SEGA’s ‘Code of Joker’ launching as NFT card game on Sui

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

SEGA’s Code of Joker game series is coming to the gaming-focused L1 blockchain Sui via a new game.

SEGA licensed the IP to the third-party firm Jokers, Inc., which is developing the upcoming title.

The new game based on the Japanese anime-style arcade IP is called Code of Joker: Evolutions. Players will be able to open card packs and collect cards onchain as Sui NFTs.

“We knew that we wanted to match the physical feeling of opening a new card pack,” Takashi “Gin” Mizouka, cofounder of Jokers Inc., said in a statement.

Screenshot from Code of Joker, showing Sonic the Hedgehog as a character. Source: Sonic Team Argentina on YouTube.

While Sonic the Hedgehog, one of SEGA’s most famous characters, appears in footage of Code of Joker gameplay, I think it’s very unlikely the quick blue mammal will pop up in Code of Joker: Evolutions.

Newsletter

Subscribe to The Breakdown

Mysten Labs didn’t respond to my question about whether Sonic will be in the new game, but I do remember that roughly two years ago when I was covering blockchain gaming, SEGA co-COO Shuji Utsumi said SEGA won’t license its biggest IPs for third-party blockchain games and won’t develop its own in-house crypto games, either.

Screenshot from Code of Joker Pocket, a mobile version that’s no longer being updated

That said, SEGA is obviously still open to licensing some of its other game brands.

Two years ago, it licensed the Sangokushi Taisen brand for a third-party blockchain military card battle game on Oasys, developed by Double Jump Tokyo.

By the way, that game is finally launching on March 25. You can preorder Battle of Three Kingdoms on iOS and Android — and yes, this one is available in English on the US App Store. It’s a bit funny the app store descriptions omit any mention of the game’s crypto elements, though. This game has NFT cards, and its website also mentions staking the game’s SGC token.

To be honest, it was hard to find any details about Code of Joker online in English. It’s a game from 2013, and I wasn’t able to find any recent YouTube videos about it. The most recent one I found was from six years ago. The Code of Joker Pocket mobile game ended service back in 2018, according to a message on its website and a post on its X account.

Ultimately, the character art looks detailed and appealing for those into anime style, but the IP doesn’t seem to have crossed over to US audiences yet. Regardless, I think existing fans of the game could get a kick out of this installment of the series.

I asked the team whether the game will be released in English (as opposed to only in Japanese), and they weren’t ready to share that yet:

“More details forthcoming,” a PR rep replied. If the game doesn’t release in English, I imagine it’d be tough for it to reach a broader audience.

But maybe that’s not the point — Asia has been proven to be an important market for Web3. In 2023, 50% of global mobile gaming revenue came from the Asia-Pacific region with over 1.5 billion mobile gamers there, according to data from Grandview Research.

Tiger Research has also pointed out that recent regulatory moves in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia are positioning those countries for continued blockchain participation. We’ve seen Sony’s Soneium throw its hat into the ring, who recently announced that four mini-app games will be using Soneium as part of a deal with the messaging app Line.

We don’t know much more about Code of Joker: Evolutions yet, but it’s expected to launch at the end of this summer for iOS, Android and as a web version.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: