Krafton, the company behind PUBG: Battlegrounds and other games like Elyon, TERA, and the closed Devilian has announced that it has made investments in companies called Seoul Auction Blue for $2.5 million USD and XBYBLUE for $4.1 million dollars (USD). This accompanies paperwork signaling its intent to create NFT avatars (and perhaps more) by leveraging its experience in the MMORPG genre.
Both of the companies getting the investment cash are part of Seoul Auction, which is a Korean art auction company. XBYBLUE is a subsidiary that works to secure IP rights and digital content for offerings.
These NFT efforts on Krafton’s behalf will be handled by Bluehole Studio, which will, according to a press release on the deal, “leverage KRAFTON’s large-scale massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) server operation and next-generation graphics technologies to create and sell NFT avatars that can be used in the metaverse in the future. Seoul Auction Blue and XBYBLUE will be responsible for designing and promoting the NFT products and managing KRAFTON’s IP”.
Krafton is beginning this deal in Korea, but CEO CH Kim expressed the intent to extend this globally in the release, saying that “KRAFTON will announce additional details related to its collaboration with Seoul Auction Blue and XBYBLUE, as well as additional global partnerships”.
While it’s early to begin to guess what this might mean going forward, especially as it pertains to global NFTs, it’s not surprising. Seeing more companies working to position themselves as ready for the next move, especially with something that we’re hearing more and more about, like NFTs, just makes sense.
There is no word on when we’ll begin seeing Krafton make any announcements regarding the presence of NFTs in any of its currently running games or if they will be part of a future launch.
For more on Krafton the company and its subsidiaries, you can find more on the Krafton site.
