NEAR Foundation announced that the onboarding of Vortex Gaming, a Web3 subsidiary of a leading game industry INVEN, into the NEAR ecosystem has been confirmed through a strategic partnership. INVEN is the largest game media community in Korea, with a monthly active user (MAU) count reaching 7.2 million

In addition to onboarding content on NEAR Protocol, NEAR Foundation and INVEN plan to collaborate in supporting the growth of Vortex Gaming and strengthening the NEAR game ecosystem. Moreover, establishing an active collaboration system to enhance brand awareness and business network such as conducting offline hackathons and events to foster developer talent.

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

Vortex Gaming is a content-based game community that builds services optimized for Web3 games and provides a global social media platform and features such as Gaming Guild. Vortex Gaming aims to break stereotypes of current Web3 games by offering specialised content such as thorough analysis of in-game economy and the completeness of the game. 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.

NEAR Protocol is a global Layer 1 blockchain that focuses on usability and scalability. NEAR is also the Blockchain Operating System (BOS), an OS that allows Web2 companies and developers to effortlessly build decentralised apps and experiences for the open web. With BOS features like FastAuth, Web2 companies and developers can experience and onboarding process similar to login via email. These features facilitate the entry barrier present in the current Web3 game industry, and will play a pivotal role alongside Vortex Gaming in popularising the NEAR ecosystem for gaming.

Vortex Gaming CEO HOON JAI LEE said: “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.”

LEE added: “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 to establish a sustainable cycle by incentivizing gamers’ production of content such as character builds and game guides.”

Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation, said: “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 and look forward to making further inroads in this dynamic space.”

Scott Lee, Co-CEO of NEAR Korea, said: “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.”

He added: “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.”