[Click eStock] "Mr. Blue, Expecting Synergy Between Martial Arts Genre and NFT"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] Shinhan Financial Investment announced on the 5th that Mr. Blue is expected to have a strong synergy effect with the loyal readership of the martial arts genre and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Mr. Blue is a content platform company for webtoons and novels with over 6 million subscribers. Webtoons are sold through its own platform services as well as major platforms. The four great kings of domestic martial arts?‘Hwangseong, Yaseolrok, Samadal, Haseungnam’?have secured comprehensive copyrights allowing the use of intellectual property (IP) for 70 years after the authors’ deaths.

In gaming, ‘Blue Ocean Games’ (100% stake) has launched a mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Based on the ‘EOS’ IP, it released ‘EOS Red’ for mobile, achieving success in the Chinese-speaking markets including Taiwan.

As of the third quarter of last year, the revenue composition was 51.7% from webtoons, 45.3% from games, and 3.0% from others. Researcher Lee Byung-hwa of Shinhan Financial Investment said, "The entry of webtoon IP into the metaverse platform and the preparation for P2E game launches, combining IP and metaverse platforms, are new opportunity factors." He added, "Mr. Blue signed an MOU with Longtu Korea in August last year, and game development and publishing businesses including P2E (Play to Earn) based on martial arts IP will be in full swing."

Martial arts games are expected to connect to the NFT business in the future. If the metaverse is added as a link between its own platform and major platforms (Naver, Kakao), new readership will be attracted, the platform will expand, and the IP’s revenue structure is expected to diversify.

Operating profit this year is expected to increase by 89.1% to 15.2 billion KRW, and sales are expected to rise 5.5% to 66.7 billion KRW. The researcher said, "With no new game releases this year, sales decline and profitability deterioration were inevitable due to marketing costs in the Southeast Asian market and developer performance bonuses," adding, "We expect performance recovery through the launch of P2E games in the second half of 2022."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.