Thursday, April 25, 2024
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2022-01-22
By Az
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Rawrshak – Changing Gaming Assets As We Know Them

There is no denying that 2021 was the year that blockchain and gaming came together and really made their way in to mainstream culture and showed the world what this dynamic duo could achieve together.

We saw the explosion of Play to Earn (P2E) games with the massive success of Axie Infinity. We saw Decentraland and The SandBox onboard many players in to their digital worlds. And metaverse became a mainstream word after Facebook announced they are rebranding and changing their company name from Facebook to Meta, in order to focus on creating a (centralised) metaverse for people to experience.

Gaming on the blockchain isn’t going anywhere any time soon. But players that spend their most valuable asset, time, in all these games want to know that everything they earn in game, from tokens to digital assets, can’t just disappear if the game’s development and support stop and its servers go offline.

Rawrshak is looking to address this and make sure you never lose your in game content.

Rawrshak

“Rawrshak is a gaming-focused NFT platform that empowers creators to deploy cross-game interoperable assets. The platform provides a decentralised end-to-end solution for traditional game developers who want to easily plug into a Metaverse.” Christian Sumido, Rawrshak founder

Christian Sumido, founder and Core Developer of Rawrshak, envisions a future where all games are decentralised. Christian has worked for large companies such as Microsoft and Electronic Arts in the past and is now focusing his attention on Rawrshak.

The problem today is that assets only have utility within their original game. When you earn a certain in-game item within a certain video game, that item can only be used in that game. At best, the developers will try to make sure that any sequels to that game offer the ability to move your save game and consequently your stuff across. 

The harsh reality for gamers though is that the Legendary Armour that they spent hours looting digital dungeons to obtain in, for example, World Of Warcraft will not be usable in, for example, Zelda. 

To make things worse, the items that had been collected wouldn’t even be usable in the original game if it were to disappear from existence, like for example be taken down from all digital gaming marketplaces and have its servers shut down.

Most current major gaming engines don’t support web3 technology. It’s just not something that has been around for long enough yet. Most games today are built with no cross-company, cross-game interoperability in mind. 

Each game lives within its own little bubble.

Now as we mentioned, the metaverse has almost become a household word today. If you want to find out more about what a metaverse is and how one could come to be, read this article on the topic.

Don’t assume any and all metaverses would automatically be decentralised. This is not the case. We could simply see a large tech company come in and try to create their own metaverse within their own bubble. 

In reality this metaverse would then just be a centralised virtual reality game with barriers for entry. Developers might not have access to the tools they needed to create and build within that metaverse easily and for free, and gamers would still have the issue of cross game asset transfer being harder than necessary. 

Rawrshak understands all these issues and seeks to address them before it’s too late.

The Rawrshak Approach

Rawrshak looks to bridge all gaming worlds. They envision gamers owning assets that they can carry across from one game to another. Rawrshak calls these assets, Meta Assets. All these interoperable Meta Assets will be stored on Arweave. 

And they are deploying all these assets to Arweave via ArDrive.

Rawrshak also believes in bringing developers together and allowing those developers to collaborate. This is why all their SDKs – a set of tools for third-party developers to use in producing applications using a particular framework or platform – and tools are Open Source and available for use to anyone and everyone who wants to take advantage of them.

Rawrshak sees that the Play To Earn model in gaming is one that has succeeded, and one that will continue to be around in the future. However Christian believes that Play To Earn should not be the only gaming economy that developers create. 

Maybe the term “Play And Earn” is more appealing to some than “Play To Earn”. 

In Play To Earn the goal is quite simply to play more in order to earn more digital assets. It focuses on this core system, maybe sometimes even straying away from and sacrificing a potentially broader gaming experience. 

A Play And Earn ethos on the other hand would focus purely on the game and story itself, and along the way offer opportunities for the player to earn unique digital assets in the form of NFTs.

Under The Hood

Let’s look a bit further under the hood of the Rawrshak platform. Rawrshak’s Game Engine Libraries and tools are built on ChainSafe’s Gaming SDK. ChainSafe enables in-game NFTs, allowing users to mint and equip those NFTs in-game.

The Rawrshak platform Smart Contracts will be utilising Ethereum, Optimism, Arweave and The Graph for deployment.

Rawrshak also seeks to create a Marketplace for in game assets that is not unfamiliar to players of the current MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) of today, like World Of Warcraft.

It will also include Player and Creator Apps, which Christian talks more about in our interview further down.

Open Alpha Testnet

Rawrshak have just launched their Open Alpha Testnet on the Optimism Kovan Testnet. 

By going to rawrshak.io you can test out creating Meta Assets and deploying them to the Testnet, or you can just mint (buy) and sell them.

