Layer 1 Stage | Level Up: How Asia Is Driving Web3 Gaming

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1. 0:05

   all right can everyone hear me today I I I I hope everyone's back from from their lunch so uh please come back but anyways uh hello everyone my name is Mark me I am a uh director of uh Business Development uh here at near foundation and I also lead the gaming sector and uh work closely within the Asia side just because I live in Asia as well um and so we we have a very exciting panel today and would love for you know everyone to maybe introduce themselves and why don't

2. 0:36

   we start with uh Hannah at the end hi guys I'm Hannah I'm the marketing director at marble X so a brief intro on marble X marblex is a gaming blockchain Service Company having its headquarters in Korea's Number One gaming publisher called net marble so we mostly integrate our blockch chain services to our own um published games but we're only integrating blockchains our blockchains to high quality games and that's what

3. 1:10

   Marx does thanks okay hi um I'm Jay Jay hunai Lee and uh I'm the co-founder of the PEX gaming ptic gaming is the the content driven Gamers Community uh initiated by the company called inven which is uh based in sou Korea and inven has been operating invent is the largest Gamers Community like Web Two Gamers community in Korea and at the same time we are the most influential game media in Korea too so we've been operating invent um past 18 years and uh the Kno hows and

4. 1:54

   knowledges like you know that we have we acquired like like past 18 years we want to plug that into web 3 space and politic politic gaming is all about that and politics gaming is a new gaming oriented uh social media that unifies web 2 and web 3 gaming contents and The Gamers all together in a single space lastly we have uh Scott from H hello everyone my name is Scott I'm uh general manager of New York Korea Hub uh we launched last year um around this time uh it's been a year now since we

5. 2:35

   run uh Regional hubs of a New York Korea Hub and we are very focused on bringing a lot of uh web to gaming companies Enterprises um to a sh a mass adoption and uh I'm glad to have our onboarded partners such as Forex gaming and marlex so we are closely working with our partners you know making sure that you know they get brand awareness uh they get the cool marketing and then they get support what we need and then uh

6. 2:59

   especially Korea Hub has a dep team so we actually do provide tech support to our partners uh I think that kind of differentiates uh from other chains that you know that's how we own board and work with our partners thank you thank you for that so yeah really excited because today I think we have various angles bringing in kind of the the view of kind of the Asia Market specifically within gaming right we have game developers we have the game community

7. 3:26

   and we have someone focused on developing the the you know Asia region right so you know today's topic is how is Asia driving web 3 gaming so so why don't we start with that why don't we start with you know what's the view on the current you know gaming market right within Asia and you know how has development kind of uh you know been driving so who wants to anyone Scott you want to talk a little bit more on just the Asia landscape and and and maybe kind of some background within how Asia has really been a leader within the you know drivve gaming innovation

8. 4:00

   yeah how many people here play games mobile games anything console PC yes so Korea started around 1990 uh with the PC games console games and then I think around 2010 after iPhone launched I think Mobile gaming really kicked off and uh some of the big names you know from Korean gaming companies uh NE marble um Nexon uh nail uh uh Crafton so I mean we do have have a lot of you know um uh uh many of the RPG games kind of you create a hype and free toplay model

9. 4:36

   and then it's uh Korean gaming companies are unique because they're very open to web3 so Koreans are usually very fast at adopting new technologies and try with the uh blockchain and then they actually around 2020 2021 they started adopting or creating their um platform such as Marvel X um so I think um Korean gamings are very bold on web 3 and I truly believe that uh Mass adoption will come from the gaming so um I think we are way hard ahead of us actually us has a big companies like you

10. 5:10

    know blizzard uh EA Sports but I think Korean gaming companies are more keen to uh try new things making sure uh we three gamings are are alive that that's very complete thank you for that Scott did uh Hannah or Jay want to talk a little bit about this okay I want to add in like few more points like being in the gaming industry for past 20 years like uh like I I have seen the histories like how it evolved so evaluating the entire Asian gaming market like outside of Korea that's

