However, the company is yet to decide on which blockchain it will use. Blockchain gaming startup Azra Games raised $15 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Hoowitz to develop its flagship, play-and-earn RPG title “Project Arcanas.”
NFX, Coinbase Ventures and Play Ventures were also part of the round.
“Project Arcanas”, an RPG, will have many NFTs. These are unique tokens on the blockchain that signify ownership. Arcanas’ NFTs will be used as deeds to ownership for specific characters and in-game items.
The game’s first NFTs will be Arcanas Genesis Collection. These characters can be staked or locked up for a time to earn an interest. They will play important roles in the game’s history. These non-fungible tokens Azra calls “PFPs” (short form for “Play Forever Passes”)
The controversial NFTs in gaming have seen a few projects cancelled by gamers. They cite environmental concerns as well as a general resentment towards crypto-related matters. However, Square Enix and Ubisoft continue to push for NFT-based games. They believe that NFTs can allow gamers to own and trade in-game assets.
Azra’s team seems ready to tackle the blockchain gaming industry, but there’s one problem: The company doesn’t yet know which chain it will work on.
Following the announcement of funding, the company posted on social media that “we have not settled on blockchain yet” and explained that it didn’t want to rush into making a decision.
While it is not clear which blockchain Project Arcanas will land on, an Azra Games job listing offers some clues. According to the company, they are looking for a Web3 engineer who has experience with Solidity ( Ethereum) programming language, Rust ( Solana_’s programming languages), and “or other modern smart contract frameworks.”
Although the Azra team may be new to Web3, they are full of Electronic Arts alumni and videogame industry veterans. Mark Otero, the company’s CEO, hails from Capital Games, the EA subsidiary. Otero was responsible for more than half a dozen mobile and free-to play titles, including “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes,” which Azra claims earned EA more than $1 billion in revenue.
Azra’s game manager, Michael Noriega, is also from EA. He spent almost a decade there as a technical artist and software developer. Hoover Abejero, a senior 3D artist and a character artist for “Mass Effect”, worked there as a senior artist on the mobile game. Cathleen Rootsaert was previously a supervising writer on EA’s “Battlefield 2042”.
