Azra Games: a16z led the investment in an RPG game made by former EA members ｜ Project Introduction

Original author: Crescent, Rhythm BlockBeats< /blockquote>

Editor in charge: 0x29

Azra Games is a blockchain game company , looking forward to providing high-quality, unique collectible and fighting games on the blockchain. Rather than mini-games, Azra Games prefers to create large-scale games in order to provide participants with a complete economic value system for years to come.

Its first game is called Project Arcanas, a fantasy collectible and fighting arena RPG , players can not only get NFT collectibles from it, but also build legions to fight in order to get rewards. With Project Arcanas, Otero hopes to take the game beyond the standard 5-on-5 competitive format of player-to-player games.

The characters in the game Project Arcanas will be launched as the first batch of Genesis Collection NFT, called Genesis Explorers, these PFP (Play Forever Passes) has gamification features, owning it is essentially owning a game pass. The official stated that Azra Games plans to launch more games in the future, and the Genesis Collection will always be valid as a pass, which will be associated with all games it will produce in the future, and will provide users with exclusive access rights that NFT will not have in the future, with these PFPs is the only way to get exclusive rewards.

Genesis Explorers role and whitelist

In the ecosystem created by its games, like most NFTs, players can not only collect NFTs, but also use NFTs as profile pictures, or create their own content to share and trade among other players.

The project is still building a pledge system and expects to provide long-term value for Genesis NFT holders. The staking system for the Genesis Collection will be released this year in two parts, each offering different rewards. For example, Genesis Explorers can be staked in Project Arcanas to receive exclusive rewards for crafting and selling to other players.

The whitelist is currently open, and Mint is expected to be launched in late summer. The price of Mint is to be determined, and the supply is tentatively set at 5,000. Both staking and gamification of Genesis Explorers will be launched shortly after the first Mint.

These NFTs will be sold in 4 rounds, the first round is only open to early supporters and those who have qualified for the OG round. The second round is open to users who have obtained the whitelist by participating in the event. Users can participate in and win the game to obtain the whitelist. The third round, where users qualify through the DAO, is open to partner DAOs. In the fourth round, Mint qualifications are open to the public without a whitelist, accounting for about 30-35%.

Project Background

Azra Games announced on May 19 that it has closed a $15 million seed round led by a16z, with participation from NFX, Coinbase Ventures, Play Ventures, and Franklin Templeton.

Azra Games is headquartered in Sacramento, CA and is led by Mark Otero as CEO. Other founders include entrepreneur Sonny Mayugba as COO and Travis Boudreaux as CTO.

Mark Otero is the former general manager of EA Capital Games, Electronic Arts, referred to as EA, is a world-renowned American game company, " Red Alert, The Sims, FIFA, and Plants vs. Zombies are all games produced by the company. Mark Otero was previously at EA Capital Games, a subsidiary of EA, where he led the development of Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, one of EA's top mobile games with gross revenues of More than $1 billion.

Mark Otero has also served as General Manager of Bioware and CEO and Co-Founder of gaming startup KlickNation (Note: Currently acquired by EA). Throughout his career, he has a strong passion for games, has released eight collectible and combat role-playing games, and has extensive experience in developing, building and managing such games.

Some team members

The core members of the Azra Games team are mostly from EA. Michael Noriega was the Technical Art Director on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and is currently the Game Director at Azra Games. Neel Upadhye is VP of Creative Development at Azra, having spent 14 years as Creative Director at Electronic Arts.

Cathleen Rootsaert, Creative Writer, 14 years, Josh Rother, Senior Marketing Artist, 16 years Hoover Abejero, a senior 3D artist, has worked at EA.

Roadmap

As shown in its roadmap, Azra Games was born in January this year and established a community at the end of February. The white paper has not yet been released, and Which blockchain to build on has not yet been finalized. The project intends to create NFT with Mint in the second phase, issue Token in the third phase, release the test network in the fourth phase, and release the final content globally in the fifth phase.

In the Web2 world, users like games mainly because of the attraction of the core gameplay of the game, and interesting game mechanics can attract users Interest and resonance, players are more interested in the "Play" attribute in the game. The P2E proposed in Web3 games has undoubtedly promoted the further development of the game, but the chain games currently tried by Web3 players pay more attention to the "Earn" attribute in P2E. In essence, the P2E that people look forward to is to have both. Play games that really appeal to you and earn a certain amount of income at the same time, but there are very few such games in the current chain game environment.

Azra Games Team Members All have rich experience. Most of the core team are from EA, and they are more familiar with each other. On the one hand, they have good cooperation experience, and on the other hand, they have also proved their ability in game product development and brand building. It is hoped that the chain game built by this team that has been focusing on game products in the past can give us a new experience, so that "Play" and "Earn" can develop at the same time.

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