11. 5:43

    beyond my knowledge but speaking of the Korean gaming Market industry Koreans like we made a quite significant like significant uh the contribution in the history of gaming and uh innovation of Korean like gaming like it can be divided into two different era uh in the in two in 2000s and 2010s in 2000s uh the there was this emergence of the Esports in Korea and uh Starcraft and Starcraft 2 were the huge part of this and the

12. 6:26

    professional players like they have attained they have gained like celebrity status and uh the game matches like it were televised and drawing more even more audiences and uh it just became like one of the entertainment contents beloved by the entire country and in 2000s there was a the emergence of PC online gaming as well so Korean uh developers started making work class games like lineage Ragnarok and maple

13. 7:04

    story and going back to 2010s like uh the with the introduction of iPhone the mobile game like became a very popular and the concept of free of free to play was introduced to the market and while traditional game developers and Gamers like didn't really like this change like Korean Developers and Gamers like quickly adopted and embraced the mobile gaming market so major Korean like game studios like uh entered into

14. 7:41

    the mobile gaming Market early on and made quite successful games and in 2010s like also the Koreans are one of the Pioneers in gacha which has became a stable uh monetization mechanism in thousands of games now in 2020s I feel that Korea is once again at the Forefront of the web three gaming thank you for that I I think uh you definitely kind of went into more of the the next question that I was going to ask as well is you know how has Korea

15. 8:18

    LED but maybe taking a step back in terms of overall Asia I think you know gaming has uh always driven a lot of innovation and has attracted a lot of growing talent to build and develop within Asia you have the markets within Korea you have markets within Japan you have markets within China that has been a lot of time to develop you know to these really strong Studios and other countries within the region also has a

16. 8:43

    very strong retail market and users to play the games and that's why I think it's such an interesting and very big scope within a lot of the funds the gaming funds that are looking to develop and invest in it right and and so Hannah did you have anything else to add in terms of maybe either the Asia Market or even just specifically the Korea market I'll be a bit more General as these two have highlighted only Korea I'll be a bit more General on the whole of Asia so

17. 9:10

    Japan uh started a new trend in console gaming with huge companies like Nintendo Sega and Sony um also brought a new trend to Arcade arcade gaming in the 70s and 80s um bringing big Mega hit games like Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers and stuff like that Korea has been um made gaming a actal sports by bringing the birth of Esports gaming free to play games unlike Western countries um a new trend to mobile gamings that what's that's what we do in Marble X and met

18. 9:50

    marble and such other things like that but I think Asia's um growth it's you know it's not ending just here it's it's it's only starting now so I think everyone should uh keep uh looking forward to the APAC regions gaming industry and you know look forward to that so so that's a great segue right uh we always say is it too late um obviously I think what Hannah is saying it's still early within gaming at least web 3 gaming and and that's something that I I actually truly do believe um we

19. 10:24

    have so many good titles developing and we haven't really seen one that's a sustainable model toow own develop yet so I think you know this is newcon we're here to talk about blockchain and crypto and and how that relates and so maybe let's segue from Gaming's General market to actually the web 3 side right and and you know maybe uh Scott could start you know what do you think in terms of you know where we are at in terms of the web 3 gaming and kind of how does Asia or

20. 10:49

    Korea specifically kind of accelerate that yeah um I think it's very early um uh I talked to a lot of the CEOs from major gaming companies and they they they even even though they have a lot of users conversion rate are usually from 10 to 20% so um the the M problem is that you know uh General users or players of the we two gamings uh they have suchal barriers to enter into web3 Market because of you know login

21. 11:15

    experience you know creating a wallet or transferring their uh digital assets uh working with the nfts so uh these are Big hles even they're experiencing it you know as they uh create web3 gaming so I think um there where that's where near uh kind of comes in uh we help them with the fast off and some of the easy onboarding experiences and we always tell them you know look uh it's very um near is a high thrp put you know low

22. 11:40

    cost and it's one of the best platforms to launch your game so uh I think it's been kind of proven uh to Korean market and I think we are pushing more gaming companies you know with the vortex gaming now we have a big Community now we have a good uh IPS so um I think uh uh slowly slowly I think we are adopting into web3 gaming so so I love this uh clearly Scott has done a lot of business

