Square Enix becomes a validator for blockchain gaming company Oasys

Oasys announced that Japanese game publisher Square Enix, maker of the Final Fantasy games, has become a validator on the Oasys blockchain gaming platform.

That means Square Enix will help provide the security and computing power to Oasys’ proof-of-stake blockchain network so it can transact for its players. Oasys says its blockchain is environmentally friendly, and Square Enix is ​​one of 21 first node validators on the platform.

Oasys is based in Singapore and Japan. As part of this initiative, Square Enix and Oasys will explore the possibility of leveraging user contributions in the development of new games on the Oasys blockchain.

“Partnering with a respected and ambitious gaming company like Square Enix helps us accelerate our collective mission to bring blockchain gaming to the masses,” Daiki Moriyama, CEO of Oasys, said in a statement. “With our partnership, we will really be able to bring new experiences and
empower gaming fans from all backgrounds while helping establish the next stage of growth
for blockchain entertainment.”

Square Enix is ​​one of the most established integrated entertainment companies in the world and
is the publisher behind many iconic video game series. It sold its Western studios as part of a strategic move to invest in the development of decentralized games with tokenized economies built on the blockchain. Square Enix launched its own Blockchain Entertainment Business division in April 2022.

“We are excited to join the Oasys team and others in the gaming community on this project,” Yosuke Saito, director of Square Enix’s Blockchain Entertainment Division, said in a statement. “Our shared enthusiasm for Web3 gaming makes this an exciting partnership for us, and we look forward to gaining insights that can advance the creation of brand new gaming experiences for players around the world.”

Square Enix is ​​the latest and final major game publisher to join Oasys’ blockchain, which already enjoys strong institutional support from other initial validators, including Bandai Namco Research, SEGA, Ubisoft, Netmarble, WeMade, Com2uS and Yield Guild Games. Square Enix has sold more than 173 million copies of the Final Fantasy series worldwide.

With support from both traditional and crypto-native gaming partners in the industry, Oasys will continue to focus on building better experiences and shaping the future of blockchain gaming, the company said.

Oasys creates an ecosystem for gamers and developers to distribute and develop blockchain-based games. It solves the problems game developers face when building games on the blockchain. The strategy is to build the fastest network powered by the gaming community, a scalable network powered by triple-A game developers, and a blockchain that offers the best user experience with fast transactions and free gas fees for users, making participants ready to enter Oasys and play .

Oasys is a multi-layer Ethereum virtual machine-compatible, proof-of-stake public blockchain project scheduled for full launch in 2022.

The name Oasys is actually inspired from the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) virtual reality world in Ready to playe, and the project was designed from the very beginning to return value to players. The vision is a world where players can have fun and earn rewards through their gameplay, and their time and passion become irreplaceable assets for them.

While Oasys eventually intends to move as much of the management of its project to the community as possible (some call it turning into a DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization), it is currently registered as an exempt private company, limited by shares based in Singapore.

This is similar to the organizational structure of other foundations and companies behind other public blockchains such as Solana Labs, Ethereum Foundation, Terraform Labs, etc.

The company is registered in Singapore primarily because Japan (and Korea to some extent) has many regulatory issues regarding the treatment and taxation of crypto assets. Singapore, on the other hand, has a good balance between being a global crypto hub and regulatory framework for a blockchain gaming business hub to succeed in the Asia-Pacific.

Hailing from Japan, Oasys’ core team is an expert group of developers behind Doublejump.tokyo, one of the most successful Web3 game developers in the world with over five years of experience developing various blockchain games. The two most popular game titles – My Crypto Heroes and Brave Frontier Heroes were the biggest selling blockchain games since their launch in 2018 until early 2020 (the world’s leading blockchain game by trading volume, number of transactions and number of users on Ethereum).

Oasys was conceived with the idea of ​​21 initial validators to provide stability, security and structure to the project, and these include major Korean gaming companies – Netmarble, Com2us, Wemade, NHN and Neowiz.

Oasys also recently partnered with ConsenSys to produce an industry-first, game-optimized wallet for players, as well as announced a partnership with Mythical Games, a leading crypto-native game developer to act as an initial validator.

Oasys addressed the concerns of players and developers who see blockchain games as a bunch of scams. It said it is clear that for blockchain gaming to succeed, it cannot do it alone. Rather, it must recognize its limitations and embrace the value and expertise that traditional gaming brands can offer. It is encouraging that we are seeing more buy-in from traditional game developers and game companies. However, very few companies have the credibility and legitimacy to attract institutional interest from these triple-A game developers.

