Oasys aims to be blockchain gateway for S.Korean game developers

Singapore-based Oasys has an ambitious goal to revolutionize the gaming industry by making blockchain games cheaper to develop and faster to play – the main hindrance to their mass adoption. 

The project backed by Asia’s biggest gaming juggernauts is hoping to serve as a gateway for game developers and publishers in South Korea.

The country’s game developers have been working on publishing Play-To-Earn (P2E) games or those using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) since last year.

That is, despite the South Korean authorities currently prohibiting the distribution of blockchain-based games within its borders, citing the speculative nature of some of the games. 

AN EVOLVING INDUSTRY

But a number of industry insiders say that incorporating blockchain is the inevitable next step. 

“An evolution in the gaming industry happens every decade,” representative director of Oasys Ryo Matsubara told The Korea Economic Daily during an interview held on the sidelines of this year’s Korea Blockchain Week.

The 34-year-old used to work in business development for an established blockchain game developer and NFT solutions provider called double jump.tokyo, Inc.

He noted that if you look at the history of video games, they started in arcades but then moved to game consoles, then online with computers, and now to mobile devices. 

DOUBLE-LAYER SYSTEM

For the blockchain game sector to go mainstream, it must resolve two main challenges.

The current blockchain architecture has limitations as it involves high gas fees to execute actions within a gaming metaverse or it takes around 15 seconds to five minutes for a transaction to be confirmed. 

In the world of gaming, that can feel like an eternity. 

The Oasys Architecture was built with game developers in mind, offering a high-speed, zero gas fee experience to users by combining the public layer 1 (hub layer) and the private layer 2 (verse layer). 

The hub layer is for storing and exchanging data securely and in a stable manner, without allowing applications to run directly on it. 

The verse layer operates as a permission chain.

Thanks to its pledge to resolve such issues, the company founded this February already boasts support from some of the biggest players in the market. 

Executives at Japan-based Bandai Namco Research Inc. and Sega Corp., are part of its advisory team. France’s Ubisoft Entertainment SA, for its part, has signed up as one of the initial validators. 

It also has strong backing from double jump.tokyo, Inc., by way of the founding members’ previous work experience. Naohito Tamaya, the company’s co-founder, serves as the executive advisor to Oasys. 

Come October, the company is poised to release titles from industry heavyweights on its blockchain.

On July 7, the company announced it completed a private token sale worth approximately $20 million, led by Republic Capital and with participation from Jump Crypto, Crypto.com, Huobi, Kucoin, Gate.io, bitbank and Mirana Ventures.

The token listing is slated for October. 

CROSS-BORDER BRIDGE

Out of 21 initial validators to Oasys, five of them are South Korea’s biggest game publishers, namely NEOWIZ, Wemade Co., Com2uS Corp., Netmarble Corp. and NHN Corp.

NEOWIZ published two blockchain-based games, called Brave Nine and Crypto Golf Impact. 

WeMade, best known as the publisher of The Legend of Mir series, established its blockchain subsidiary WeMade Tree in 2018 to explore scaling blockchain-based games. The Seoul-based company plans to develop some 100 games using its blockchain gaming platform WEMIX. 

Com2uS will focus its efforts on helping to verify transactions that take place within the Oasys consensus mechanism. 

Last but not least, Netmarble announced in January that it is working on launching a dozen new games using blockchain technology.

So even if the Korean authorities decide to ban the domestic release of P2E games, Oasys hopes its platform will provide a way for South Korean developers to launch their new blockchain-based titles for overseas players. 

South Korea’s rating board called the Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) has yet to categorize P2E and NFT-related games to grade the relevant products. As such, distribution of these products is not yet legally permitted. 

Daiki Moriyama, the director of Oasys said, “South Korea and Japan each have their own distinct strengths when it comes to game development.” 

The 39-year-old elaborated that whereas South Korean developers are known for the beautiful graphics and the expansive maps in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), Japanese titles are strong in their unique storylines and innovative ways to play games as exemplified by Final Fantasy and Pokémon Go, respectively.

Prior to the Korea Blockchain Week, Oasys hosted a pitch day in Seoul last Friday for aspiring game developers in search of new games for its blockchain. 

Some of the participants are now in talks with industry leaders for their ideas, according to Oasys. 

A number of gaming companies took part in the annual conference, including Wemade Co., Com2Us, Mythical Games and more. 

Write to Jee Abbey Lee at jal@hankyung.com