[Recap] Korea Blockchain Week 2022 — KYU LEE : WEB 2.0 to WEB 3.0 Gaming And The Journey Ahead
Pilots! Ready to put your pilot helmets on?
On August 9th, Kyu Lee from Com2uS USA, inc. spoke about XPLA in Korea Blockchain Week 2022.
We felt like nobody should miss our first official social debut, so here we are sharing the speech of Kyu Lee:
※Please note that the scripts below are written in spoken language
※The opinions expressed in this article are edited by the author for the purpose of viewer comprehension, and it may not necessarily reflect the exact view of Kyu Lee.
WEB 2.0 to WEB 3.0 Gaming and the Journey Ahead
Today we will be sharing about our WEB 2.0 to WEB 3.0 gaming journey that lies ahead of us.
History of Com2uS
Have you all had experience in playing Com2uS Games before?
Com2uS built mobile games from 1998 and started as one of the first global mobile game companies. Com2uS is now a world leading mobile game company all over the world.
Com2uS Games
We have built a successful mobile game business.
We’ve been developing games for a long time and we have built thousands of games throughout the 20 years since we’ve been in the business.
Today I want to share how we have been evolving and how we even got to the WEB 3.0 space in the first place.
One of our Successful Titles : Summoners War
To give you some background of Summoners War, the game has generated more than 2.7 billion dollars in revenues.
After 8 years of service, we still have roughly around 1 million global players playing everyday. The game has been a number one mobile game in 90 countries around the world, and number one RPG games in 136 countries around the world.
About Com2uS Group and the Entertainment Partnership
Due to the success of our big title mobile games, we were able to expand our business quite a lot.
To expand our business to the global stage, we invested in companies like Skybound for the creators of Walking Dead. Through distribution on the Netflix platform, we invested in the WYSIWYG STUDIOS, originally a VFX studio which now produces a lot of TV and Films.
We also expanded into KPOP Scene as well.
We recently invested in RBW music label, and MY MUSIC TASTE which is a distribution on demand online concert platform which predicts the world’s best location for certain artists to hold their concerts around the world.
All together in the gaming and entertainment industry, we are one of the few and pure transmedia companies around the world in the most humble way. (smile)
Global abroad
As a globalized company, we set up offices all around the world.
We are supporting live operations in 14 different languages.
Transition from WEB 2.0 to WEB 3.0
So how did we transition from WEB 2.0 to WEB 3.0?
Emergence of WEB 3.0
We have been keeping a close eye on Crypto Kitties, Axie Infinity, and NBA Top Shot.
When the Crypto Kitties was coming around, we thought blockchain was very interesting.
But at that time it had too many curls to go through. Moreover, the market was too early to make any decision.
Top Shot & Axie Infinity
But when Axie Infinity and Top Shot really broke through last year, that’s when we really thought about WEB 3.0 again.
When Top Shot was announced to be converted to P2E, we were thinking about MLB right away.
MLB has digital collectables that could be owned by the users. We have 8 years of business with MLB for servicing 5 different games. What will happen to our MLB business once the crypto layer is attached?
It won’t just be digital collectable, it will be digital collectable that could be played through games and that will really change the business. This is how my thoughts started on our WEB 3.0 transition.
When Axie Infinity came around and we saw billions of dollars that were multiplying each moment, we were thinking Axie Infinity looks like a simple RPG game, but with that amount of capital coming in, they hired the right talent, they invested into the production, the game value rose significantly. That’s when we sat around the table and asked the same question to each other, “What will happen to some of our business?”
Mobile game > App Store > F2P games > Blockchain
Fortunately, I really want to thank our executive team for being on top of the market transitions. It’s really hard for a company to survive more than 20 years.
We started out in the spring of college. We jumped into the mobile game business because we knew that it will be the new revolution in the future. Then what happened? iPhone. iPhone became the new future!
All of this distribution barrier was broken by the app store. So we had to put everything on the app store. Then when F2P games came around in app purchase became available in the mobile games. Then our company transitioned from a product based company to a service based company.
While throughout the 20 years, we really have been going through transitions many many times. When we really saw blockchain it was almost no brainer.
WEB 3.0 games asked the question to the market:
“Would you like to play games that give you digital ownership?”