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    development for near and Korea since he kind of has a lot of good selling points on you know the pros here so maybe Hannah can you talk a little bit more on you know why do you think Korea has been able to accelerate more of the web 3 gaming versus other markets and um obviously speak from within either the company you know your company or even just within the the industry itself um in Korea gaming is taken a lot

24. 12:31

    more seriously compared to other regions over the world like for instance um I'm not sure you guys know what a PC bang means it's a facility that Koreans have it's a room it's it's basically an internet cafe but it's all over the place more focused on gaming it's normal for like a teenage boy to go spend time in these PC bungs like for about like8 hours a day um not even talking to their girlfriend and that's one of the reasons they always get into a fight because

25. 13:04

    they play too much games it's normal for teenage boys to wanting to take gaming as a real career and the governments um support that in Korea and that's why I think Korea has been um accelerating in gaming and also web Street gaming so so I think you had on a point right there which is a culture right I think culture historically seems like uh um the Korean entrepreneurs have been very willing in terms of to innovate very willing to take risk and try new things to see if they can make it and you can see this

26. 13:38

    with kind of what Jay said earlier in terms of new business models with the free to play more and and historically kind of what that's done right and and so I I find that to be very very interesting and maybe next we can step into more of like maybe the Korea Gaming Community right and and and how that relates to to I guess the developers in terms of building the games right so so so maybe Jay maybe you want to talk a little bit more about the uh Gaming

27. 14:03

    Community so definitely like web three gaming like uh it has gained like interest and attention but compared to other sectors of the gaming industry like it is not as established but um given that like web3 Gaming Community is um I mean it's emerging and evolving in Korea but it's just just the not there yet like but uh the and the dominant web3 Gaming Community is currently absent and just like any other countries like in Korean web gaming the community

28. 14:46

    is fragmented and Scattered on Discord Twitter like telegrams so this where we want to kick in I mean Forex cing like we want to kick into that area you know we want to make a breakthrough mhm so so I think it's very very interesting kind of what what Vortex kind of is trying to achieve here I mean they're basically coming in you know we we have a few projects for example you know the top projects on near our building kind of these web 2.5 right basically I already have a platform with millions of users

29. 15:19

    and onboarding them to web 3 and in a way that's you know what Vortex is doing right they're they're utilizing the parent company invent and and seemingly kind of providing a new EXP experience new model and really onboarding them to be able to provide I guess more value and engagement to their users so um yeah Scott do you have anything you know to add within the kind of web 3 gaming

30. 15:41

    community and within Asia or just Korea yeah um so um I think Jay explained very well that it's uh it's kind of shame that we still using vcore U as a community platform and um I mean Jay has experienced that inent is a is a one of the you know biggest gaming community in Korea and media uh they're actually their mu is great diu if you look at invents you know the metrics it's it's it's amazing so I mean they're they're

31. 16:06

    trying to figure out you know how they can gather all these scattered and siloed communities into one so the players or users uh can kind of you know uh make a social uh and then they can actually communicate within the one platform I think that's the beauty of Vex gaming and just um just to elaborate more I think the web3 Gaming Community uh should be the pillar and the core of

32. 16:29

    our gaming because it's the whole point about this you know blockchain is is to communicate uh in a transparency manner so I think um uh bortex gaming probably next year I'm very bold that you know they going to take the whole uh web 3 gaming community in Korea awesome so talking about web 3 gaming Community I think it's only fair to actually talk about how does that really work right uh a lot of questions we always get is or ask as well is why does it need to be on

33. 17:01

    the blockchain right like like what does it really add value um is it is it something that we're actually that we need right and obviously I would say I definitely put a lot of thought into this personally on how we can create value why it's valuable but I I think you know especially these Builders as well as Scott you know definitely I guess question why do you think you know how does blockchain fit and then why uh

34. 17:25

    you know why would you utilize it and things like that Hannah can you yeah I it's about the ownership and sharing the profits or Revenue uh uh shares with with the users I think um I used to play lineage uh uh by noft and you know I think Korea loves playing RPG but um it's not you are not really owning your items it's it's companies it belongs to companies and you actually uh can trade

