nexon, one of the largest gaming companies in the world, sneaking into the web3 like some of his peers in Asia. Developer MapleStory is building a blockchain-based ecosystem based on a 20-year-old multiplayer online game where players can exchange in-game assets such as clothing, equipment, and virtual pets in the form of non-fungible tokens.
Around 160,000 people in South Korea still play MapleStory. wrote recently in a blog post with a link to Korea MapleStory data.
Blockchain games have popped up all over the place in the past two years, but few have become mainstream or even popular. like game to earn Axie Infinitydid not last long.
Nexon promises to create more sustainable crypto games. “There was a time when the perception of ‘blockchain = P2E’ was widespread and there was a lot of talk about using blockchain to create money making games,” a Nexon spokesperson told TechCrunch in a text message.
“But the market has changed since then and there are more creators who want to use blockchain for serious game development.”
It’s still too early to tell if MapleStory N, Nexon’s first blockchain game, will maple story universe, the NFT ecosystem based on the IP of the classic game will ever reach the heights of its Web 2.0 version. Nexon, of course, has bright prospects.
“MapleStory has over 180 million users worldwide and even more people love MapleStory’s IP. We expect MapleStory N and MapleStory Universe to appeal to many gamers,” a Nexon spokesperson said.
The main criticism of games based on the principles of “play to earn” is related to their flawed economy, where gamers buy NFTs only to create and sell these digital goods to those who buy them after them. Nexon does not follow the pyramid path.
MapleStory N does not have a cash shop, and players acquire items as they play, such as by completing quests and defeating monsters. If people don’t get what they want, they can purchase items from others through the secondary market of the NFT ecosystem. Players will also eventually be able to trade their in-game assets on external marketplaces, according to Nexon.
Joining the masses
Nexon is working with several partners to enable the transition to web3. The firm has already announced that MapleStory Universe digital goods will trade at the Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution popular with game developers. The South Korean gaming firm said today that it is teaming up with fellow web3 company. Hachi Laboratoriescrypto-audit and wallet solutions provider used by over 500 companies.
“A lot of gaming companies started knocking on our door after seeing the success of Axie Infinity as Haechi Labs has been offering smart contract security auditing and wallet solutions for the past 5 years,” CEO Geon-gi Moon told TechCrunch in a written response.
“Nowhere else will you see so many AAA gaming executives being so optimistic about integrating their games with blockchain except South Korea.”
Most existing decentralized applications require users to log in through their crypto wallets. But what if people don’t have web3 experience? hachi advertise face walletwhich allows users to log in to crypto games like MapleStory N through their existing Google, Facebook, Apple, Discord, and Kakao accounts.
Once logged in, users will have access to their Face Wallet accounts. Anyone who has used a standalone wallet like MetaMask knows how hard it is to try to keep your 16 word seed phrase safe. Losing the seed phrase means losing access to the wallet forever. Custody solutions are easy to use, but on the other hand, asset owners are at risk of being hacked or the platform going bankrupt.
Face Wallet attempts to solve the custodian’s dilemma by offering a self-storage wallet that allows users to log in with a six-digit password and gives them the ability to recover passcodes.
Here’s how it works: when a user creates a wallet through Face Wallet, their key is split into two encrypted “shares,” Moon explained. Share 1 is stored in a secure infrastructure environment and typically also on the user’s device. Share 2 is stored in the Face Wallet team repository. The decrypted keys are never given to Haechi; also Haechi cannot decrypt any of the encrypted keys, Moon added.
Haechi isn’t the only one trying to make their own wallets more user-friendly. The Ethereum community itself is addressing this issue with a major technical update called “account abstraction” and developers such as soul venture walletare rushing to introduce wallets based on the capabilities of smart contracts.