Web2 to Web3: Reimagining the Future of Blockchain Games - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2023

hey guys uh really nice to be here I'm Keith I'm from uh next space I'm a head of strategy I'm currently working on Maple stet Universe um yeah and here's Alex yeah hi everyone uh I'm Alexander the chairman and uh one of the co-founders of Sky Mavis creators of axi infinity and rer network happy to be here right it's really exciting to be here especially talking with you Alex you guys are the founders of this web 3 gaming genre this is really crazy I mean coming from the web 2 background we've been making um web 2 games for around 20 years 30 years actually 20 years for maple story alone yeah so it's really exciting to you know learn from you and share insights with you thank you Keith I'm I'm uh I'm super excited that uh or to be here today and also to to talk with you guys from maple story to see that uh that you guys are actually building in web 3 uh so you know it's been a while since we first heard about it so uh I mean can you maybe tell me a little bit about that why why is uh maple story building a blockchain game right um so uh we've been working on this project for about last two years um and uh so maple story for some of you know uh some of you guys who don't know about the IP um so it has been turn it has turned 20 this year 20 years old this year so it was launched back in 2003 it has over 4 billion dollars cumulative um gross revenue so far with like 180 million users so and and it's growing really rapidly this year has been the best year for us so um yeah this is a feat that's very hard to see in this gaming industry so why are we coming into the web 3 is really about you know to enhance and strengthen the success factors uh that made the web 2 maple story successful right to say that so um we've observed that um in the web 2 maple story there are a lot of community activities around the maple story IP and and those were really the key drivers of uh maple story IP's expansion and growth so what I mean by community activities around IP is for example f art cosplay streams videos and sometimes they make their own games using our IP and I think these are really important in making our IP sustainable but um for the last 20 years of running this game in web 2 these um community activities were always unrecognized always outside the official circle of maple ecosystem so by you know uh making a system with blockchain of recognizing the creators and contributors um efforts in expanding and growing our IP and rewarding them um with um our uh assets and ability to create items I think we uh believe that um we can make our IP much more sustainable and uh much more expansive in a way yeah I think uh you know one of the main benefits that blockchain brings uh to Gamers is that they can take part more in the value that's being created and that's one of the principles that we try to follow with axi as well especially as we expand the universe so we try to incentivize you know the right kind of user Behavior let them use the IP as well to build their own games and then also um you know share a little bit of more of the value that's being created and I I think it's great to see that you know more traditional web 2 uh game studios are doing that as well uh because if you share more of the value you know the ecosystems have a tendency to grow bigger and when we look at some of the metrics from axi you know we generated uh over $4 billion doll in traded volume of nfts uh between players and and that's uh quite significant even in the in in web two terms of course not counting the the revenue that you guys have had but it's still a massive amount and I think that uh by following the same kind of uh logic the the the the ecosystem for maple story could be much bigger uh if we do build in web 3 right so um x infinity and Sky Mavis has been building in this arena for quite a long time already and not only building but you guys are already live live operating the services can you tell me some things that you have learned along the way and and what is your road map ahead sure so yeah now it's been uh a little bit over 5 years I say almost 6 years since we started u Sky Mavis and axi right and since that time we obviously learned a lot and I think one of the key reasons why we wanted to get started is to experiment and to have something live in the market means that you are much faster uh with learning and that you can uh uh course correct faster if things are not going well uh so for axi you know we've had several games that we've released uh and we're now coming to the point where the ecosystem is growing uh so fast that we want to connect all of the experiences into one unified progression system so what you can say here is that you have your main axi game character and you will be able to travel with that character through many different type of games and then earn experience points in all of those games and then bring that experience to your main character which then get level up and I think for many people this might sound a little bit like metaverse or interoperability and that is because it is and I think it makes sense to start within one Universe first so build interoperability between in in your IP first and then maybe we'll see uh what what comes uh what comes next and I guess you guys are also doing something similar for maple story right right I think your approach and um our approach is very similar in a way that we are starting uh our launch uh in uh early next year with our maple story n which is the PC web 3 enabled MMO RPG maple story and from there we are expanding just like x infinity Universe uh we are inviting creators and contributors to build their own DFS using our IP um and then allowing our nfts like characters and items to be used in various different D apps it could be you know things like a you know maple story IP move to earn or it can be a a casual game it doesn't have to be as you know heavy as a mm or RPG right so it's diversification and allowing a lot of people talented people to come in build and be rewarded for it I think this is the way forward yeah using your asset or building an emotional connection with your asset through many different experiences I think really is is the key and the fact is that you can uh expand upon the I think everything that the axi is doing or for example for in our case that you will be able to