Some (like Team17) burned their wings there, but Plug In Digital is venturing onto the slippery slope of NFT. The French publisher becomes a partner of the Winky Partners Program, a service aimed at “make the transition to the web3 economy“, that is to say that of technology blockchain. At the origin of this program, we find Mainbot, a company whose main product is precisely a little companion called Winky, an educational robot linked to applications to teach children from 5 to 12 years old the fundamentals of programming and robotics.
According to a press release from the AFJV, this mascot is in fact the basis for the “Winkyverse”, a metaverse with the aim of becoming “the first educational ecosystem” combining robotics, augmented reality, gaming and blockchain. The idea of Mainbot is to offer a virtual space bringing together educational games on new technologies, but also audio books and even textbooks. This is where Plug In Digital enters the dance.
The editor’s expertise will be used to ensure the curation of the content of the Winky Partners Program, as well as its “commercial development”. This content will include services to help create and promote NFTs. The AFJV press release specifies that a team will also be created within Plug In Digital to select the studios whose titles will be put online on this platform. We recall that last November, the group raised 70 million euros from Bridgepoint (which has become its majority shareholder) as part of an expansion project aimed at “move upmarket with future more AA-oriented titles [aux] larger budgets“.