TL;DR
- Avalanche and NEOWIZ form a strategic ecosystem partnership focused on web3 gaming.
- Intella X and NEOWIZ to review gaming investment opportunities in Avalanche’s ecosystem.
- Goal: Drive blockchain adoption through gaming.
NEOWIZ is one of the largest game developers and publishers in Asia, best known in the West for their MMORPG, Bless Online. After making several moves in web3, NEOWIZ has now partnered with Avalanche.
NEOWIZ and Web3
Unless you are a diehard fan of NEOWIZ, you may not know that the company has been making moves in web3 for a while now. In April 2022, WEMIX, a gaming blockchain and platform by fellow South Korean games company, WeMade, announced they would be bringing NEOWIZ’s Bless Unleashed (a reboot of Bless Online) to their web3 platform, as well as making it Play-and-Earn. Incidentally, it is still “Coming Soon” on the WEMIX platform and the developer is listed as VALOFE. (As an aside, WEMIX has a lot of Korean MMORPGs now with tokens, including C9, an MMO whose developers stole money from me 15 years ago and then banned my account when I called them out! I will never forgive or forget!)
So, it’s unclear if NEOWIZ has any involvement in that particular venture, but there’s one area they certainly do: Intella X. Here is my summary of Intella X from my article on the announcement back in May.
Intella X is a multifaceted web3 gaming platform by NEOWIZ and Polygon. Users can earn $IX token by playing or even building games on the platform, as well as traditional passive methods of staking or providing liquidity. Intella X will also redistribute a portion of all generated revenue back into the ecosystem. The platform has its own native IX Wallet which is optimized for game services.
When I saw the announcement of NEOWIZ and Avalanche partnering, I did wonder whether they were jumping the Polygon ship, but it appears that they are going to simply be multichain — good decision, NEOWIZ.
NEOWIZ and Avalanche
Avalanche is one of the leading web3 ecosystems, with a broad reach. On the gaming front, it’s a touch light, though Shrapnel is one of the best web3 games in development. Avalanche has also partnered with TSM and Blitz app for web3 esports — an area I have repeatedly highlighted as being primed for explosive growth.
Avalanche’s Ava Labs also has another gaming arm: Arcad3. Arcad3 is looking to facilitate non-web3 game developers in integrating blockchain technology through technical infrastructure and even web3 culture. NEOWIZ will be assisting in these efforts.
Alongside this, Intella X and NEOWIZ will be evaluating investment opportunities in web3 games within the Avalanche ecosystem, so if you’re a developer looking for funding, this might be a path to some runway.
Final Thoughts
Amidst the acres of doom and gloom in web3 presently, there is a lot happening beneath the surface. When the bull run is raging, it’s hard to see the wood from the trees; announcements are landing in inboxes every 30 seconds, all seemingly extraordinarily impactful. However, it’s the partnerships and initiatives that forge in the icy grips of a deep crypto winter that interest me; that’s where those who see the true value of the technology are ploughing the frigid fields. Remember them when the sun is back out and fair-weather investors want to buy your attention.
This is an interesting partnership and one I hope is fruitful, but it is also another indicator of Asia’s fierce determination to dominate web3, and a case can be made that they already are, particularly in gaming. While the West bogs itself down in the minutiae, Asia is running away with the industry, and I’m all for it.
