Neptune announced the final winners of the game contest ‘Toss HTML5 Game Challenge with Neptune’, co-hosted by Neptune and Viva Republica, which operates the mobile financial platform ‘Toss’, on the 22nd.
This contest, which ran for approximately three months starting in August, was designed to discover creative HTML5-based game content and activate the development ecosystem, while also providing monetization opportunities through in-app advertising and in-app payments through a partnership with Toss’ app-in-app service, ‘Apps-in-Toss.’
A total of 122 original games were submitted by various participants ranging from individual developers to team studios, and a total of 8 teams were selected, including the Grand Prize (1 team), Excellence Prize (1 team), Excellence Prize (1 team), and Encouragement Prize (5 teams), considering the game’s completeness, accessibility, creativity, and expandability.
“Pangpang Logistics Center” was selected for the award. This game was evaluated as having a low barrier to entry and a high level of overall completion, which helped it attract early users. In particular, its unique “loading and unloading” theme clearly differentiated it from similar genres. Furthermore, its excellent system expandability, promising high growth potential through future updates, were cited as key factors in its selection.
The grand prize went to “Raising Animal Farm.” It received high marks for its inherent fun and intuitive gameplay, as well as its promise of stable revenue growth with future content expansion. “Merge Beach” received the Excellence Award, and five teams, including “Raising Jumo,” which has garnered attention among indie gamers, received Encouragement Awards for their innovative ideas and challenging spirit.
The total prize pool is 70 million won, with awards given out as follows: 1st place: 30 million won, 2nd place: 20 million won, 3rd place: 10 million won, and each of the 5 teams receiving an Encouragement Prize of 2 million won. The winning entries can be accessed directly through “AppinToss,” the mini-app platform within the Toss app. Access is available through the “Game” menu within the “All” tab of the Toss app, or by entering the game name in the search bar.
Neptune plans to explore the possibility of publishing contracts to promote the success of selected works based on its IP publishing know-how accumulated through mobile games such as ‘Infinite Stairs’, which has accumulated 26 million downloads, as well as ‘Cat Snack Bar’ and ‘Cat Office’, which utilize original cat IPs.
A Neptune official said, “This contest will be a meaningful starting point for developers with innovative ideas to gain recognition and explore new opportunities by showcasing their content on platforms like Toss.” They added, “We will continue to work to revitalize the game production culture and discover and support hidden talent.”
Meanwhile, Neptune has been collaborating with Toss since July as an Appintos partner to vitalize the ecosystem, and plans to continue to introduce Neptune’s casual mobile game IP in the form of mini-games within the Toss app in the future.
