nexon, one of the largest game companies in the world, it is foraying into web3 like some of its peers in Asia. The MapleStory developer is creating a blockchain-powered ecosystem based on the twenty-year-old massively multiplayer online game, where players can trade in-game assets like outfits, equipment, and virtual pets in the form of non-expendable tokens.
About 160,000 people in South Korea still play MapleStory today, the company wrote recently in a blog citing KMS data.
Blockchain games have been popping up everywhere in the past couple of years, but few have entered the mainstream and even the most popular ones, like the play-to-win game Axie Infinity, have been short-lived.
Nexon is committed to creating more sustainable crypto games. “There was a time when the perception of ‘blockchain = P2E’ was widely accepted, and there was a lot of talk about using blockchain to make games that make money,” Angela Son, blockchain business development and partnership lead at TechDigiPro, told TechDigiPro. Nexon. A text message.
“But since then, the market has changed and there are more creators who want to use blockchain for serious game development.”
It is still too early to say if MapleStory N, Nexon’s first blockchain game, and MapleStory Universe, the IP-based NFT ecosystem of the classic game, will never reach the heights of its web2 version. Nexon has an optimistic outlook, of course.
“MapleStory has more than 180 million cumulative global users, and there are even more people who love MapleStory IP. We anticipate that MapleStory N and MapleStory Universe will be enjoyed by many players,” Son said.
The main criticism of play-to-win games is their flawed economics, where players buy NFTs only to create and sell these digital products to those who buy after them. Nexon is not going down the pyramid scheme path.
In MapleStory N, there is no cash shop, and players acquire items through gameplay, such as completing quests and defeating monsters. If people don’t get what they want, they can purchase items from others through the ecosystem’s NFT secondary market. Eventually, players can also trade their in-game assets on external markets, according to Son.
Boarding the masses
Nexon is working with a handful of partners to enable their transition to web3. The firm has already announced that MapleStory Universe digital assets will negotiate in Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution that is popular with game developers. Today, the South Korean gaming firm said it is partnering with another web3 company, Haechi Laboratoriesa provider of crypto auditing and wallet solutions used by over 500 businesses.
“A lot of game companies started knocking on our door after seeing the success of Axie Infinity since Haechi Labs has been offering smart contract security auditing and wallet solutions for the past 5 years,” he told TechDigiPro. The company’s CEO, Geon-gi Moon, in a written response.
“Nowhere else do you see such a high number of executives at AAA game companies so optimistic about integrating their games with blockchain, but in South Korea.”
Most existing decentralized apps require users to log in via their crypto wallets. But what if people have no prior experience with web3? Haechi is promoting face walletwhich allows users to log into crypto games like MapleStory N through their existing accounts with Google, Facebook, Apple, Discord, and Kakao.
Once logged in, users will gain access to their Face Wallet accounts. Anyone who has used a self-custody wallet like MetaMask knows the stress of trying to keep your 16-word seed phrase safe. Losing one’s seed phrase means losing access to the wallet permanently. Custody solutions are easy to use, but on the other hand, asset owners are exposed to the risk of the platform being hacked or broken.
Face Wallet is trying to solve the custodian dilemma by offering a self-custodial wallet that allows users to log in with a six-digit password and gives them the option to retrieve access codes.
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 maintained in the Face Wallet team repository. The decrypted keys are never shared with Haechi; Haechi is also unable to crack any of the encrypted keys, Moon added.
Haechi isn’t the only one trying to make self-hosted wallets easier to use. The Ethereum community itself is tackling this issue through a major technical update called “account abstraction” and developers such as venture-backed Soul Wallet are racing to introduce wallets with smart contract capabilities.
Disclaimer: All the content or information on this article is given for only educational purposes.
