Wplace

Wplace
Area of Tokyo in Wplace on 13 August 2025
Available in2 languages
List of languages
English
Portuguese
Country of originBrazil
OwnerWplace
Created byMurilo Matsubara
URLwplace.live
RegistrationAccount required to edit canvas
Launched21 July 2025 (2025-07-21)
Current statusActive

Wplace is a collaborative pixel art website developed by Brazilian developer Murilo Matsubara[1] and launched on 21 July 2025, in which users can edit the canvas by changing the color of pixels on the world map. The website is based on r/place, a collaborative project that was hosted on Reddit.[2]

Overview

Inspired by r/place, a recurring collaborative project hosted on Reddit, Wplace enables individual users to edit an online canvas of a world map by changing any of the four trillion square pixels available. Users begin with a limited pool of 30 pixels they can place and regain one spent pixel every 30 seconds as the maximum pool expands by 2 every time the user levels up by drawing a certain amount of pixels. Those limitations encourage users to either work slowly, hoping their progress is not ruined, or collaborate with other users, especially on large-scale projects.[3] The site also features a leaderboard that shows which country and region host the most pixels. Such rules result in frequent wars between users, where every author tries to finish their own picture, sometimes destroying previous or neighboring images.[4]

Users, by leveling up and placing pixels, accumulate "droplets"—a special currency that can be spent on increasing the pool of pixels, regenerating more pixels, changing the user's profile picture, or adding a flag of a chosen country to the user's profile. Users gain 1 droplet for every pixel placed and 500 droplets every time they level up. These purchases are beneficial to creating art; when placing pixels in the country whose flag a user has purchased, 10% of their pixels will be restored.[5] There are a total of 63 colours for users to choose from, with 31 of them (including transparent) being completely free, while the other 32 can be bought for 2000 "droplets" each.[6]

The website attracted over a million users in four days, gaining popularity on platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and Twitter. Due to the very high number of concurrent users, the website has experienced many technical issues that blocked leaderboards and prevented new users from registering, despite allowing already existing users to edit the canvas.[3][7]

On 27 August 2025, the developer of Wplace made a post on Reddit addressing various issues of the platform, including user bans, server downtime, and its "pay to win" model.[8]

Reception

Pop culture

Users actively draw images from well-known pop culture media, that includes video games, anime, cartoons, music, films, live-action television shows, web series, sports and internet culture trends such as memes.[9][10] Elements, especially various fictional characters from video games, anime and cartoon franchises like Genshin Impact, Hollow Knight, Honkai: Star Rail, Rance, Kirby, Mario, Overwatch, Sonic the Hedgehog, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Touhou Project, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, Persona, Zenless Zone Zero, Blue Archive, Undertale, Deltarune, Pokémon, Bocchi the Rock!, Dragon Ball Z, Ace Attorney, and Hatsune Miku: Project Diva are frequently featured on the website.[11][12][13][14] Deltarune is one of the most featured media on the website, with some sources saying the game overruns the site by the amount of artwork related to it present on the website.[15]

Tributes

Following the death of Grass Wonder, fans of Umamusume: Pretty Derby on Wplace created a tribute to the horse in the Philippines, around San Pablo, with a large mural consisting of a pixel recreation of the character Grass Wonder in Umamusume, holding a bouquet of flowers against a blue sky backdrop, with the message "Farewell, Grass Wonder."[16] Tributes were also drawn in the Alpes-Maritimes department following the death of the French streamer Jean Pormanove.[17]

Voids

Voiding refers to the act of coloring a part of the game map using a solid color (usually black), in order to create an area with a monochromatic color, either as a background or as a piece of its own without artwork overlaying it. It is a practice carried over from the spiritual predecessor, r/place, into Wplace.[18] In Wplace, due to the nature of the canvas as a world map so voids aim to cover an entire region, country, or other specific area.[19] Typically, this is done collaboratively, through the in-game alliances system. However, it can also be done by individual users without the help of other users.

Voids, like artworks on the site, are typically placed in populated areas and other areas that receive a lot of attention. The existence of voids is linked to destruction, because of the numerous instances in which black voids have been used to destroy artwork[20]. Today, according to the website's Code of Conduct, voiding is allowed as long as it does not cover or destroy artworks.[21]

Media activism

Video game–related activism

Wplace has been used as an attempt by video game fans to communicate with corporations through creating art, often in the location of the company's offices. One instance was with fans of the sandbox game Hytale creating a large-scale artwork with the message "#Save Hytale" in Riot Games' headquarters in Santa Monica, California in protest of the game's cancellation.[22] Several fans of the series Dragon Age used the site to protest EA disallowing the game's developer BioWare from creating remastered versions of their games. The fans use Kirkwall, which shares the same name as the main setting of Dragon Age II to create artworks featuring anti-EA sentiment and boys' love culture.[23][24]

Political activism

Users actively draw flags of countries such as United Kingdom, Brazil, Ukraine, and Israel.[14]

Artwork featuring transgender culture and advocacy has been documented on the site, particularly in prominent locations in the UK which were filled with multiple transgender flags and messages.[25] Notably users started to feature transgender flags near the house of J. K. Rowling due to her previous statements regarding the trans community.[26][27] The influx of transgender flags and messages has spread outside of the UK and their large prevalence was met with praise among the site's community, with its subreddit making memes about them.[25]

