The firm behind the popular Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis, is set to ramp up adoption in South Korea.
Jeffrey Zirlin, Sky Mavis co-founder and growth lead, said despite the domestic ban on play-to-earn (P2E) games, the Korean market is one of the most important gaming markets in the world. Axie Infinity has tons of players in South Korea. He said the company is looking at ways to tailor the Axie Infinity game to the Korean gamers.
Sky Mavis will double down. Acknowledging that Koreans don’t speak much English, the company wants to localize. It recognizes the fact that there are a lot of barriers to actually getting the game into the hands of Korean players. Zirlin said a lot of their top players on the leaderboard are Korean – Koreans are some of the best gamers in the world.
It should be noted that the South Korea Game Rating and Administration Committee bans the release of domestic blockchain P2E games because of strict anti-gambling policies. The government, in December, moved to restrict Google Play and the Apple Store from listing such games in Korea. Zirlin said it’s still quite early for the regulations. He explained that it’s similar to the app stores where it’s going to be a process of negotiation and education. Zirlin hopes P2E adoption is enough to swap the government to walk back its hawkish regulation in the future.
Axie Infinity is still in its early access stage and has yet to roll out an app via Google Play or the Apple Store. The game, as per Active Player, had around 766,000 people that logged in to play that game last month. This is a far cry from the heights of 2.7 million recorded in January 2022. Axie Infinity is working towards boosting adoption in Korea and the world by enhancing the gaming experience and expanding its ecosystem through new battle modes such as Origin. Zirlin shared that Origin is their main focus, thus building it out and making it more immersive, adding vertical progression like runes, charms, and body part upgrades to act as sustainable sinks for tokens – making it more fun.