35. 17:49

    this you know buy and sell this gaming items uh through uh Black Market with gray Market but it's all about the transparency where uh uh gaming companies actually can take some uh revenues uh by charging them uh commissions and they can actually bring that you know career area into you know a more brighter area and then you're actually uh telling your users that look it's items is yours and it's in your wallet I think it's all about giving

36. 18:15

    back to users uh and and then uh being transparent with users so um I think that's a whole point why they should uh definitely adopt blockchain okay Hannah did you want to add anything yeah yeah um I think gaming is the next Tipping Point for blockchain um Mass adoption just by sharing some of our kpis but before I go into that why don't you guys search up some of our games onto your app stores and then after you played it sometimes today why don't you come find

37. 18:48

    me and we can talk about this so go to your App Stores um let's search in meta world my city which is one of our most recent games or you could do nuni crosswells n i n o kuu n i and then we could talk again well I'll go through the kpis um youo crossworlds it's a large MMO RPG based on Studio gbre I'm sure most of you are familiar with that studio from Japan um Studio GPR and level five's IP so we have achieved a

38. 19:27

    lot of cap just by integrating blockchain because we had achieved number one position in Google sales in Japan Korea and Taiwan after blockchain integration we achieved top 10 in Google sales in North America which is huge for a APAC company like us um A3 still alive it's a MMO RPG based on Battle Royale PVP content um after integrating blockchain we actually increased uses about 620 per and lastly for metaal my city which is our most recent product um it's a

39. 20:09

    monopoly based board game metaverse game which is really fun to play it's one of my favorite we top we um achieved top Google sales in Taiwan Korea Thailand Indonesia most of APAC was blockchain integration so just by looking at our Mar kpis you can see how blockchain and gaming are so compatible no uh thank you for those actual case set examples I wasn't wasn't actually sure that you're going to say that I was going to go more with the

40. 20:41

    theoretical so J Jay do you have anything else to add on that yes like our I'm going to share my um opinion from the community's like perspectives perfect I mean obviously like I'm in the web 3 business so I think the blockchain is a perfect technology for especially for games and my personal conviction goes like even beyond that like I believe like soon Gamers will not like differentiate uh from web two games and

41. 21:11

    web three games and refer just you know refer to them just as a games like that that is my conviction and uh the traditional the problem right now in the market is that uh traditional Gamers like web two Gamers they rather like treat blockchain games as a investment vehicle not as a like you know the genuine like means of enjoyment that is the problem that we see like from the community angle but I

42. 21:45

    think this is natural like looking back to the past like in 2000s like when PC online was booming and 2010s like mobile game was booming like there's always individuals with a negative view on like new developments so I think this is Perfectly Natural and like here we are like 2023 like hardly anyone has negative perception on games right especially mobile games like it just became the integral part of our everyday life so I think blockchain game like web three

43. 22:26

    gaming is going through the exactly same process now and uh substantial number of Gamers right now uh has a negative perception on I mean the the who haven't even tried like web three games but they do have negative outlook on web three games so like improving such negative perception is a key and it's the mission of the vortex gaming like at uh Forex gaming at a higher level like what we are trying to

44. 23:04

    achieve is like we want to break down the psychological barriers like the The Gamers uh trying like web three games I think uh the the we like from the from our past experiences like on the building successfully building the web 2 Gaming Community in Korea we believe the key to building like organic and sustainable Gaming Community like El lies in Contents and so at politic gaming like

45. 23:39

    we're going to be uh unifying web 2 and web 3 gaming contents and Gamers all together in a single space and we're going to be continuously exposing users to the web 3 game contents and we're going to be facilitating like communication between web 2 and web three users and we believe that will be uh instrumental like to achieve our goal okay thank you for that I think you hit on so many great points that you know in

46. 24:10

    this past year of of looking within the gaming market and Industry and following web 3 that that you hit on right I think you know I would say at last nearon everyone still talking you know the a huge gap between web 2 Gaming and web 3 gaming and now it's not really about that it's just generally about gaming right the market is so competitive what are you trying to do you're actually trying to create a game you know game developers are trying to create a game

