Oasys launches a technology roadmap, unveiling three development strategies

Author: Joy, PANews

Bringing Web2 players and game companies into the Web3 era, Oasys, a Japanese game public chain that adheres to this concept, continues to build underlying infrastructure for the chain game track. Previously, PANews detailed the characteristics, economic model, and ecological representation of Oasys, and described how this public chain rooted in Japan's 40-year game culture enables traditional games to enter the oasis of Web3.

Recently, as Oasys celebrates its second anniversary, it has also ushered in an important update - the release of the technical roadmap. Starting from the current technical challenges and user pain points, Oasys has proposed corresponding solutions and has planned the short-term and mid-term technical roadmap. The three core elements of the Oasys technical roadmap are application data availability, layer-two interoperability, and ecosystem scalability.

Technical Challenges in the Development of Blockchain Games and Oasys's 'Three-Pronged Approach'

The blockchain gaming sector is in the early stage of vigorous development. According to the PANews financing weekly report, the financing of blockchain games continues. The first quarter of 2024 blockchain gaming report jointly released by DappRadar and BGA shows that the total financing in the first quarter of this year reached 280 million U.S. dollars, which is a correction following the hot trend of blockchain games and metaverse in the previous two years. In 2023, the financing scale of Web3 games reached as high as 2.98 billion U.S. dollars for the whole year.

Oasys is a powerful representative of this chain game boom. At present, it has cooperated with senior enterprises in the game industry such as Ubisoft, Sega, and Bandai Namco, and there are nearly 60 games in the 10 verse ecosystems. Oasys provides a comprehensive set of tools and services for developers entering the blockchain game field to help create and deploy games. Its architecture design adopts a highly scalable combination of Layer1 (called Hub Layer) and Layer2 (called Verse Layer), with high network stability, scalability, and data availability.

Although the underlying technology of blockchain has been continuously improved in the past two years, there are still many technical shortcomings that need to be addressed in the practice of Oasys, a chain game public chain. To this end, Oasys has updated its technical roadmap to solve these technical challenges.

The continuity of game assets

"Items, characters, equipment, scores, and achievements" are the assets that players obtain in the game as a return on their time and financial investment. In traditional Web2 games, if the game is shut down, these game assets will be lost and can only remain in the players' memories. The ownership of game assets is one of the core issues solved by blockchain games, and blockchain technology is the technical foundation for realizing digital sovereignty.

And with the increasing popularity of modular technical architectures, although adopting a "modular" design, dispersing different tasks or functions into different layers or parts of the Blockchain can improve the efficiency and scalability of the entire system. But this shift, along with the abandonment of data on Layer 2, introduces a new problem: the lack of continuity of user assets.

Therefore, Oasys adopts a new approach - by mirroring the 'game assets' on Layer2 to Layer1, it can provide permanent and continuous protection for user assets. Even if Layer2 data is discarded, user assets are still safe.

Interoperability of Layer 2

Oasys's Layer2 is called Verse Layer, derived from the term Metaverse, implying that every second-layer network is an independent 'mini universe' that can achieve full customization of the game. In each Verse layer and game or dApp, the development team can introduce separate tokens to achieve specific functions, creating a more flexible and scalable gaming environment.

Generally speaking, when transferring data and assets between Blockchains Layer2, there may be difficulties because of limited interoperability. Oasys is trying to enable interoperability between various "mini-universes", and currently 10 running Verse Layers will be the first to benefit.

The specific plan is for Oasys to introduce cross-chain bridges, adopt a universal data format, and standardize APIs to achieve seamless interoperability between different Layer2 solutions. Users can easily and securely transfer data and assets between games on Oasys while retaining full control over them.

Scalability of the ecosystem

As important and difficult as technology, building and sustaining the ecosystem is equally crucial. Previously, some public chains launched game subnets, only to see them deserted as the gaming hype faded. Therefore, building a unique ecosystem for each chain is a huge challenge. In the Oasys ecosystem, Layer2 is deployed and operated by companies and game developers, linking the efforts of ecosystem construction with business continuity.

