and publishers exploring Web3 projects are NCSoft and Netmarble.
The two companies are developing Sui, a new blockchain network.
Krafton, the creators of the popular first-person shooter games PUBG: Battlegrounds, is also collaborating with Solana Labs on a variety of blockchain endeavors.
Polygon Labs president Ryan Wyatt published a statement emphasizing the significance of South Korea as a Web3 gaming market.
