by Joori Roh
SEUL (Reuters) – South Korean video game makers are luring players with services that use non-fungible tokens (NFTs), following a trend that companies see as the future of the industry and driving their stocks up sharply in recent weeks .
The advantage is that these NFTs can be traded for digital money, that is, cryptocurrencies. However, South Korean regulators have banned NFT games in the country because of concerns that these new services could fuel addiction among teenagers and very young people. For now, these games are only accessible abroad.
“It’s not blockchain technology that we’re banning,” an official with the South Korean Gaming Rating and Management Committee told Reuters, on condition of anonymity. “What we’re saying ‘no’ is to applying NFTs that might be connected to real assets,” he said.
That didn’t stop South Korean producer Wemade from moving forward with the global release of the NFT-applied game, MIR4, in late August.
The game has attracted more than 1.3 million players abroad, sending the company’s share price soaring by more than 600% since its launch. The market value also soared more than 11 times to 6.6 trillion won ($5.55 billion) during the same period.
In Wemade’s MIR4 game, at the moment, players can only earn money by mining “Dark Steel”, which can eventually be converted to the WEMIX listed cryptocurrency.
WEMIX has been trading in a range of $17.50 to $21.64 for the past 24 hours, compared to $0.21 earlier this year, according to CoinMarketCap.
Despite the local regulatory hurdle, other South Korean developers are also looking to cash in on the NFT boom.
“Winning used to be the main goal of games … but with the integration of NFTs and cryptocurrencies, it has become more than just winning the game, but a method of making money,” said Lee Sang-hun, analyst at Hi Investment & Securities .
This month, NCSoft Corp said it is readying the 2022 release of a game that includes NFTs and blockchain elements. The company’s shares jumped the 30% daily limit on Nov. 11, when the producer made the announcement.
Krafton, responsible for the hit “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds,” has also seen its shares soar, up 22% since Nov. 11, when the company announced it was looking into integrating NFTs into its games.
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