Editor's Note: The subject of NFTs is currently a very controversial topic in the gaming community. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.
PUBG: Battlegrounds' creator Krafton is developing an NFT metaverse in Unreal Engine in collaboration with NAVER, the company behind Asia's largest metaverse platform, ZEPETO, which has more than 290 million users.
Krafton will use its experience creating online games like PUBG to build the virtual world alongside a user-generated content creation tool in the Web 3.0 and NFT-based project.
NAVER Z, the subsidiary of NAVER that Krafton has entered a memorandum of understanding with, meaning a nonbinding agreement, will use its experience designing and running ZEPETO to manage the metaverse's services.
HyungChul Park, lead of the Web 3.0 team at Krafton, said: "This partnership between Krafton and NAVER Z is bolstered by each company’s unique expertise and shared global focused as they look toward a future driven by NFTs and metaverses.
"By combining Krafton's existing technologies and research on how to build scalable Web 3.0 creator-driven ecosystems with NAVER Z and ZEPETO’s experience and capabilities, we’re confident we can build a high-quality user-generated content-driven open metaverse that stands apart from other services and vitalizes the global creator economy through NFT technologies."
The two companies announced their partnership hours after Krafton made equity investments into Seoul Action Blue (purchasing $2.5 million worth of stock) and its subsidiary XBYBLUE (purchasing $4.1 million worth of stock).
Seoul Action Blue is an affiliate of South Korea's largest art auctioneer and aims to expand the market by running a joint art purchasing platform while XBYBLUE operates a service that secures and curates IPs.
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are essentially one-of-a-kind pieces of online content that can be bought and sold - imagine fine-art collecting but digitally. This speaks to the specialty of both companies, and Krafton has also entered a memorandum of understanding with them to develop NFT-orientated products.
NFTs have been a polarizing topic in the gaming industry with companies appearing hot and cold on the new, untested market.
Worms creator Team 17 recently announced and cancelled an NFT project within 24 hours while STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World went a step further and cancelled its plans within one hour. Voice actor Troy Baker, known for roles in a number of games including The Last of Us, also recently ventured into NFTs before quickly withdrawing following fan backlash, and Indie game marketplace Itch.io called NFTs a scam.
There is still something of a goldrush in the industry however, with Krafton being the latest to get on board. It joins retailer GameStop, who recently announced that it's launching an NFT marketplace, and Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft who has also moved into the NFT space, with a company executive commenting that "gamers don't get it".
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.