“Major gaming companies see the value of engaging users beyond just traditional gamers, and gaming also represents one of the best use cases for blockchain and NFTs,” Moriyama said in an email to GamesBeat. “What it really offers game developers is a chance to pivot away from the product and leverage the technology to create a community. Bandai Namco and Square Enix both highlighted this as a long-term vision for their businesses in recent company updates.”

Moriyama also said that as things stand now, games on the blockchain are generally not fun. This is mostly down to the limitations of the current blockchain architecture. If you think about how games are judged to be “fun” or “good” in the blockchain – no one wants to pay high gas fees to perform actions
within a game metaverse or wait 15 seconds to 5 minutes for a transaction to be confirmed.

Current consensus mechanisms are geared so much toward decentralization, security, and privacy that they can come at the expense of speed, performance, and cost. For blockchain-powered gaming solutions to be attractive to game developers and successful in winning the hearts and minds of players, they must be highly scalable with high transaction speeds and low/zero gas fees for users, the company said. They must have a well-designed user interface, be fully optimized for performance, and be interoperable between different multiverses. That’s what Oasys is trying to do.

“The Oasys team recently attended Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul to meet their validation partners as well as run a Game Pitch Day event for some of the best and brightest Korean game developers and see what new and innovative Web3 games are out there,” Moriyama so. “Together with Bandai Namco, Arriba Studio and Doublejump.tokyo, over one million OAS tokens and potential investment equivalent to $200,000 in US dollars were made available to Korean Web3 game developers looking for support to publish their games globally.

Play-to-earn games are currently banned in South Korea, so the country doesn’t actually have a large user base or market size for blockchain games. However, this is actually a good reason why Korean game developers have assumed global expansion from day one, Moriyama said.

Blockchain games are designed to be borderless and regionless, so in addition to the benefits for the Korean market to develop high-quality games globally, this also reduces the friction for projects like Oasys to partner with Korean game developers to expand to other markets.

Korea has a lot of potential, as it has a global reputation as one of the spiritual homes of games with a large market of both game developers and players, Moriyama said. The company has about 20 people.

Moriyama said that current consensus mechanisms are geared so much towards decentralization, security and privacy that they can come at the expense of speed, performance and cost. For blockchain-powered gaming solutions to be attractive to game developers and successful in winning the hearts and minds of players, they must be highly scalable with high transaction speeds and low/zero gas fees for users. They must have a well-designed user interface, be fully optimized for performance, and be interoperable between different multiverses.

We also see resistance from actors regarding revenue models in the blockchain, which for many projects is simply not scalable. Focusing on monetary rewards without prioritizing gameplay does not motivate users to continue playing the game. The attempt to fund games without regard for the spirit of why we play games simply turns a fun, recreational activity into a job.

This is the main reason why we still see so much concern from conventional players and gaming platforms, who see blockchain gaming as a money grab.

Basically, play-and-earn is the natural evolution from play-to-earn and pay-to-play models that transfer the value of playing from centralized worlds to players’ hands. Beyond earning tangential income, it really changes how we approach a leisure activity/hobby like gaming and transforms it into something that can provide immense value to game developers and players alike.

The most complex South Korea’s Game Review and Administration Committee does not allow any blockchain-based games to be released domestically. This means that, for now, the focus of all blockchain-based game projects must be on foreign markets.

South Korean game developers started turning to blockchain as early as 2017. However, regulations against cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, including a ban on ICOs that would have helped smaller developers, have held the industry back somewhat.

Japan also has some regulatory issues surrounding the taxation of crypto assets. Japanese firms operating in the Web3 sector must pay tax on unrealized gains if they issue a token and it appreciates in value. Japan currently imposes up to 55% tax on gains made in crypto by investors, while token issuers are reportedly taxed at around 35%.

These limitations make it a bit more challenging to operate, but not prohibitively so. Projects like Oasys just need to take a hybrid operational approach and operate from more crypto-friendly jurisdictions, respecting the laws and regulations of all target markets, Moriyama said.

To become a validator, an entity must have at least 10 million OAS tokens staked through a validation contract. This is not too dissimilar to how validators run on other blockchains. The effort reward from Oasys is determined over time based on how long the validator has been in operation.

Oasys intends to launch its public sale and be fully on the mainnet by the end of the year. The company recently raised $20 million through a private token sale in July alongside Republic Capital, with participation from Jump Crypto, Crypto.com, Huobi, Kucoin, Gate.io, bitbank and Mirana Ventures.