Oasys' close collaboration with ecosystem partners and existing Layer2 operators is about providing them with the tools and resources they need to support ecosystem development and reduce technical barriers. Oasys' first layer, Hub Layer, is a hub layer that provides game developers with all the tools, SDKs, digital assets, interoperability, and ecosystem environment they need to create excellent blockchain games. The Hub Layer is flexible enough to run with thousands of connected Verse Layers, without the risk of network failure due to node failure.

The Oasys Verse Development Kit (Oasys VDK) allows enterprises to access high-quality Layer2 using pre-set ecosystem components for rapid development and deployment. This enables game developers to launch projects more quickly and focus on content development, achieving ecosystem scalability.

Roadmap focuses on technology updates and community support within 1-3 years

The industry often jokes that "one day in the crypto world is like a year on earth," vividly illustrating the rapid development pace of Web3. As the underlying infrastructure, Oasys also needs to ensure that its technological and ecological development resonates with the encryption industry, keeping up with the trends and demands of the Web3 market.

In the latest technical roadmap, Oasys has formulated short-term (within 1 year) and medium-term (2-3 years) plans based on the dilemmas and solutions mentioned earlier. In the short term, the focus will be on standardizing game asset specifications and developing practical use cases. The medium-term goal is to address protocol layer issues to stabilize the ecosystem and promote the development and deployment of projects on Oasys.

Short-term (within 1 year)

• Game asset standardization: Oasys will continue to collaborate with ecosystem partners to achieve game asset standardization. This will ensure consistency between different games and platforms, simplifying asset management.

• Create use cases: Create use cases that apply standardized game asset specifications in real-time games, and provide examples of successful use cases to support developers and companies interested in building on Oasys.

•Provide Oasys Verse Development Kit (Oasys VDK): By providing a set of validated ecosystem components, enterprises can quickly access high-quality Layer2 with preset ecosystem parts, reducing the time and resources spent on ecosystem construction and achieving ecosystem scalability.

Mid-term (2-3 years)

• Addressing the issues at the protocol layer: The short-term roadmap is the cornerstone of the mid-term effort, with the mid-term focus on addressing the issues at the protocol layer. Specifically, this means implementing a unique solution to mirror Layer2 'gaming assets' onto Layer1.

• Achieve interoperability: standardize the development protocol to ensure interoperability between different Layer2, allowing users to seamlessly move assets and data between various games on Oasys. Users can freely shuttle among multiple games in the Oasys ecosystem, enjoying comprehensive digital sovereignty.

• Provide developer tools: Oasys will provide developer tools that meet our vision and Layer2 requirements, enabling developers to independently develop and further promote the scalability of the ecosystem.

In terms of short-term planning, Oasys has made a lot of progress in the development of practical use cases. In May alone, multiple use cases were launched. Oasys launched the L2 chain XPLA Verse, and the well-known game from Com2uS, the largest mobile game group in Korea, will be synchronized to the chain. This includes the action role-playing game 'Summoners War: Chronicles' based on the popular game 'Summoners War' with over 220 million downloads, as well as the adaptation of the popular zombie comic 'The Walking Dead: All Out War' with a monthly activity of 250,000.

In addition, the blockchain game 'Captain Tsubasa -RIVALS-', based on the Japanese football manga series 'Captain Tsubasa', has officially launched on Oasys recently. 'Captain Tsubasa -RIVALS-' is jointly developed by Mint Town and BLOCKSMITH&Co., a subsidiary of the mobile gaming giant KLab, providing an immersive experience where players can cultivate and collect NFT characters from the original series.

At the ecosystem level, Oasys has also landed several large-scale collaborations this year. Recently, it officially announced a partnership with Japan's SBI Group to expand its influence in the Japanese cryptocurrency gaming and NFT market. This collaboration allows Oasys to leverage SBI's NFT marketplace to promote its blockchain gaming products and enhance user experience. In February of this year, Oasys collaborated with Metabora SG, the Web3 gaming division of Korean internet giant Kakao, to support the game publisher's expansion into the Japanese market.

Oasys's series of initiatives not only demonstrate its technological innovation and strategic vision in the field of blockchain games, but also highlight its determination to cooperate with industry giants to promote the development of blockchain games. As the technology roadmap is gradually implemented, Oasys is gradually realizing its vision of building global blockchain game standards, creating true value for players and developers, and bringing new experiences and opportunities to the gaming industry.