Nexpace pushes AI-powered builder platform, on-chain creator economy
Marking its 23rd anniversary this year, MapleStory — Nexon’s megahit side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game — has cemented itself as one of the Korean game company’s most prominent intellectual properties.
As the internet world enters the Web3 era, Nexpace, Nexon’s blockchain arm based in Abu Dhabi, is doubling down expanding the megahit IP’s playground with MapleStory Universe.
“Over the past year, we were able to lay down the groundworks for our vision of MapleStory Universe,” said Nexpace CEO Hwang Sun-young in a recent video interview with The Korea Herald.
“Since we launched MapleStory N a year ago, we managed to secure a sustainable model to maintain the service in regards to sales and the number of active users.”
MapleStory N, a PC-based MMORPG launched within MapleStory Universe, adopts blockchain technology to introduce the play-to-earn, or P2E, model for players who can earn digital assets that can be traded or converted into NXPC, Nexpace’s cryptocurrency listed on major exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, Upbit and Bithumb, through gameplay.
According to Hwang, MapleStory N now maintains what he described as a “mid-tier” active user scale within the broader landscape of Nexon’s gaming ecosystem, which is smaller than Nexon’s top live-service titles but still large enough to sustain long-term operations.
“The monetization efficiency is surprisingly high,” Hwang said. “Because users feel they genuinely own their assets, they are more willing to spend within the ecosystem.”
MapleStory Universe has logged about $31 million in revenue since its launch in May last year with over 150 million on-chain transactions, according to Nexpace.
As MapleStory N proved its staying power, Hwang said Nexpace’s focus now is moving onto what the company calls “MSU 2.0” — the next phase of MapleStory Universe that uses artificial intelligence to uto allow creators to generate MapleStory-inspired games and content through simple prompts.
“Using the technology of AI vibe coding, our platform allows users to easily combine a certain character’s skills with a different character or create a monster that combines various features of different monsters into one by putting in simple prompts,” said Hwang.
“So we’ve come up with a gateway to support users to create MapleStory-like games in a much easier, faster way as they are able to utilize the game assets and logic through AI.”
As opening up smoother access to MapleStory IP for users is one key pillar of the MSU 2.0, the second pillar is establishing an on-chain builder economy to combine licensing, revenue settlement, and payments into a single system on the Henesys chain, according to the Nexpace CEO.
“On the Henesys chain, every transaction between Nexpace, the licenser, and builders is seamlessly done with Web3 contracts based on the vibe coding technology … basically builders can focus more on creating new content,” said Hwang.
Noting that Nexpace hovers over MapleStory Universe as a bigger space, the CEO said the blockchain-based firm’s foundational vision is to expand universes with more of Nexon’s titles as discussions with Nexon Korea have been under way since last year.
“While MapleStory N will continue to serve as a solid game in this (Web3) ecosystem, we are going to expand MapleStory Universe further this year as we offer our assets in a much more user-friendly way,” he said.
hwkan@heraldcorp.com