On the canvas, in the Gaza Strip and its surroundings, since the release of the website, numerous pixel art works including Palestinian flags, anti-war slogans, several artworks featuring hearts and other works of art were featured as a sign of protest to the Gaza war.[28][29] In North America, users showed their dissent against Alligator Alcatraz and Mar-a-Lago in Florida and remembrance art on the site of the Jalisco extermination camp, located in Jalisco, Mexico.[28] In South America, various users from Colombia and Peru practiced activism in support of their respective country's claim on the contested Santa Rosa island.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Wen, Alan. "People Are Using Wplace For Video Game-Related Protests". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 23 August 2025. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
  2. ^ "Brazil Turns Itself Into A Metal Gear Shrine On Wplace". www.msn.com. Archived from the original on 19 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  3. ^ a b Weatherbed, Jess (11 August 2025). "This collaborative doodling website is like Google Maps plus MS Paint". The Verge. Archived from the original on 11 August 2025. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  4. ^ Nadim, Mynul Islam (12 August 2025). "wplace Craze Sweeps Internet: Inside the Global Pixel Canvas Phenomenon". Bangla news. Archived from the original on 14 August 2025. Retrieved 13 August 2025.
  5. ^ "Wplace". Wplace. Shop overlay (top right, 2nd button from top) "Flags" section. Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  6. ^ "Wplace Colors Palette". Lospec. Archived from the original on 31 August 2025. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  7. ^ Hernandez, Patricia (7 August 2025). "Gamers are taking over wplace, Google Maps for mass collaboration pixel art". Polygon. Archived from the original on 11 August 2025. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  8. ^ "Addressing Wplace's Current Issues and Our Plans Moving Forward". Reddit. 27 August 2025. Archived from the original on 30 August 2025. Retrieved 1 September 2025.
  9. ^ Valentine, Rebekah (11 August 2025). "Game Fans (And Trolls) Are Racing To Claim Pixels in Wplace". IGN. Archived from the original on 12 August 2025. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  10. ^ Williams, Leah J. (12 August 2025). "Wplace is a new online map where gamers are 'painting the world'". Screenhub. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  11. ^ Lewis, Catherine (8 August 2025). "Deltarune's beloved Spamton is everywhere and Persona 3 fans are turning Japan's real-life Port Island into a JRPG mural in this viral web app that's seeing pixel artists literally take over the world". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on 15 August 2025. Retrieved 13 August 2025.
  12. ^ "Everywhere I go on Wplace, I see his face - Genshin Impact's Wanderer, Persona 5's Joker, and Deltarune's Tenna to be exact". Pocket Tactics. 14 August 2025.
  13. ^ Monzon, Luis (20 August 2025). "How My Little Pony conquered South Africa's capital city". Hypertext. Retrieved 18 September 2025.
  14. ^ a b Goryachkin, Pavel; Umarova, Nigora (12 August 2025). "Anime Heroes, Flags and Pop Culture Icons Take Over Tashkent in Global Pixel Art Project". Kursiv Media Uzbekistan. Retrieved 18 September 2025.
  15. ^ Robertson, Joshua (9 August 2025). "Wplace Is A Live Interactive World Map You Can Draw On, And It's Already Been Overrun By Deltarune Fans". TheGamer. Retrieved 13 August 2025.
  16. ^ "Filipino Fans Create WPlace Tribute for Grass Wonder". VRSUS. Retrieved 17 September 2025.
  17. ^ "Sur wplace.live, une guerre de pixels entre internautes sur une carte du monde mêle clins d'œil culturels et enjeux politiques" [On wplace.live, a pixel war between Internet users on a world map mixes cultural winks and political issues]. France Info (in French). 28 August 2025. Retrieved 22 September 2025.
  18. ^ Hathaway, Jay (3 April 2017). "A new phenomenon is taking over Reddit—here's what you should know about it". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
  19. ^ "Wplace Andorra Void Explained : Why it Got Painted Over". Kingofgeek. 15 August 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
  20. ^ "When Pixels Collide". digitalculturist. 4 April 2017. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
  21. ^ "Code of Conduct". Wplace. 1 October 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
  22. ^ Makar, Connor (11 August 2025). "Hytale Fans paint #SaveHytale art over Riot Games' Office on Wplace, protesting its cancellation". Eurogamer. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  23. ^ Bardhan, Ashley (11 August 2025). "Enraged Dragon Age fans are punishing EA for rejecting BioWare's remaster pitch by covering pixel art map Wplace in adorable threats". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on 16 August 2025. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  24. ^ Bevan, Rhiannon (10 August 2025). "After Finding Out About The Rejected Dragon Age Remasters, Fans Are Taking to Wplace To Send A Message To EA". TheGamer. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  25. ^ a b Hansford, Amelia (11 August 2025). "People are using pixel-painting game Wplace to call out transphobia in the UK". PinkNews. Archived from the original on 18 August 2025. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  26. ^ "A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift". The Week. 17 September 2024. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  27. ^ Villegas, Por Tamara Ramírez (14 August 2025). "W/Place, fenómeno de internet que convirtió el mundo en un lienzo". La Crónica de Hoy México (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  28. ^ a b Gómez, Juan (17 August 2025). "Wplace: pixelart colaborativo y protesta social". Fábrica de Periodismo (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  29. ^ "Una semana en Wplace: el mundo reinventado en píxeles". Diario ABC (in Spanish). 12 August 2025. Archived from the original on 14 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  30. ^ Nolasco, Por Edwin Montesinos (9 August 2025). "Wplace en Perú: El fenómeno viral donde miles de peruanos pintan el mapa del mundo con píxeles". infobae (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
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