Gimhae City will establish a regional-specific metaverse platform. This is a service that performs various missions, watches performances, and promotes friendship according to webtoon stories in the background of Yulha Cafe Street.
The city announced on the 18th that it has been selected for the “2022 Regional Specialized Metabus Platform Construction Support” project supported by Gyeongnam Province and organized by the Gyeongnam Culture and Arts Promotion Agency.
This is a project to create a metaverse ecosystem based on regional specialized resources such as industry, culture, and history by utilizing ‘metabus’, a key keyword of the fourth industry. The city will bring 190 million won (66%) out of 290 million won for the total public offering project.
The city will be the first local government to build a “Toonville” metaverse that combines webtoons and regions, with People & Story (CEO Kim Nam-chul), a company that moves into the Gyeongnam Content Business Support Center in Gwandong-dong and the only webtoon producer in Gyeongnam.
In order to effectively link and utilize various metaverse contents offline, various commercial districts such as cafes, restaurants, and performance halls are gathered, and it was selected as the background of Yulha Cafe Street, a particularly young area in Gimhae.
It is expected that the city, which was selected as the first youth-friendly city in the province in 2022, will gain more momentum to create a future city centered on young people through the metaverse project.
The city will push for the project with the aim of officially opening in December 2023, with a total of 545 million won, including 190 million won in provincial funds and 300 million won in municipal funds. It plans to use the vast Webtoon Intellectual Property (IP) held by participating companies to make a clear distinction from metaverse businesses that have been insignificant.
It plans to naturally expose and promote Yulha and Gimhae by organizing metaverse users to have fun experiences such as holding various events and mini-games after selecting their own avatars.