see everything that the your asset has been doing over time I think is very powerful because for example if your axi asset has done many many strong things you're less likely to sell it but that axi might have more value because of everything that is uh that it has done and to me that's a very important concept right exactly and uh for us we are building we are actually known for building a longl lasting MMO RPG in the web 2 space so uh so our take on the um the core of MMO RPG has two parts Parts the first part is a social elements and the second part is a reward experience of users so by reward experience I mean so mm RPG is about you know gearing up you know getting a better gear equipment you know uh tracking down bigger and harder boss monsters right and you know and in an upward cycle but there's a social element to it so this kind of Growing Experience Is Never Done alone this is always done in an online environment together with you know a lot of people so these two cores are very important in success of mmpg and I believe blockchain technology can um strengthen these two mechanisms in a way so we're exposing the users um Into You Know Much More depth of social interactions how people first meet interact and collect their assets grow their assets I mean yeah blockchain will you know really strengthen the cores of the games and doesn't have to be you know only for MMO RPGs I guess I I would actually say that I think almost all blockchain games are MMOs by default uh because the economies are open and that is also why it's so difficult to make a great game right and I think kind of going back to your what you talked about live operations is is uh one of the most difficult things is basically telling people uh when or I guess explaining to them why they should do something uh or why they should play the right uh or what's the purpose of the game um so yeah I'm quite excited to see where where where the story goes both for axi and of course maple story and you know if there might be something to do together in the future exactly exactly so uh maper universe is uh actually you know our in know long rad map we are uh we would like to invite the nft creators you know different nfts uh you know other than maple Universe nfts to come in and also allowing our nfts to travel outside of our ecosystem so it's really I think about removing the silos allowing my assets my characters to travel everywhere it wants to be and I I think you know uh before when you know before all this uh concepts of web 3 gaming there were you know metaverse boom right uh metaverse spring everybody was talking about building metaverse but I think this is the real tangible shape of how you know uh working metaverse might be in the future yeah I think uh one of the bigger problems that we've seen in web 3 especially in web 3 gaming is how just that there are few operators who have shipped games before and of course also live operated them U but we're now getting to the point where there are serious actors also coming in and the people that have been building in the space for several years you know Sky Mavis now coming up on four on six years we're starting to get a lot of experience we're starting to see a lot of data and we're starting to understand more of what should the endgame uh potentially look like what what is actually uh the possibilities of this technology it's not only experimentation even though I think experimentation is the key uh to drive Innovation I think that we're getting to the point where we might be able to to to do it in a more sustainable way uh so I'm very excited about that for for axi as well moving forward right so uh in this way I think blockchain is really even coming from the web two background is going to push the boundaries of what it you know what mm RPG stands for what games stands for and also what it means to play online game in general so it's really upgrading experience I mean I think there are quite a lot of Gamers who are quite um what's the right term for it you know quite a lot of people don't like web 3 that are infused with games what what's your take on this so I think it comes from a lack of understanding and uh of course that there are scammers and have been scammers in the space but overall I think we have a job to to do as game developers to explain the benefits of web 3 more clearly so what does it actually mean to own your game item so looking at our motivation for building Sky Mavis we believe that players and people should own their own data so whenever I'm using a platform like Facebook I believed always believed that I should be the owner of that data and by extension that means that whenever I'm playing games I should also own these game items and be able to use them for whatever I want moving forward and the most important part for me was not necessarily to be able to sell them uh but to be able to prove to others that I have actually been doing these things um online Because the Internet is so fake it's really hard to prove real things but I think with blockchain we can actually do that uh and I think that's one of the benefits that is most often overlooked but to me one of the really the core tenants and as to why I'm motivated to build in the space after such a long period of time I think we share a very similar Vision I I totally agree with you um users own ownership to their games and their items and um being able to build with whatever they have um uh and and expand the IP I think that's the way forward for the blockchain games and you know it's really about um educating people or Gamers on that blockchain is not trying to create a new type of game but rather transforming and enhancing the current experience and yeah this is going to be really really exciting and that's definitely the for Korean companies right being on the Forefront of of web 2 as well and and especially freet to play you guys have gone through this cycle before uh so now that we see similar things happening in web 3 to me it's a very positive sign seeing big actors like Nexon or next Bas being a part of the industry so yeah it's good awesome all right I think our time is about to go over so um guys nexton will be around at The Press Room uh from 5:00 p.m. you can find us at the maple story uh PR room I think it's nearby over there yeah so please catch us there and thank you so much Alex for uh speaking coming out with me and sharing your Insight for having me thank