[Hot IT Company⑧] Wemade
1.3 Million Concurrent Users in Mir4
Confirmed Global Market Potential
Completed Open Gaming Blockchain
Proprietary Blockchain 'Wemix'
Planning Base Currency for Games
"Wemade now has the opportunity to become a great company." In his New Year's address, Jang Hyun-guk, CEO of Wemade, revealed this vision and announced the spread of a new paradigm called ‘P&E’ this year, meaning ‘Play and Earn.’ Wemade’s steadfast commitment to integrating blockchain into games, pioneering in the domestic gaming industry, is now shining brightly.
Confirmed P2E Potential with ‘Mir4’
According to the gaming industry on the 3rd, ‘Play to Earn (P2E)’ games have emerged as a new growth engine this year. Among domestic game companies, Wemade was the first to proactively integrate the P2E model into games. Wemade incorporated non-fungible token (NFT) technology into the global version of Mir4, providing users with a money-earning gaming experience. Mir4 turned ‘Heukcheol,’ the in-game currency used for item enhancement, into NFTs. These were converted into the utility coin ‘Draco’ and made tradable on the WEMIX platform.
In the domestic gaming ecosystem dominated by NCSoft, Nexon, and Netmarble (the 3N), Wemade is gaining attention as an emerging powerhouse through P2E. Following the success of Mir4, major game companies such as NCSoft and Netmarble have announced plans to release games incorporating NFTs. The global version of Mir4 has been thriving, with servers increasing from 11 at launch in August last year to 229 last month. The number of simultaneous global users has surpassed 1.3 million, and character NFTs traded for 170 million KRW on the first day of introduction, showing an upward trend.
Wemade has long focused on the potential of blockchain games and invested considerable effort. In 2018, it entered the cryptocurrency business through its subsidiary ‘Wemade Tree.’ Recently, it merged Wemade Tree to concentrate company-wide capabilities on the metaverse (expanded virtual world) business linking games and blockchain. Following Mir4, Wemade released the blockchain new title ‘Galaxy Tornado on WEMIX’ on the 31st of last month in 174 countries worldwide, excluding Korea and China.
Aggressive Acquisitions to Onboard 100 Games
Wemade has set a goal to onboard 100 games onto the blockchain platform ‘WEMIX’ by the end of this year. The plan is for the cryptocurrency ‘WEMIX’ issued by Wemade to serve as the base currency for these games. CEO Jang emphasized, "Our mission this year is to complete the ‘Open Gaming Blockchain’ and firmly establish WEMIX as the undisputed base currency in the gaming world."
Having set the goal of 100 services, Wemade has recently been aggressively expanding its business by acquiring and investing in game companies and signing memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with leading game companies. Recently, it attracted industry attention by acquiring SundayToz, the developer of the ‘national game’ Anipang. There is growing interest in whether Anipang, loved by all age groups, can be transformed into a money-earning game. Large game companies such as NHN and Webzen have also joined the WEMIX platform.
Wemade expressed its ambition to leap into a ‘great company’ through its accumulated know-how and the WEMIX platform. No other company in Korea has as rich experience in cryptocurrency-based gaming platforms as Wemade. CEO Jang stated, "Wemade is a frontier in NFTs, cryptocurrency financial services, and DeFi. Because we have even experienced the most failures, we are the best at what we do." He emphasized, "An economy that can continuously grow through countless infinite transactions can create a much larger market than ever before and become the largest platform."
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