Krafton Inc, creators of the PUBG battle royale genre, has announced equity investments in Seoul Auction Blue (2.5 million USD) and XBYBLUE (4.1 million USD) and have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop NFT-oriented projects. Basically, Krafton Inc wants in on all the fun, and the plan is to leverage Krafton's "large-scale massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) server operation and next-generation graphics technologies" to sell NFT avatars that can be used in the foretold metaverse in the future. Both Seoul Auction Blue and XBYBLUE will design, promote the NFT products while also managing Krafton's IP.
“KRAFTON has a rich history of developing proprietary technologies, which are part of the foundation of our NFT and metaverse development,” said CH Kim, CEO of KRAFTON, Inc. “Through partnerships with innovative companies like Seoul Action Blue, we’re confident we can combine our research and our partner’s expertise to offer new experiences that global users will find fun and engaging. This is just the beginning as KRAFTON will announce additional details related to its collaboration with Seoul Auction Blue and XBYBLUE, as well as additional global partnerships positioned to expand our business in the future.”
To be fair, PUBG still remains a titan worldwide. Less so in North America, but after its F2P launch, it nearly doubled its player count. If NFT's were in vogue from 2017 to 2019 this would undoubtedly be a much bigger deal, because back then PUBG was "it" as the most bankable and popular new gaming IP in the world.
“Through the IP of various content and artists XXBLUE has secured, we believe Seoul Auction Blue is uniquely positioned to expand and popularize the NFT and metaverse ecosystems,” said Jung-bong Lee, CEO of Seoul Auction Blue. “XXBLUE possesses a number of sustainable art IP and it will take on challenges with strong partners like KRAFTON to grow and expand those IP.”
Seoul Auction Blue is Korea's largest art auctioneer, and XBYBLUE is a subsidiary of Seoul Auction Blue and operates a service called XXBLUE, which secures IPs and offers "limited digital art content" to those unfortunate souls who are interested in such things.
PUBG: Battlegrounds is available on PC, Android, iOS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Stadia for free. For more information on everything NFT's, PUBG, and everything in between, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
What do you think of this news? Have you ever played PUBG: Battlegrounds? Are you interested in playing it? What do you think of NFT's? Let us know in the comments!
