Azra Games Raises $15 Million for Play-and-Earn RPG With NFTs

In a seed-funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, blockchain gaming startup Azra Game titles has lifted $15 million to acquire its flagship perform-and-gain RPG title, “Project Arcanas.”

NFX, Coinbase Ventures, Participate in Ventures, and Franklin Templeton also participated in the spherical. 

“Project Arcanas” will be an RPG with loads of NFTs, which are one of a kind blockchain tokens that signify possession. In the situation of Arcanas, its NFTs will serve as deeds of ownership to unique people or in-recreation merchandise. 

Arcanas’ Genesis Collection will be the game’s very first NFTs. These will be figures that can be staked—or locked up for a time period of time to gain interest—and will play essential elements in the game’s lore. Azra calls these non-fungible tokens “PFPs” (limited for “Engage in Permanently Passes”).

NFTs have been controversial in the gaming space—with a several NFT gaming projects getting canceled thanks to backlash from players, who cite environmental issues and a standard resentment towards just about anything crypto-relevant. But studios like Ubisoft and Sq. Enix are nevertheless pushing forward with NFT-primarily based online games, with the perception that NFTs will let gamers to be equipped to genuinely individual and trade their in-video game belongings. 

Although Azra’s workforce appears completely ready to just take on the blockchain gaming entire world, there’s just just one catch—the business nevertheless doesn’t know which chain it will be working on.

“We have not settled on a blockchain but,” the corporation wrote on social media now next news of the funding announcement, outlining that it did not want to rush into earning the final decision.

Though it’s unclear which blockchain “Project Arcanas” will land on, an Azra Game titles career putting up provides a couple of probable hints. The business says it is hunting for a Web3 engineer with expertise applying Solidity (Ethereum’s programming language), Rust (Solana’s programming language), “or a further contemporary clever agreement framework.”

Even though the Azra crew could be new to Internet3, it is really entire of video clip match marketplace veterans and Electronic Arts alumni. Its CEO Mark Otero arrives from the powerhouse gaming organization, the place he was the general manager of EA subsidiary Cash Online games. Otero oversaw additional than half a dozen distinct mobile and no cost-to-engage in titles these kinds of as “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes,” which, in accordance to Azra’s site, created EA around $1 billion in earnings. 

Azra’s recreation director, Michael Noriega, also will come from EA, the place he spent practically a 10 years as a software package developer and technological artist. That’s not all—senior 3D artist Hoover Abejero worked there as a senior character artist on a “Mass Effect” cellular game, even though imaginative writer Cathleen Rootsaert beforehand worked on EA’s “Battlefield 2042” as its supervising author.