47. 24:34

    that people will play right and from there then it's more of the features the game play you know how things are gamified and and and and you know how blockchain fits into that and I think it's pretty exciting that Jay hit hit on a lot of points right one is the negative you know either connotation or the view of blockchain and how it's used but you know if we do it Tastefully if we if it makes sense then I think

48. 24:57

    there's really a strong strong opportunity to really have that first sustainable game that everyone plays because they like the IP because they like the content they onboard easily and they play it and then they realize oh man you're already in web 3 right you're you're you're utilizing the chain and most of the people don't know it so I I do expect and you know hope to see something like that in the near future um maybe the last part you know since since this is nearon would love to for the projects themselves maybe to speak

49. 25:27

    about kind there their experiences in in terms of you know of near right near protocol near Foundation the near ecosystem I mean you know I I I know uh in terms of your guys' product development you guys are you know haven't really launched yet but may you could speak to a little background on on just your experiences and understanding of of of the tech or or the ecosystem and things like that maybe uh what we'll

50. 25:48

    have Hannah want to start off with that um it's been such a pleasure to work with the near team um first of all near is one of the um uh you know one of those web companies that has a real Mission not only integrating blockchain to a lot of projects they're really about um linking real life and blockchain which is one of Marvel X's um kpi and road map so that's why we're great Partners but um in addition among

51. 26:19

    other Web projects now near Korea Hub has been amazing team to work with because they have a real interest in the APAC market and the Asian market they're very serious about linking the Western and the Eastern World in blockchain and it's been such a pleasure to just work with Scott and Mark and I see a few Korean Hub members here and it's been such a pleasure I second that all then uh Scott did you want to maybe talk about more on you know we have a lot of Builders here at newon

52. 26:58

    um and maybe how asiia Market can maybe work with them and kind of what the opportunities be you know uh you know if you guys joined a little bit later Scott leads our Korea Hub um obviously gaming is is not their only mandate and only focus but that is something that you know they they worked heavily on just mainly due the Korean market so so Scott you know now that we have a little bit more people here I would love for you maybe

53. 27:22

    talk a little bit more about maybe what the opportunities might be for you to kind of support and work with that yeah career is good at uh creating contents IPS if you look at Netflix you know we have a lot of Korean drama series you know movies um um and we have a great Builders um I think why Korea gaming is so strong not only nation Market but globally is that we have a such strong

54. 27:44

    Builders and uh on top of that I think U near provides such a a good you know uh strong technical feature such as fasts met of transactions and you know function call Keys uh utilizing this you know technical features I think um Korea should be really driving this web3 GL uh uh gaming in the global market um I'm I'm glad that Japanese is opening up their market and they have a lot of content in IP historically they've been

55. 28:10

    very known uh for the good gamings and so when we match with their uh contents and our Builders and um uh good companies like you know neoral um Vortex gaming I think we can certainly create a a a lead and take the lead in uh with through gaming market so uh please uh come to the vortex gaming Boost they have a bus and then we're going to be around uh the bus area and then we would

56. 28:33

    like to talk more about you know Korean gaming landscape how we can help you guys to you know sort of you know make an introduction to Korean market perfect okay uh I think our time's about up and uh why don't we do some last takeaways or if there's any last points you guys wanted to bring up um Hannah did you have anything else to add for just as I mentioned um please look up our games talk to me if you're interested because

57. 28:58

    it's no other like other games it's more of like a web 2 game if you play it it's fast it's you wouldn't see um all the blockchain aspects in the front and the uiux part it's more in the background so it's just like a real good quality game so please come off there you try it yeah yeah so I think I would add uh additionally to kind of more of the retail The Gamers but also if you're a

58. 29:22

    game Studio you know definitely should talk to henah as well you know for more understanding of the know Korean market or kind of the opportunities with them as well right um Jay do you have anything you last words to yeah just come talk to us like at the ecosystem Booth we'll be there awesome well thank you for everyone's time I want to thank our panelists kind of for for you know

59. 29:44

    coming up taking out talking and sharing a little bit more about Asia and thank you guys for sitting over here and uh welcome hopefully you guys had a big lunch and hope you guys enjoy the rest of the first day of newcon thank you thank you n