We took that question as “Would players like to play games for free, or paid?”
C2X WEB 3.0 Gaming Platform
So We created C2X.
The WEB 3.0 Gaming Platform!
The WEB 2.0 and WEB 3.0 Users
We really looked at the market and noticed that there are millions of WEB 2.0 users, but only thousands of WEB 3.0 users. When we looked at the WEB 3.0 approach, users had to create a centralized exchange account, create a wallet, purchase NFT, and so on. Too many hurdles to just play the game!!
There’s got to be a solution.We fundamentally thought that approach goes against our philosophy when it comes to Free to Play (F2P) games.
We spent so many years optimizing the funnel for F2P, but everything in WEB 3.0 was back from it. We wanted to write our version of WEB 3.0 where it is “Free to Play and Own.”
So all of the games that the app store provides the best distribution to the world. All of the games can be downloaded on the app stores.
Anyone can play the game, after hitting a certain level our players will earn virtual currency that could be converted to tokens then they download their wallet and convert their assets and purchase NFT.
Our approach is really different from most of the games in the market.
We are looking at the games with single tokens in WEB 3.0, we thought that model can not sustain, too. There has to be enough buying pressure for the tokens to survive.
We noticed that a lot of companies were issuing tokens that are only attached to just one single game.
So we created a dual token system where C2X is the main governance token and there will be a deflatable token for every single game.
C2X SDK
When we were transitioning, we had inhouse 20 development teams. We had to create common tools that every development team could use to build a strong WEB 3.0 service and programs.
Fortunately, we had an SDK called HIVE SDK, it’s the solution tool for push notification, log-ins, cross promotions and everything. Through HIVE SDK, we were able to create C2X SDK to support our defi wallet and a marketplace, and to create blockchain SDK in a very short period of time.
Now all of the developers do not need to write a single code, but just attach the C2X SDK to create WEB 3.0 base products and services.
Beta Game Launcher
We also thought about what we could do differently to onboard more developers.
It can’t be a blockchain ecosystem just for ourselves.
What if users could participate? Fund the games, pick and choose the games that they wanted to launch, actually have the ownership of the game?
So we created the Beta Game Launcher pad.
Results of establishing WEB 3.0 game ecosystem
Since April of this year, we have launched a total of 5 games on the C2X platform, and we are planning to launch 10 games by the end of the year.
We sold Beta Game Launcher Game Fan Cards. We completely sold out the Game Fan Cards of three of these games: Summoners War: Lost Centuria, Chromatic Souls: AFK Raid, and Idle Luca.
We were learning a lot while we were doing this.
We learned that a significant amount of new users came in to play because it had a play-and-earn aspect to it. I think the free to play gaming market is already a red ocean. It is really hard even for a company like us.
We also noticed that the retention increased significantly too.
Because of the ownership aspect to the assets. It really made a difference.
More than 100,000 gaming users are linked to C2X Station and over 90% of users are actively using the gaming platform.
We learned the control of buying pressure, live operation effort and tweaking of the design.
Concerns due to troubles of Mainnet
As everyone may know, we also faced some difficulties.
There were issues with the mainnet that we have launched on. We quickly had to find a new home for our blockchain.
When we were choosing our new blockchain, these three factors were the most important factors for us.
We have to be able to migrate all of our assets quickly because there are already people who are playing our games.
We also built so many tools around it. It had to be compatible with the existing services that we have. And of course, the new blockchain that we chose, had to have really long term vision.
We came to the conclusion that this scene is still very new.
Compared to where we were, where we are now and where we will be in a decade, we look back at ourselves and see what we did in the mobile gaming space.
I think we have a huge future waiting for us and this huge future gives us huge opportunities too. When we are talking about the mainnets around the world, we also felt that WEB 2.0 gaming companies have a huge amount of difficulties moving into WEB 3.0 space.
We really wanted to build a chain that can be built by gamers.
A Content Focused Blockchain created by Content Creators
Our vision is to create content focused blockchain.
We want the blockchain to be invisible. Just like the internet, I think blockchain should be invisible. Content is a layer that everybody is focused on and also differentiate themselves.
I think layer 1 also has to have a huge understanding of content, too. That is the role that we want to play. We want to fill the exact needs that WEB 2.0 developers have and help them to migrate into the WEB 3.0 space. We will share all of our experiences, we speak the same language and I think there are a lot of things that we can do together.
