The Future Everyone in the Industry Knows, Making New Businesses Even More Competitive
Continuous Entry into P2E, NFT, and More
Rushing to Secure Blockchain Platforms
Severe Shortage of Related Experts
Hiring with Top Salaries and Rewards
[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] The gaming industry has collectively launched a competition to recruit blockchain experts. This comes as various game companies embark on new businesses this year utilizing blockchain platforms, such as P2E (play-to-earn) games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Each game company is competing to attract talent by offering industry-leading salaries and benefits.
According to the gaming industry on the 25th, the total number of blockchain-related developer positions being recruited across the industry has surpassed 100. Most of these developers are expected to be assigned to new business projects that each game company plans to launch this year, including blockchain platform construction, NFTs, and metaverse (extended virtual world) related tasks.
"Industry-Leading" Competition
Game companies, struggling with a shortage of developers, are also facing difficulties in recruiting blockchain experts. The absolute scarcity of blockchain specialists combined with the need for understanding of the gaming industry has intensified the recruitment competition. Some game companies have even included ‘blockchain-related knowledge’ as a preferred qualification in most developer job postings.
Netmarble has begun recruiting blockchain server developers for its newly established subsidiary ‘Mavrex’. Unlike typical recruitment postings that last 1 to 2 months, the recruitment period was set for over 10 months, indicating the difficulty in attracting talent. Nexon posted a recruitment announcement for developers of the sandbox platform ‘Project MOD’, offering ‘industry-leading salaries and compensation’. In addition, Kakao Games, Krafton, Smilegate, and Neowiz are also competing to hire experienced blockchain professionals by offering top-tier treatment and benefits.
An industry insider said, "Some companies have set the recruitment deadline for blockchain-related talent at the end of this month, but most are struggling to meet the deadline and will likely have to extend it," adding, "Since the nature of the new businesses each company is pursuing is very similar, the desired talent profiles overlap."
Platform Preemption Competition
The reason major game companies are all entering the blockchain platform market is due to the significant first-mover advantage in the platform market. To expand their business from P2E games to NFTs and metaverse in the future, it is expected that companies that first secure blockchain platforms will have greater opportunities.
Netmarble is adding decentralized exchange (DEX) functionality to MBX, its proprietary blockchain ecosystem based on its own base currency, and is introducing a system to swap the in-game token ‘Inetrium (ITU)’ in the P2E game ‘A3: Still Alive Global’ for the bridge token ‘MBXL’. Earlier on the 7th, Netmarble launched the official site for MBX, its proprietary blockchain ecosystem, and recently established the new subsidiary Mavrex.
Com2uS Holdings and Com2uS will launch games on the C2X platform starting this month. Com2uS Holdings will first release ‘Chromatic Soul: AFK Raid’, and Com2uS will release ‘Summoners War: Hundred Years’ War’. Popular games such as ‘Summoners War: Chronicle’, ‘GeosangM Jingbirok’, ‘World of Zenonia’, and ‘Gamevil Pro Baseball’ will be introduced on the C2X platform in the future.
Kakao Games acquired WayToBit, the issuer of the virtual asset BORA, last year and plans to actively expand its blockchain game business by merging it with its subsidiary FriendsGames. Smilegate is building a global financial platform that provides financial services integrating new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.
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