Nexon, a leading game publisher in Asia, has announced the development of a new Web3 game based on its popular pixelated 2D role-playing franchise, MapleStory Universe. The company revealed its plans to launch a private Supernet on Polygon for the game during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. MapleStory, which was launched in 2003, has been a successful franchise for Nexon, generating over $4 billion in revenue to date and amassing over 180 million registered users. The upcoming PC game’s Polygon Supernet will provide Nexon with its own “dedicated app chain,” enabling faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum’s mainnet.

According to Hwang Sun-young, MapleStory Universe Group Leader, the game’s NFT ecosystem will be expanded by building on Polygon. The development team will work closely with Polygon Labs to develop and market the game. Polygon’s Supernets are similar to Avalanche’s Subnets, providing a dedicated sub-network for individual projects to utilize. This approach allows for some customization options for creators while insulating decentralized apps (dapps) and games from potential performance issues on the broader public network.

MapleStory Universe is an NFT-centric game, with tokenized assets playing a major role in the game and being tradable or transferrable via the game’s marketplace. While there will be no NFT presales, players will be able to earn items as NFTs simply by playing the game. Nexon also plans to issue its unique coin for the game, though the details have not yet been finalized.

According to Polygon Labs’ VP, Global Games and Platform Business Development, Urvit Goel, Nexon has a broad vision of how many transactions they think they’ll do daily because the game and the IP is so large. He also stated that Korea has been the leader in terms of developer standpoint and mentioned that the majority of South Korean game publishers are working on Web3 projects. Other major South Korean game publishers that are working on Web3 projects include NCSoft and Netmarble, both of whom are building on the upstart blockchain network Sui. Krafton, creator of the popular PUBG: Battlegrounds shooter series, is also working on various blockchain initiatives, including in partnership with Solana Labs. Polygon Labs’ President Ryan Wyatt affirmed that South Korea is “a critical market” for Web3 gaming.