Softbank teams with startup Oasys as a blockchain gaming validator

Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank has partnered with Oasys, a gaming-optimized blockchain built for gamers.

Softbank will join as an official validator of Oasys, which means it will and together they will explore the development of blockchain-based services for the gaming industry. That means that Softbank will help provide the security and computing power for Oasys’ proof-of-stake blockchain network, enabling it to do transactions for its gamers more easily and inexpensively.

Through the collaboration with Oasys, Softbank is positioning itself as a player in blockchain gaming. Oasys cited a report by Research and Markets that the blockchain gaming market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3% from 2020 to 2025, reaching a value of $3 billion by 2025.

The move comes on the heels of another Oasys validator announcement by Japanese game publisher Square Enix, the maker of the Final Fantasy games.

Oasys is based in Singapore and Japan.

Softbank and Square Enix were some of the big parties to join Oasys’ blockchain, which already has backing from other initial validators including the likes of Bandai Namco Research, Sega, Ubisoft, Netmarble, WeMade, Com2uS and Yield Guild Games.

Oasys is creating 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. Its strategy is to build the fastest network powered by the gaming community, a scalable network powered by triple-A game developers, and a blockchain offering the best user experience with fast transactions and free gas fees for users, readies participants to enter the Oasys and play.

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

While Oasys intends to eventually shift as much of the management of its project to the community as possible (some call it changing into a DAO – decentralized autonomous organization), for now it is currently registered as an exempt private company, limited by shares based in Singapore.

This is similar in nature 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 balance between being a global crypto hub and regulatory framework for a blockchain gaming business hub to succeed in Asia Pacific.

The core Oasys team comes from Japan, and 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 top blockchain games sales since their release in 2018 through to early 2020 (world’s leading blockchain game for 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, gaming-optimized wallet for players, as well as announced a collaboration with Mythical Games, a leading crypto-native games developer to serve as an initial validator.

Current consensus mechanisms are geared so much towards decentralization, security and privacy that it can come at the expense of speed, performance and cost. For blockchain powered gaming solutions to be attractive to game developers and succeed in winning the hearts and minds of players, they need to 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 various multiverses. That’s what Oasys is trying to do.

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