Just last month, we reported on KRAFTON making interesting moves for the metaverse. Though its most famous game is undoubtedly Player Unknown: Battlegrounds, a tremendously popular battle royale, KRAFTON’s roster of developed or published games has some gems in it; Natural Selection 2, Subnautica, and TERA, for instance. The latter, TERA, an MMORPG, is seemingly a focal point for this move for the metaverse as it was explicitly stated that KRAFTON would be leaning on its experience with MMOs.
KRAFTON’s plays for Web3 have been a little complicated and roundabout, but here is an excerpt summarizing it from the above-linked article.
“KRAFTON has made two key plays with regard to blockchain. The first is partnering with NAVIER Z (why are all these companies shouting their name?) “to build an NFT metaverse platform.” The second is making equity investments in Seoul Auction Blue and XBYBLUE.“
Now, however, KRAFTON has officially announced a major partnership.
KRAFTON Signs Long-Term Agreement With Solana Labs for Blockchain Games and Services
In a press release today, 23rd March 2022, KRAFTON announced their long-term partnership with Solana Labs in the interest of creating blockchain games and services. In addition to working on NFT-based games, and services surrounding them, the statement declared that both KRAFTON and Solana Labs will be jointly investing too. This will hopefully assist in the furthering of blockchain gaming and support the wealth of indie developers bootstrapping the sector into relevance.
“We’re excited by KRAFTON’s commitment to build the future of gaming on Solana, KRAFTON is an established innovator in the games industry and we are excited to be part of their next level up. We are seeing gamers increasingly seek out on-chain games and gaming companies who respond quickly to this demand will set themselves up well for ongoing success.” — Johnny Lee, Head of Games Business Development, Solana Labs
Final Thoughts
Solana has a clear interest in taking a bite out of the blockchain gaming and Play-to-Earn (P2E) sector, and its scalability through Proof of History and its alleged transaction ceiling means it is well situated. Solana hasn’t seen plain sailing with a number of outages — six in January alone — but in such a new industry, I think some teething problems can be forgiven.
This could well be a landmark partnership for both Solana and KRAFTON, as well as a milestone in blockchain gaming. KRAFTON has long proven its prowess in the development and publishing of brilliant games and the blockchain gaming subsector yearns for such experience.
