"Get Ready, Wemade"… Netmarble Joins the Coin Market

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Netmarble is making a full-scale entry into the P2E market by launching its own base currency blockchain ecosystem, MARBLEX (MBX). A fierce competition for market leadership is expected with Wemade, which has established itself as a leading P2E game player centered on WEMIX.

◆Netmarble also issues its own coin=According to industry sources on the 8th, Netmarble opened the official website of MBX (MARBLEX) and released the MBX whitepaper the day before. The whitepaper contains the structural characteristics and technical strengths of MBX, plans for issuing and distributing the base currency, strategies to ensure service sustainability, and future roadmaps.

Within the ecosystem, MBX is used as the base currency, and the MBX Wallet is used as the wallet. MBXL (Marblex Link) and game-specific tokens are used as sub-tokens of MBX. Dedicated tokens earned in platform games can be exchanged for MBXL, and MBXL can be exchanged for other game tokens or MBX. Once MBX is listed on exchanges, it will also be possible to convert it into cash.

The total issuance volume of MBX is 1 billion tokens. Of these, 750 million (75%) will mostly be used for the ecosystem fund (375 million) and community fund (300 million). The remaining 250 million (25%) will be allocated to marketing (5%), partner token sales (10%), and blockchain team contributors (10%).

To prevent token value collapse, token burning will also be conducted. 50% of the fees generated from the service will be burned, and the remaining 50% will be accumulated in a growth fund to contribute to long-term ecosystem activation.

The platform roadmap was also revealed. The platform and wallet will be built first, and the P2E game A3: Steel Alive, which has been announced for release, will be launched this year. Afterwards, with the official launch of the MBX platform, The Second World: Crossworlds will be onboarded, followed sequentially by Everyone's Marble: Meta World and Monster Taming: Arena.

The reason MBX’s ecosystem is attracting attention is that it is building a system for blockchain and P2E from the initial planning stage, rather than applying blockchain to existing intellectual property (IP). Everyone's Marble: Meta World is a representative example. Everyone's Marble: Meta World inherits the strategic board game nature of its predecessor while developing into an investment game where players purchase land, build buildings, and trade NFT-based real estate in a city-based metaverse. It aims to be a real map-based real estate metaverse where players adventure with their avatars.

Bang Junhyuk, Chairman of Netmarble’s Board, said, "Starting with Everyone's Marble: Meta World, Netmarble’s metaverse games will expand, and blockchain games as well as various content such as webtoons and web novels will be actively utilized to ultimately build a metahuman-based platform." He added, "Netmarble will challenge a new evolved form of metaverse that integrates games, metaverse, and blockchain."

◆Intensifying competition for P2E market leadership=The strongest current competitor to Netmarble MBX is undoubtedly Wemade’s WEMIX. Wemade is strengthening partnerships with plans to onboard 100 games onto ‘WEMIX’ within this year. It is expanding the WEMIX ecosystem by signing business agreements with more than 10 major domestic game companies including NHN, Joycity, and Webzen.

Recently, WEMIX faced a crisis due to controversy over mass selling and a decline in value, but it is actively working to restore trust by enhancing value through measures such as burning 20 million WEMIX tokens.

Wemade, which has established itself as the leader in the domestic P2E market, is now making a full-scale push for global expansion of WEMIX. It plans to participate in the ‘Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2022’ opening on the 21st to introduce the WEMIX platform. For this, it is participating as a Diamond-level sponsor and has set up a total of 60 booths. The booths will broadcast cinematic mode videos of Wemade’s flagship ship featured in the key visuals, introduce the WEMIX platform, and hold business meetings related to onboarding blockchain games. The plan is to encourage developers worldwide to join the ‘WEMIX’ ecosystem.

CEO Jang Hyun-guk will give a presentation titled ‘Play and Earn: Transforming Games with the Blockchain Economy,’ followed by lectures from Vice President Kim Seok-hwan and others from the WEMIX division. Networking parties with GDC participating companies and buyers are also planned.

In an interview with Asia Economy on the 3rd, CEO Jang said, "Companies that make good games don’t have cryptocurrency solutions. Since we have created one, we plan to persuade good games to connect to our cryptocurrency platform." He added, "We said we would onboard 100 games onto the WEMIX platform this year, and more than 80 of those will be external games."