Interview: Netmarble N2 on its new metaverse blockchain game Meta World: My City – GameDaily.biz | We make games for our business GameDaily.biz

Launched last month, Meta World: My City from Netmarble N2 is a digital blockchain real estate board game with added virtual real estate building and trading as well as social metaverse activities.

Netmarble N2’s previous work includes the similarly Monopoly-like game Let’s Get Rich. Meta World: My City is a deeper game, which includes strategy cards as well as dice rolls. It is also based on real-world locations, the first being Manhattan. Additional cities such as Paris, London, Seoul and Tokyo are planned for the future. GameDaily spoke with Min-Kwan Kwon, CEO of Netmarble N2 and Head of Development Youngsuk Hong.

GameDaily: What are the key features of Meta World My City that you consider to be true innovations in blockchain game design?

Min-Kwan Kwon: We developed Meta World: My City in a way that everyone can enjoy both board games and virtual property collections.

The first innovation we want to highlight is Union Tokenomics, which enables players to enjoy content stably. Most blockchain games are based on a token unique to that game and this results in continuous inflation of the game. In contrast, we built stable tokenmics by controlling the supply of tokens via Netmarble’s A3: Still Alive game and directing players to use the same tokens in Meta World: My City, which is a global competitive game.

For example, the Inetrium (ITU) token, previously only available in A3: Still Alive, will be available in Meta World: My City in exchange for ‘Meta Cash’ (an in-game token available to those who have in- game virtual property). This essentially opens up another way of holding Inetrium – one that protects against inflation by only circulating a pool of Meta Cash – and allows players’ enjoyment of one game to benefit the other.

Second, Meta World: My City is based on a cadastral map of real cities, allowing players to explore what it’s like to have virtual lands and buildings in famous locations around the world. While many virtual real estate games are limited to virtual land transactions only, Meta World: My City is unique in that it provides other content alongside virtual real estate functionality, such as participating in board games, creating and customizing avatars, and more. We plan to increase the value by adding even more content in terms of the game and metaverse.

GameDaily: How much of the audience do you expect to interact with the game using the MBX blockchain, as opposed to regular Web2 game mechanics?

Young Suk Hong: More than 30 percent of revenue comes from blockchain players, which exceeded our initial expectations. It turns out that these players not only collect virtual land and engage in transactions, but also actively play board games.

Considering that Meta World: My City just came out and the original title attracted more than more than 200 million players globally, we are sure that a few hundred million players will participate and understand the blockchain ecosystem via Meta World: My City in the long run.

GameDaily: How big do you expect your player base to be in the next six months or year?

Min-Kwan Kwon: We will update the content step by step. As of now, we are primarily targeting the regions where the original title Let’s Get Rich: Meta World has been successful. However, we plan to add different genres of casual games to attract even more players. About 2 million players have already experienced our game and we aim for 10 million players within the year. We will do our best to make this game one that hundreds of millions of players can enjoy.

GameDaily: What lessons did you learn about blockchain game design while making the game?

Min-Kwan Kwon: We tried to benchmark various blockchain services at the beginning of this project and it seemed that blockchain games were not well positioned in the market at the moment. In this process, we learned that Meta World: My City must be a game based on sustainable tokenomics, from which all participants can actually benefit.

Thus, we tried to come up with a stable system in the long term and ITU Union Tokenomics became the solution. It may not make overwhelming profits, but it is definitely stable. We will continue to add value through continuous in-game content updates, which will benefit all participants in the ecosystem.

GameDaily: Finally, can you talk about some of your plans for the future of the game?

Young Suk Hong: At the moment we are mainly targeting Southeast Asia where the original title was most popular. Currently, the virtual property collection feature is only available for Manhattan, NYC, but cities like Paris, London and Bangkok will be added at a later date. Additionally, we will be updating other popular casual genre games and Netmarble’s general metaverse space, where avatars can interact.