Rawrshak is offering incentives to the first participants of their Open Alpha:

1. They have set aside 500k RAWR tokens to be distributed to the Alpha participants.

RAWR Tokens Eligibility:

  • 250,000 RAWR tokens distributed to Gamer Participants 
  • 125,000 RAWR tokens distributed to Game Developer Participants 
  • 75,000 RAWR tokens distributed for the Rawrshak Community for events. These events will be announced here so please stay tuned! 
  • 50,000 RAWR tokens for bug reports, feedback, feature requests, etc.

2. They are also offering Official Rawrshak and partner Meta Assets.

The specific Meta Asset rewards have not yet been announced, but Rawrshak stated in their Discord server that they would enlist top artists and 3D modellers to create these assets, and participants would not be disappointed. 

They want to support people currently in the community and the ecosystem, so if you are an artist or 3D modeller, give them a shout.

3. 100GB of Arweave Tokens

Lastly they will be offering 100GB worth of Arweave tokens to developers that want to try out the platform and upload their Meta Assets without having to worry about the AR fees.

They will be offering 1GB each to the first 100 developers that want to participate. So if you are a developer, or just want to try out the platform, go to rawrshak.io or join their Discord server.

Roadmap

The road ahead for Rawrshak is long and will most likely be full of challenges, as is the case with every ambitious project’s roadmap. Here are some of the key points in their current roadmap:

  • Entering 2022, Rawrshak looks to receive VC funding and expand their development team, as well as launch the RAWR token.
  • Later down the line in Q2 of 2022, they are looking at deploying to the Arbitrum and Polygon trstnets and launching their DAO.
  • In Q3 they will launching on Ethereum Optimistic Main net.
  • Lastly in Q4 they seek to launch on the Arbitrum and Polygon Main nets.

Interview With Christian

We were lucky to get the chance to speak with Christian. Here is the interview.

How did you initially get the idea for Rawrshak? 

I’ve always enjoyed playing MMOs. During the lockdowns in 2020, I spent a lot of my time playing Guild Wars 2 again, or as we fondly call it, Fashion Wars 2. I essentially spent a lot of time collecting materials for legendary weapons and armor. But as the restrictions started loosening, I was spending less and less time playing. I thought it would be a waste for my collection to just be worthless when I inevitably stop playing the game again. I thought it would be cool if I could bring those things with me, even if just a trophy. So I started tinkering with assets and how I can make them useable across games. And that’s how I got to the idea for Rawrshak. 

Can you tell me a little more about the Arweave (100GB allocation) came to be? 

I participated in Arweave’s Open Web Foundry twice and got to spend a bit of time with Jesse from Arweave. He helped me fund the 100 GB allocation in order to help entice game developers to try out the platform. 

Can you tell me a little more about the player and content creator apps and how they will function? 

The Player web app will eventually be a one stop shop for gamers where they can manage their inventory and access the marketplace. In the future, the player dapp will be where they interact with any Rawrshak ecosystem on-chain mechanics like Asset Crafting, Salvaging, Lootboxing, Unique Asset Creation, etc. The Content creator / developer side of the app is where content creators can manage their smart contracts, their deployed blockchain assets, their marketplace royalties, and their store. Eventually, content creators will be able to view all the information related to their deployments. They can also easily mint, burn, and sell assets from here if they wish. In the future, they’ll also be managing crafting, salvaging, lootboxing, and other on-chain mechanics for their blockchain assets. 

What are your hopes for the future of Rawrshak? 

I hope that Rawrshak contributes to the idea of a decentralised metaverse. I hope that Rawrshak’s ideas and concepts gives rise to a new type of gaming ecosystem, one which is centred on a shared global gaming community. I hope that Rawrshak helps bring traditional game developers into blockchain gaming and we eventually see AAA titles integrating with Rawrshak’s ecosystem. 

What’s your favourite legacy game, and what’s your favourite web3 game? 

For me, I still really enjoy playing traditional MMOs. It’s been 9 years and I still play Guild Wars 2. My absolute favourite shooters are Titanfall and Titanfall 2. I also loved Team Fortress 2 (which inspired my love for in-game hats!) As for Web-3 games, I’ve only really tried Decentraland and The Sandbox. They’re really far along! I’m super excited for the future of this space. I hope eventually these platforms integrate with Rawrshak’s ecosystem!

The Future Of Rawrshak

There are some very interesting things happening at Rawrshak. We look forward to seeing how Rawrshak can help revolutionise the Gaming, metaverse and NFT worlds bringing them all together in unison to help form a truly decentralised gaming experience.

Ready Player One. Ready Player Two. Ready All The Players!

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Az

Author and blockchain enthusiast.

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