We are already building games, metaverse and NFT platforms. By next year, we will have more than 20 titles that will be launched on the C2X gaming platform, and more on our future developed platforms.
We have a metaverse called Com2Verse, where we already have partnered with more than a dozen companies in Korea.
We have a NFT marketplace where all of our companies that we have invested into are putting their assets into.
We are planning to introduce more defi services and platforms in the future. But these defi platforms, this crypto ecosystem cannot be built by ourselves.
We need more partners to build this together.
Explore and Play, XPLA
LET’S EXPLORE AND PLAY!
XPLA is the name of our new blockchain.
(applauds)
You can find more in our official teasing website. (xpla.io)
Migration C2X To XPLA
First, we will give the opportunity to migrate all of the assets that you have to XPLA.
We will announce the instructions to move them.
Technical Features of XPLA Mainnet
To give you some more technical background of the blockchain XPLA, it is built on Tendermint consensus with COSMOS SDK, and with IBC, it will be able to connect to multiple chains easily.
Due to proper demand, I think a lot of developers still want to write smart contracts in Solidity and also want to tap into the liquidity that the Ethereum ecosystem has.
We are going to add EVM Support to it.
So you will be able to list your assets on the Opensea and also use Metamask, too.
Middleware of XPLA Mainnet
We will build essential services like wallets and explorers.
I think one of the biggest challenges in the future is going to be discovery. There will be so many WEB 3.0 games but there is nothing like an appstore that is available to find them.
You will be able to find all of the games on XPLA through our explorer and also access to all of the assets through our wallets, too.
Bridging WEB 2.0 and WEB 3.0 Services
And of course, we will be focusing on the transition of WEB 2.0 users and developers into WEB 3.0 space.
We will provide design support, technical support, and leveraging our own experiences. Just like we have learned how to master FTP, I think this space really needs a lot of iteration.
When we were doing Free to Play games, we learned a lot from our competitors. I think there is going to be a lot of competition in this space and a lot of experiences in this space and we want to learn and share all of the information that we have.
We really believe in a multi-chain future. I think there is not going to be only one or two chains that are surviving. In order to position ourselves, it is important to admit that you cannot do everything.
It is becoming more and more important to go after a certain segment of the market.
The segment of the market that we are going to go after is gaming and entertaining.
That is what we know how to do and that is what we can provide the best tools for.
Roadmap of XPLA
We will launch our testnet tomorrow and launch our mainnet at around the end of the month.
We have been preparing this really quickly and I think this is due to the amazing development capabilities in Korea. I think it only happens in Korea where you face huge difficulties in a quarter before and you launch the mainnet in the next quarter.
EVM support also is already in a testing phase. If you have an EVM based game and you want to test on our network, you could contact us to test it. We are planning to go live with the EVM support by the end of this year.
The C2X SDK that we mentioned will be upgraded to 2.0 and everybody will be able to submit through the Beta Game Launcher.
C2X Partners
With C2X, we already had a lot of top WEB 3.0 companies supporting us: HASHED, Jump, Animoca Brands, and etc. Intentionally, we wanted a lot of gaming VCs like Galaxy, Transcend, and etc.
We have so many companies who only invest in the content. I think through the help of these partners, we will be able to gather a lot of new partners for our ecosystem.
Content Partners
We already have a handful of content providers. We have been talking to more than a dozen companies during the past week, Unfortunately, the deals don’t get close for a week or two.
We will have a lot of interesting new partners to announce by the end of this month.
We really are excited about the partners that we are talking to.
Beyond the existing partners that we had, we already have some commitments with Onlyspace and Metaworld.
Technical Partners
On the technical side, we already have 8 validators and we have a lot of experienced partners who will help us on the technical side.
They all are already committed to building our mainnet.
Next Step for XPLA
Since we are new our main purpose is to onboard more parameters.
Many of our colleagues will be around in this conference so I wish everyone gets to have an opportunity to talk with us.
We really wish to build this great new platform together.
Thank you very much.
※Please note that the scripts below are written in spoken language
※The opinions expressed in this article are edited by the author for the purpose of viewer comprehension, and it may not necessarily reflect the exact view of Kyu Lee.
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