NEAR Foundation Partners with Vortex Gaming, a Web3 Subsidiary of Korea’s Largest Gaming Community INVEN

NEAR Foundation is excited to announce a new partnership with Vortex Gaming, a Web3 subsidiary of the leading game industry INVEN. INVEN is the largest game media·community in Korea, with a monthly active user (MAU) count of 7.2 million.

With the guidance of the NEAR Korea Hub, NEAR Foundation and Vortex Gaming plan to achieve mutual growth by collaborating to support the growth of Vortex Gaming; strengthen the NEAR game ecosystem; conduct offline hackathons and events to foster developer talent; and enhance brand awareness and business networks.

To support Web3 gaming, Vortex Gaming will leverage NEAR’s global layer 1 protocol, known for its user experience and scalability, and the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). The BOS is an OS for an open web, allowing developers to effortlessly build apps for an internet free from centralized platforms.

“Following the leading companies in the gaming industry such as Kakao Games, Wemade, Netmarble’s Marblex, we expect our sustainable game ecosystem to be further enhanced through this partnership with INVEN,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation, expressed her delight at INVEN joining the NEAR ecosystem.

Vortex Gaming: an open web community game changer

Vortex Gaming is a content-based game community that builds services optimized for Web3 games. It also offers a global social media platform and features such as Gaming Guild. Vortex’s Gaming Guild will allow members to earn rewards by playing games, participating in tournaments, and contributing to the guild’s community. The guild system also provides a stronger sense of bonding between guild members, which can help strengthen user retention.

Vortex Gaming also aims to break a major stereotype of current Web3 games as being dominated by a few profit-seeking individuals. It does this by offering specialized content that thoroughly explores the in-game economy, the completeness of the game, and gameplay guide. By leveraging its successful experience in building Web2 communities, Vortex Gaming plans to establish a robust user base by incorporating both high quality content and INVEN’s existing wide pool of users.

INVEN is the largest game media·community in Korea. For over 20 years it has been the leading company in the game industry, driving the development as the top online game media platform. Based on content generated in-house, INVEN continues to innovate and expand into industries such as entertainment and Web3.

“The ultimate goal is to build an integrated gamer community that encompasses both Web3 and traditional Web2 gamers by providing high quality Web3 and Web2 content alike,” said Vortex Gaming CEO, HOON JAI LEE. “Gamers and their communities are the most crucial components of the game ecosystem. In addition to offering game content for gamers and their communities, Vortex Gaming envisions establishing a sustainable cycle by incentivizing gamers’ production of content such as character builds and game guides”.

The NEAR Korea Hub, responsible for business expansion across Korea and other Asian regions, has been instrumental in fostering this partnership. The Hub views Vortex’s onboarding as a significant moment that further accelerates the development of the NEAR gaming ecosystem.

“While the strong content competitiveness of leading companies plays a crucial role in attracting many users to the NEAR ecosystem, community is the key driving force in maintaining this competitiveness,”said  Scott Lee, Co-CEO of NEAR Korea. “The synergy effects resulting from the onboarding of Vortex Gaming will further strengthen NEAR’s position as the optimal mainnet in the Web3 game ecosystem, accelerating ecosystem development.”